The Boston Project
Online, high school kids today are more connected than any other generation. They share comments, likes and dislikes, and these actions feed off of each other: more friends, more shares, more engagement. Social networking has become a robust, sustaining, and growing ecosystem for youth activity. What if we could harness that online activity to enrich local high school education? Imagine if students could get suggested readings based on current course work or a recent check-in at a museum exhibit. Imagine if students could engage in contests for number of books read or classes attended. Imagine if students could share their experiences, likes and dislikes, and comments about their education just like they do for everything else in their lives. And then imagine what an innovative and responsive educational community could do with all of that information.
The city of Boston has partnered with Code for America to build a platform to make that happen, to build educational services data infrastructure and API. This platform will be the basis for the development of apps that engage high school students in educational and cultural activities in class, after school, and during summer.
