A Tale of Connected Cities: Join this group blogging event on May 12
"How could cities better connect all their residents to economic opportunities?"
This question is being asked around the US as urban leaders work to restore our cities as engines of educational and economic opportunity by exploring new and bold approaches in business, government, non-profits, philanthropy, the arts, and more.
Today, Meeting of the Minds and Living Cities invite civic-minded leaders across sectors to respond to this question by participating in a group blogging event on May 12, 2014.
Participants are free to respond to this prompt any way they choose, but if you're stuck on where to start, the organizers have provided a set of questions to help surface ideas:
What might it look like for a city to connect all its residents to economic opportunity?
What more could different players across sectors do – individually and together – towards this end?
How could emerging, 21st-century trends like the rise of Big Data, social media, mass-customization and the sharing economy “change the game?”
How are cities and urban innovators already working to connect people to opportunity? (Hint: Cities of Learning! Scroll down for more information.)
Responses that include a link to http://cityminded.org/urban-opportunity/ will be collected and listed at CityMinded.org on the event day - use the hashtag #urbanopportunity to make sure your responses are seen!
An accompanying webinar on May 14, 2014 will feature event participants and be followed by an interactive online discussion - mark your calendars and join us on Wednesday for that webinar.
Cities of Learning: Connecting youth to open learning opportunities.
The Cities of Learning initiative is part of a larger educational movement called Connected Learning - you may have heard some of the buzz about this month's launch of the Connected Learning Alliance:
"The Connected Learning Alliance (CLA) envisions a world where all young people have equitable access to learning opportunities that are social, participatory, driven by personal needs and interests, and oriented toward educational, civic and economic opportunity."
Like the Cities of Learning, Connected Learning recognizes that learning doesn’t just take place inside classroom walls. In fact, the most valuable learning occurs when a student can connect in-school academics with out-of-school interests; can find inspiring peers and mentors to help them develop a hobby or skill; and can create, make and produce real things in the real world.
LA launches Summer of Learning on May 12th
The Los Angeles Summer of Learning (#LASOL2014) is part of a nationwide movement to leverage community and government resources to ensure learning doesn’t stop when school lets out.
The City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District are partnering with Beyond The Bell, The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and scores of Los Angeles’s top non-profits to connect the city's students aged three to nineteen to meaningful learning opportunities in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (S.T.E.A.M.).
LASOL 2014 is built upon last year's pilot program in Chicago, which launched the Cities of Learning initiative in 2013 with a successful summer program that has now been extended year round.
Los Angeles joins Columbus, Dallas, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. in launching citywide learning programs in 2014, and even more cities are lining up for 2015.
Each City of Learning will be issuing digital badges which will be networked across participating institutions. Learners can hopscotch from one organization to another, “leveling up” to follow their interests. In this way, badges can help young people map out self-directed learning pathways to broaden and deepen their interests and skills. These badges are built using an open-standard technology platform powered by the Digital Youth Network, Mozilla and the Badge Alliance. This technology allows the Cities of Learning to securely issue badges and safely display them online.
No matter their interests or talents — their background or resources — young people in Los Angeles will now have access to exciting opportunities to discover and deepen practical, creative and intellectual skills.
Connecting residents to educational and economic opportunities
The Cities of Learning initiative is just one example of how cities can work with innovative leaders to help youth connect to out-of-school learning spaces such as museums, libraries, park services, and maker spaces; exploring new interests and passions; connecting out-of-school experiences to in-classroom learning; and gaining real-world job skills that will open doors to economic opportunities in the future.
Today's group blogging event from Meeting of the Minds and Living Cities is an opportunity for participants to engage a global audience of corporate, philanthropic, government, and nonprofit citizens in an important discussion regarding the future of cities.
We hope you will join us today - and don't forget to tweet using the hashtag #urbanopportunity!
