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: BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog

Volunteers of America

The Internet has done it again! According to this article in today's edition of USA Today, "Youth volunteerism is surging as high school and college students use the Internet to mobilize quickly and nationally." BoardBuzz loves to see young people getting involved for the greater good. And they're doing it through social networking sites like MySpace. (And you thought social networking was just a way for students to keep in touch. Not so says NSBA's Creating and Connecting report.)

More than 22,000 non-profit groups have signed up to rally supporters on the teen-and-young-adult site MySpace since it began in 2004, says Jeff Berman, the site's executive vice president for marketing. He says more young people are engaged in activism online and their creativity in using the Internet to do good works is "off the charts." Groups also have sprung up on Facebook, another social- networking site used by millions of students, to urge youth to fight global warming, help Hurricane Katrina victims, seek world peace or protest events such as charges brought against six black teens for beating a white classmate in Jena, La. "Activism is at a very high level among college students, probably more than in the last 10 to 20 years," says Robert Rhoads, who teaches a class on the history of student activism at the University of California, Los Angeles. "There's a greater political consciousness among students," he says. "The Internet has played a role in that."

BoardBuzz is impressed! How are the students in your district using the Internet to get involved? Are they "creating and connecting" through social networking? Leave us a comment and tell us about it.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on March 13, 2008 (boomark / email).