TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
http://trainers.salto-youth.net/MicheleDiPaola/
it's all about putting people together!
You can find me hangin' out at the crossing of liberal arts and digital technologies.
That's my spot, where I enjoy working, learning and having fun using all kinds of human experiences, games, stories and rituals from past and present times, while working in training, intercultural learning, nonformal activities - with a touch of technology: mastering computers, mobiles, apps, socialmedia and web. Someone calls it digital youth work, do you?
Michele Di Paola has 5 references for past work as a trainer.
trainer - media educator - innovation developer - youth worker with SpazioGiovani and as freelance.
I am active as a freelance trainer, passionate in games and gamification, digital tools in outdoors activities, nature and passage rituals, storytelling. I have a great competence in the field of digital creativity: I designed with my team the course DIG IT UP!, then adopted by TCA.
Since 4 years I run my own startup called CampusLaCamilla (www.campuslacamilla.it); it offers non formal education trainings on coding, creating video games, robots, digital and transmedia storytelling (with Minecraft) etc to kids and boys / girls.
I am the "champion" of my local coderdojo group in Monza - if you wonder what it is: www.coderdojo.com
I have been a youth worker for Spazio Giovani (www.spaziogiovani.it) since the late 90s, coming from a long experience of volunteering for different organisations. Within this organisation I am in charge of a Eurodesk local office (IT103) and I am working in several projects of youth/local communities empowerment., and I am in charge of the activities regarding Digital media education and Responsible use of technology with youngsters and in schools.
I am part of Spazio Giovani work-group on innovation, which has developed some interesting projects: in the frame of Youth in Action, apart from countless youth exchanges, I would like to point out at least our first very relevant project about digital youth work: Non Virtual Youth Citizenship In a Virtual World (2008/2009 - action 4.4 - http://www.spaziogiovani.it/download/pubblicazioni/report-web.pdf ), a project aimed to compare youth engagement in on-line and offline *quality* activities.
I also work for ReplayNetwork, with which I have been part of the intercultural training staff for centralized On-Arrival Trainings and Mid Term Evaluation meetings for EVS volunteers being hosted in Italy.
My formal education was in the fields of literature and arts: I graduated in Classical Studies highschool (arts, Latin, ancient Greek, Italian literature...) meanwhile I was teaching myself a lot on computers and technology in the roaring years of BBSs and the upcoming of the Internet, plus I almost got a degree in Literature at university, stopping 4 exams before... because I started working in non-formal education and youth work, and this involved me fully ;)
My first approach with nonformal education was a 10-years experience inside a local scout group, since the age of 10. This was the starting point for some European experiences *before* the birth of European Youth programmes, including inter-rail travelling, volunteering and doing cultural exchanges with some Eastern countries (former Cechoslovakia, former Yugoslavia, Poland etc) just after the fall of Berlin Wall and the Balkan wars.
This first experiences were the basis for a large part of my youth work, including the work in the Italian Eurodesk network, which offered me continuous updates with 2 national seminars every year, international seminars, etc.
I put a lot of effort in keeping up to date with all the possible educational uses of technology, doing a lot of research on the field, taking courses and seminars (including online ones) and studying the topic continuously.
I have learned something in every nonformal education experience in which I was involved, either as a participant or trainer, and I really look forward to learning more!
Italian (mothertongue)
This profile was last modified on 2018-11-28