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Jean Chen is trying to teach a class about HTML, but there’s a DJ next to her and the music is getting louder by the second. Chen ignores the intrusion until her students can no longer hear her voice. "Could you please turn it down,” she shouts and then, without missing a beat, turns back toward her class of five teenagers.  

Surrounded by wall murals, the teens sit at a square table snacking on peanut butter sandwiches and cups of soup. Chen, dressed in baggy jeans and a t-shirt like her students, explains to them what the different HTML codes mean.  

“What do you mean, ‘a table within a table’?” asks a student. Chen draws it on a piece of paper and the student gets it.  

This is a typical afternoon at the Youth Radio headquarters where Chen trains students in Web site development. Before the dot.com bust, she worked at snowball.com putting together a teen Web site. “Here I have direct interaction with teens,” she said. “At snowball, interaction felt almost manufactured.”  

The Web design program is based on the radio classes where students go through a 10-week training program and learn how to report, write and produce their own radio shows. The only difference is that during this 10-week period, the students in Chen’s class learn how to create web pages.  

On a recent Thursday, the students were in their third week of design class, and the Web pages were simple. One showed a picture of the group, the team logo and a few links to favorite Web sites.”They’ve just started, give them some time,” Chen said. 

Once they graduate from the Web design or radio program, Cari Campbell, the DJ, Web radio and digital audio instructor, teaches the students studio techniques and how to record music onto a computer to be put on the web.  

The Web radio shows were started to absorb many of the 800 or so graduates of Youth Radio who wanted two things: to stay at the station and more music.  

Web radio was the answer and has been a part of the organization since July of 2001. Web radio allows for more students’ voices to be heard. The Youth Radio programs air about 5 hours a week total on KZQZ ,KQED, KCBS AND KPFB. 

“With the Web we always have an outlet,” Chen said. “No matter what, you can get your stuff out there.”  

Before they are able to record, students write a proposal outlining the type of  

Web show they want to produce. 

“It makes them think ‘what is my show all about?’” Campbell said.  

The students’ shows range from world music to the all-Michael-Jackson mix.  

The projects for the last class can be viewed at http://www.youthradio.org/webradio/index.shtml. 

When the students have recorded the show on the computer, they edit it together with Campbell, and once it’s finished it is put on the Web. The 30-minute shows stay up on the Web site for as long as possible. “People’s shows stay up until a new thing takes its place,” Campbell said. 

Web radio is now having the students record their own talk shows, where topics range from cell phones to relationships. 

“It’s like a round table,” Campbell said. “They have a topic. They write their show and they talk about it.” 

Eventually, Youth Radio would like to begin live streaming of their shows on the Internet, where listeners can log in and hear live broadcasts of shows, which is currently not being done. Broadcasting live, however, is expensive. “Mainly it’s about getting someone to donate the live servers,” Campbell said. “You need a connection of servers throughout the United States.” 

For Beverly Mire, Youth Radio Deputy Director, the most important thing is that the kids are enjoying it. 

“The kids are totally into it,” Mire said. “It will be one of my dreams for Web radio to be on the air live.”