This document provides an overview of online communities and resources for youth, including YouthVoices and Personal Learning Space which are sites for high school and middle school students respectively. It describes features of the communities like blogging, tagging, online storage, and discussion spaces. Links are included to sites for podcasts, live discussions, lesson plans, student work, and more.

1. Building Online Communities for Youth Paul Allison Lee Baber Susan Ettenheim Chris Sloan

2. A Visual Tour Here we will take you to some of the sites our youth use in their communities, Youthvoices and Personal Learning Space. YouthVoices is for high school students and Personal Learning Space is for middle school students. Elgg is our Blogging Application

3. Navigating the Elgg To follow along, join us in http: //youthvoices .net Once there you can get to your own blog space by clicking on Your Blog .

4. Posting a Blog Entry Post an entry, attach an audio, video, image, or any file from “Your Files”.

5. “ View all posts” to see everyone’s blogs. Once there, find Community posts and blog entries with comments.

6. Elgg can filter entries such as blogs with comments. You can also use the filter to see community blogs, interesting blogs, personal blogs, and blogs with no comments.

7. “ Tags” Help Find Others with Something in Common

8. Youth Creating Community Podcasts Creating and finding communities, groups, and friends sparks creativity and finding a voice.

9. “ Your Files” can provide youth with online storage for sharing or building ePortfolios

10. Youthbridges is a Worldbridges Drupal site where YouthVoices and PersonalLearningSpace share live webcasts, podcasts, shows, and come together for group discussions during especially trying times. http://youthbridges.net

11. Youthbridges Virginia Tech Shooting struck home in the community. From New Hampshire, Jeff Lebow moderates a live webcast with NewYork and Virginia youth during their weekly SpaceCast meeting. http: //youthbridges .net/node/46

12. Teachers share lesson plans with students and each other at the Elgg Plans wiki. http://elggplans.wikispaces.com

13. Students share work on the Youth Wiki http://youthwiki.wikispaces.com

14. And utilize applications like VoiceThread and Tagzania for commenting and mapping.

15. Victoria Talks About Her Youth Community and Why Technology Matters - http://edtechtalk.com/node/1870 Teachers Teaching Teachers meet weekly to discuss plans for our youth Communities, talk with guests, host special events, and invite discussions. Listen in…

16. Thanks to the K12Online Conference http://k12onlineconference.org Join us live on Oct. 24, 2007 - Wednesday, 9:00 pm EST at http://edtechtalk.com as we discuss youth communities, offer training, answer questions and welcome guests to our presentation.