Launched in 2009 with generous support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Hive NYC Learning Network was stewarded by the Social Science Research Council until 2011 and by Mozilla Foundation from 2011 to 2017. In 2018, Hive NYC became member-led by the Hive NYC Council.
Hive NYC Learning Network
Hive NYC Learning Network (Hive NYC) is a city-wide learning laboratory for educators, technologists, and mentors to design innovative connected educational experiences for youth.
- For educators, including designers, makers, artists, and technologists, Hive NYC offers opportunities to learn through shared commitment and participation in building innovative and transformative educational experiences for youth via meetups, workshops, community events, and strategic partnerships.
- For middle and high school-aged youth, Hive NYC creates learning opportunities through hands-on making and exploration with peers and mentors that develop digital and web literacy skills for future success.
- For partners, technologists, and tool-builders, Hive NYC is a decentralized learning lab that provides opportunities to mentor young makers and inventors, playtest and provide feedback for new prototypes, and develop new approaches and tools with learning innovators.
Hive NYC’s membership includes over 60 non-profit organizations, such as museums, libraries, code clubs, advocacy groups, higher education institutions, and afterschool programs. Together, they create an ecosystem of equitable and accessible education opportunities for young people to explore their interests and develop skills that prepare them for success in the digital information age.
For more information and a history of Hive NYC’s development and growth, please explore our timeline.
Network Values
- Rethinking Professional Learning & Community Hive NYC is rooted in values of collective experimentation and learning among communities of educators in the out of school space. We ‘work in the open’, share generously, collaborate, build on each other’s work, support one another with care, and act as critical friends. Centrally, we value peer learning among dedicated educators.
- Supporting Equitable Youth Learning Pathways – Hive NYC has a vision of youth learning that goes beyond equitable and high quality learning experiences within a single setting, valuing the idea that learning opportunities across the city can be coordinated to better support youth to agenticly explore and pursue their futures across multiple institutions.
- Promoting Pedagogies of Youth Power, Care, and Creativity – Hive NYC works to advance pedagogies that integrate the deepest insights from youth development and leadership with those focused on creative uses of technology to promote youth voice, power, and agency. We have particular orientations to promote learning around and through creative media, digital literacy, technology design, and maker pedagogies.
- Advancing Digital Rights, Equity, and Justice – Hive NYC has always been oriented towards the potential of technology, and is increasingly attuned to critical perspectives on technology within the context of youth informal learning. Whether this means focusing on equitable access (connectivity, devices), the role of automated decision making in adversely shaping youth and society more broadly, issues like privacy, security, and technology bias, we are committed to exploring and addressing the social impacts of computing in our work.
- Elevating Youth Leadership, Voice, and Power – Hive NYC, being centrally built on the field of youth development, has always been oriented towards values around youth leadership, voice, and power. This looks like bringing youth into conversations and contexts where they can share their perspectives, inform educators, organizational leaders, and policymakers, and advocate for things that would advance their lives, interests, and communities.
Who we are
The Hive NYC Council oversees and guides the work of the network, including connecting members, facilitating partnerships, investigating opportunities, and hosting events. We are dedicated to pushing the boundaries of learning and connecting innovators and changemakers in education, technology, digital media, design and youth development. Follow us on Twitter: @HiveLearningNYC