A Jesus College-funded digital project in Jamaica is working to engage young content creators in the potentials and pitfalls of interacting in virtual environments and gaming spaces.

Project Amplify is an innovative education programme that aims to empower young Jamaican students in the design and use of emerging digital environments, with a specific focus on the metaverse. The one-year project is a collaboration between Jamaican youth empowerment organisation Youth Can Do I.T. (YCDI) and Jesus College, and is being funded through the College’s Development Fund, which is generously supported by Jesus alumni. It launched in February 2023, and is led by researcher Dr Samantha-Kaye Johnston, Supernumerary Fellow in Education at Jesus, and YCDI colleagues Cherika Wilson and Christopher Derrell.

 

The background to Project Amplify begins with the YCDI, which was founded in 2016 by Lianne McNaughton to support Jamaican children to develop their IT skillset and equip them with the tools to succeed in our rapidly-growing digital world. Through its educational programmes and experiences, YCDI has worked with over 2,500 school students across the country, giving them the skills and knowledge to become the next generation of content creators and change agents.

Most young people now have access to a wide range of digital devices, and the basic skills required to navigate their way around the internet and metaverse. Virtual environments and game spaces such as Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite are used and enjoyed by millions of children worldwide, and the technologies on which such spaces are built are ever evolving.

 

However, while the metaverse offers continuous and exciting new opportunities for young people to engage in creative play, and to learn and develop, there are also potential risks; to their online safety, information security, data privacy rights, and overall wellbeing. This is where Samantha’s research comes in: she’s focused not only on enabling children to develop skills and knowledge in the digital space but also ensuring that their rights are protected while they interact within it. Samantha says, “My work includes looking at how people think, read and create in digital environments. I am particularly interested in elevating the voices of young people in decision-making processes, and making sure that they have the digital intelligence to safely navigate our digital world. In other words, ensuring that they’re equipped with the tools and awareness to engage in critical thinking, critical reading and critical creation in digital environments.”

 

The YCDI’s Project Amplify places young people at the heart of this research. Working with 20 school students in Jamaican primary and high schools, Samantha and her YCDI colleagues have sought to understand their concerns regarding the metaverse, and how these concerns might be addressed.

The first phase of the programme focused on expert training for YCDI and Jesus College facilitators, and the second phase introduced the students to the facilitators, who together explored how the metaverse works. In both phases, training was delivered by leading researchers, designers and entrepreneurs from across different sectors, including Google, Harvard University, the University of Cambridge and Mighty Coconut. Chris explains, “Nowadays, young people are familiar with all kinds of digital technologies and how to use them, like gaming for example. However, they’re not necessarily aware of, or understand, their rights and the risks associated with interacting in such digital spaces. So our first action was to bring that to their awareness; to change their mindset in terms of what happens to their personal data when they’re interacting online, and how to interact safely and securely.” The students then spent time developing their digital skills, using YCDI’s own metaverse platform.

Phase 3 took the form of an in-person summer camp where students participated in a range of activities from creating their own webpages and metaverse spaces, to critically thinking about responsible and ethical use of these spaces. Their spaces were demonstrated to excited parents and guardians on the final day of the camp, as was their understanding of what constitutes ethical design. Cherika notes, “One interesting aspect of camp was seeing how the expectations for fair play and group engagement in the physical space translated into the ethical guidelines in the digital space, and how the participants were able to make the connection between the two.”

 

 

The end product will be a set of ethical guidelines for young people in the digital environment, which will form part of a final evaluation report on the project later this year. Samantha says, “Once the evaluation process is completed, we hope to share the findings of the report with the Jamaican government, and that the report might inform policy on the metaverse and education in Jamaica. For example, it could be possible to embed the topic into the school curriculum, so that all young people develop a basic understanding of how virtual environments are created, how this can be done safely and ethically, and then apply the knowledge they have gained to explore their digital skills and digital rights.”

“Our vision is that Project Amplify becomes a continuous programme for school students that can be facilitated regularly.”

In the meantime, the team are busy planning a visit to Oxford in Hilary 2024 by some of the students who have taken part in Project Amplify. The plan is to enable broader conversations around emerging themes from the project, and the visit will include a special event in the Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub. Further plans are also being made for the students to engage in an invited visit to the Google Headquarters in London.

For more information on Project Amplify, visit the project website here.