It was useful for me to think with the Frauenberger et. al’s accountability and rigor framework in terms of beginnings, middles, and ends for my project. In developing my project, one of the challenges is that the users (stakeholders including educators, criminal justice officials, police officers) who will use the training materials to better interpret social media are not the same group of people who are most affected by the outcomes of the technology we want to develop. The users will adopt the training materials, but youth in disproportionally policed and surveilled communities of color are most affected by the outcomes of the training technologies. So it is important to us (my team, collaborators, and myself) that we learn and work alongside youth as we ideate, design, test, iterate, etc.. the social media interpretation training product. 

Beginnings:

I am thinking more deeply about how I will build relationships with youth, and come to understand their thoughts, ideas, and concerns about the social media surveillance issue. I am keeping in mind that although youth may have a variety of good ideas, it’s important for me to consider the constraints and affordance of the product technologies as I know them. It’s important that the tech developers on my team have an understanding early of which community – derived ideas we are thinking of prioritizing, so that I can also help facilitate brainstorming with youth in a more productive way. 

In the beginning I am also thinking about how we might evaluate that our training products did something well. This could be an assessment of their critical reflection or decision making on how to respond to a students’ post. At this point I can consult with the youth community partner about what they think a successful training might look like to them.  

Middles: 

Using the accountability and rigor framework, I realize that it would be good to also consult with the youth about the look and the feel of the training system. Important questions to bring to these conversations could include, do they feel good about the ways their stories are being portrayed and represented in the product? Do the scenarios users will train on feel authentic to lived experiences youth are having? Does the training product seem to culminate in a way that honors youth’s realities and suggests actions and alternatives that youth would actually like to see? I also realize that I need a way to capture and integrate the feedback/results that I gain from these conversations. Perhaps by working with youth to illustrate comics, where they will tell their own social media stories. ? 

Ends: 

This section helped me to think about the end goal of building these training materials in terms of, where would/could I see the developed product being used in the future and by whom?  It also helped me to think about ways to share and prepare tokens of appreciation to the youth community group we are working with, such as films of their participation that they can keep and share with their families.  Since policing and arrests are sensitive topic, its important that that kids feel that they are playing a valuable and important role in this project, and that it’s hopefully something they can  continue to look back on positively and constructively. As far as outcomes, I am also thinking more through how our system impacts specific skill development in users such as interpretation of youth’s social media from a more holistic and humanistic way, as well as building empathy skills around youth. 

Other things I am thinking through having read the Frauenberger et. al. piece.  ~

What values drive this process? Empathy, empowerment, democracy, justice. And a follow up question for myself and my team – what does equity and success look like for us here?

How do stakeholders and users get involved as well as benefit?Participants can gain on several levels: improved competency with technology, the awareness of novel education opportunities, building of relevant social networks. Impact can also be seen in altered structures (maybe more schools will adopt this model), altered practices and perspectives .