Free Speech in the Digital Age –the Hive NYC 1st Amendment Hack Jam

Guest post by ldecoursy

On Saturday, May 12th (tomorrow) from 1-5pm at the West Side YMCA there will be Hive's first 1st Amendment Hack Jam!  It’s a free event for tweens and teens to explore and exercise their constitutional rights.

We’ve partnered with The American Constitution Society to extend their Constitution in the Classroom program by taking it out of the classroom and examining at the First Amendment with a web-ified lens to help youth learn more about everything from fair use to expressive conduct in schools.

Every day we hear another story about a student whose statements or actions raise questions about where 1^st Amendment rights end and school rules begin.  Can they get in trouble at school for something they Tweet on their own time?  How and where are they expressing their opinions, online and off?

Youth will explore the answers to these questions while also learning how to hack websites, remix videos, express their opinions on controversial topics, and more.

Upon arriving, youth will receive a brief introduction to the available activities and can choose to sample them all or only participate in those that interest them most. They’ll leave having made something, and learned a lot.

• The LAMP will introduce youth to Fair Use as a 1st Amendment issue. They’ll teach the basics of advertising literacy and video editing via their LAMPlatoon “breaking ads” activity.
• Common Sense Media will explore when youth felt silenced when expressing an opinion at school, at home?  They’ll have materials to model/illustrate how they can express themselves in non-verbal ways. Think Glogster, Animoto, clay and crayons!
• World UP will ask youth to voice their opinions on controversial topics, then articulate their statements in 140c or less & tweet it out to the world! DJ SpazeCraft One will also create a “vocal remix” featuring youth voices, part of The Living Remix project.
• A cadre of youth media makers from People’s Production House will facilitate sprints where youth will work in groups to quickly create the punchiest, poppiest video productions possible!
• Using Mozilla’s Hackasaurus X-Ray Goggles, youth will experience the power to remix the web!  Rewrite a news article about a topic they’re passionate about, or just tinker with websites to make their opinions known.
• Global Action Project will be screening youth-produced films that directly addresses educational justice as a right. Youth will engage in a conversation about how to protect high quality public education as a constitutional right.
• New York Civil Liberties Union will showcase their “school to prison pipeline” interactive online game, and members of the Teen Activist Project will talk about ways students can and cannot engage in expressive conduct in NYC schools.
• The American Constitution Society will have lawyers on deck to answer questions like, “Can I be punished at school for speaking my mind?” and “Can my school punish me even if I speak online from my home computer?”

To top it off, there'll be pizza and prizes!

So come if you can, and if you can’t, follow along with the fun via Tumblr.