“Youth-led Tech | Summer 2015” is a technology mentoring program in five Chicago neighborhoods: Austin, Englewood, Humboldt Park, North Lawndale, and Roseland. As part of this program, we’re teaching various classes on digital skills. We’ve open sourced our curriculum through a series of blog posts. We cover an introductions to WordPress, Wordpress dashboards, themes, how to post, and how to add media to your WordPress site. We also have set time aside each day for students to work on their typing skills. These are minute-by-minute guides on teaching the youth. If you want to start your own Youth-Led Tech program, this is the place to start. At Smart Chicago, we are dedicated to sharing all of our methods. Not just code published to Github (though we do that, too), but whole swaths of templates, resources, and guides that help spread the practice of community technology.

1. Youth-Led Tech Curriculum
Day 25: Introduction to Graphic Design
Content Goals: Youth will be introduced to graphic design
Leadership Goals: Youth will continue to participate in teambuilding exercises
Materials: Students will need to download and have access to GIMP
10:00 AM Sign-in
Use the online attendance sheet to mark students as present
and note any issues.
10:05 AM Mood Check/Icebreaker Question
It’s important to start every session with an opening activity, such
as a Mood Check-in, where students state their mood on a scale
of 1-10. We often pair this with an icebreaker question that each
student answers.

2. 2
10:15 AM Introduction to Graphic Design
Activities and Processes
Description
This course involves an examination of the properties of GIMP
Shop and the applications that it holds when developing image
based graphics for a myriad of purposes. Emphases will be
placed on the beginner aspects of the program such as layers,
brushes, type layout and file formats. This section is intended to
advance the abilities of the students within the framework
previously set forth by Youth Lead Tech. However, it also
converges with my own personal line of inquiry in regards to
providing students with easy to access tools for their own
personal use at home.
Organization
This course will be composed of 4-6 contact hours in the
following breakdown:
 30min - 1 Hour of downloading the Software with an
explanation of Open Source
 2 Hours of software overview and understanding the tools
at hand
 1-3 Hours of creation (starting with a business card and if
given time moving onto a poster etc..)
After the class has moved passed the learning curve creation and
development of the knowledge gained will involve a group effort
of handling various questions for different students. These are
questions that may not be useful to the rest of the class (ex: How
do I flip my image vertically?).
12 NOON Lunch
1:00 PM Final Products
The final products of this course will include a series of works
from the software including but not limited to: a business card, a
poster for Youth Led Tech... Utilizing the software in various
methods in an attempt to realize it’s fullest potential is the end
goal.
Youth will spend the rest of the day experimenting with the
software.

3. 3
3:40 PM Thunder Props reflection
1. Everyone log on to your Twitter account
2. Today we are going to give props to our peers in the
#youthledtech program
3. We have created a prompt for you to fill in on your Twitter
account and on 3 we will all send our tweets at the same
time.
a. PROMPT: “My app will address_______ because
___________ #youthledtech”
b. Make sure they use the hashtag so that we can
view all of the tweets
4. READY??
5. After you read the prompt give students 1 minute to
complete and tell them to raise their hand once they have
typed their message. Tell them “DO NOT hit send until I
say so.”
6. Once everyone has constructed their tweet then count
down 3, 2, 1, SEND!!
7. Read a few tweets from the screen and then do a live
Thunder clap.
3:55 PM Sign out
Make sure each youth is accounted for.