The Civic Learning Online project addresses the question of how informal online environments can effectively engage the citizenship and learning styles of younger generations.

Digital media technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to help young citizens learn to engage with public life. Many young citizens are interested in learning how to advocate for their own causes and to develop more effective public voices. At the same time, they often have uneven experiences with developing effective organization and public voice skills. Learning how to develop public voices and sustainable networks can be enhanced through access to digital public networking, content production, distribution technologies and skills training.

We aim to develop and document promising civic learning opportunities that help young people express effective public voices and create sustainable advocacy networks. These best practices are offered to young people, youth workers and online community developers to use in their programs. This project combines several streams of related activities at CCCE: the MacArthur Digital Media and Leaning initiative, the Surdna Digital Advocacy Skills initiative, the Becoming Citizens intern program and the Puget Sound Off digital youth commons. The project site is located at www.engagedyouth.org.