Literacy education must start with the motivation to read and write, and motivation can only come when students value the content and want to consume it and share it with others. 

For youth everywhere, valuable content revolves around tales of themselves, the doings of their peers, and the collective favorites (TV shows, movies, songs, bands, etc). For poor, urban, at-risk youth who have fallen through the cracks of the educational system, media-savvy nevertheless makes them confident and conversant in soap-opera storytelling, "lights, camera, action" movie metaphors, and tinkering with digital media recorders of all types.

As a panelist on video and illiteracy, I'll show how the project Vamos Blogar motivates youth in the favelas of Rio to read and write by teaching them how to create multimedia blogs.

But, is motivation enough? Does video blogging about soccer really make you read and write better? Is video accessible to poor, urban, at-risk youth in a way that scales? How long can video-induced motivation last? Join us to discuss these questions and more.