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Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 11:43:00 -0700
From: "Arthur R. McGee"
National Youth Center Electronic Network Project Narrative
Introduction:
The National Youth Center Electronic Network Project is a demonstration designed to help the leaders, staffs, and clients of community youth centers serving low-income neighborhoods improve the lives and opportunities of children and community members through the power of information technology and worldwide electronic communications. The project will electronically link youth centers across the country enabling these agencies to improve the development and delivery of youth services and programs. In addition, use of electronic networks will introduce the concept of electronic communications into low-income neighborhoods in meaningful and useful ways, treating the youth center as an information superhighway point-of-entry.
Establishing internal electronic networks will improve service delivery of youth programs, education and training within local youth centers. Establishing national and international electronic links to other youth centers will allow youth in low-income neighborhoods to interact with others outside of their neighborhoods to improve their educational and social development. In addition, the project will establish repositories of information through which youth center staff and youth from low-income communities can share experiences and identify successful programs and services. This access can expand staff members perspective on the problems they and the members of their communities face daily.
Background:
The ultimate measure of the success of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) will be the degree to which it fosters improved communication among all the citizens of the United States, particularly disadvantaged youth, in meaningful ways to enhance educational, cultural, political, and economic opportunities.
The national focus on the information superhighway has neglected the community to which the electronic superhighways could deliver the most benefit -- low-income, disadvantaged youth. Current youth-oriented computer access models are struggling to address the fundamental issues of equitable access, training, integrated curricula, and networking. Youth from low-income communities are faced with even greater obstacles to computer access -- including low literacy levels, a poverty of general resources like libraries and social contacts, and very limited exposure to computers and networking technology. Without training for and access to national resources like the NII, these youth will become further alienated from society and less able to participate in the United States economy.
Youth centers are where our toughest problems -- violent crime, lack of education, unemployment -- will be met head-on by the grass-roots efforts of people with the greatest personal stake in their resolution. Community youth centers historically draw youth from the streets and neighborhoods into using their resources. They can build on this success to change the existing electronic communications model from "build it and they will come" to "show them and they will learn."
A Model for Collaborative Electronic Communications Projects:
The sites chosen to be pilots for this Project are New Haven, Connecticut, and East Palo Alto, California, two cities which share a myriad of problems and a wealth of opportunities. Despite resources that include Yale University and nationally recognized theaters and research hospitals, New Haven suffers from rampant unemployment, a high school dropout rate hovering near fifty percent, significant drug-related gang activity, and its status as one of the country's poorest cities. East Palo Alto shares similar problems. For example, 87 percent of its elementary school children qualify for free or reduced school meals and 80 percent of their families receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). In 1992, the city's homicide rate surpassed those at New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Like New Haven, East Palo Alto also has significant resources available because of its proximity to Stanford University and Silicon Valley and a wealth of local nonprofit organizations dedicated to serving its predominately poor population.
Each city's needs and potential have been acknowledged nationally. Both East Palo Alto and New Haven are eligible for Community Empowerment Zone status and are making applications for this designation and for support from the Americorps Division of the Corporation on National and Community Service. New Haven was a successful bidder for a HUD Urban Resource Development grant. East Palo Alto is part of a county-wide program receiving support from the same HUD program.
The project will establish several models for the application of community- based electronic networks and services. Leadership, Education, and Athletics in Partnership (LEAP), a proven youth services delivery agency operating multiple youth centers in the New Haven, Connecticut area, will serve as the lead project agency. It will provide a model of the impact of electronic communications on service delivery, education, and training in a community service delivery agency with little previous exposure to electronic networks and applications. Plugged In, a proven youth and family computer learning organization providing services at multiple youth centers in the East Palo Alto, California area, will serve as a facilitator of computer learning for the youth. The ability of Plugged In to provide its youth with computer and electronic communications training via a national youth center network will serve as a model for youth center outreach in an electronic context.
The Morino Institute and its Community Technology Assistance Center will facilitate the establishment and operation of the national youth center electronic network and maintenance of a national youth center information repository. This effort will serve as a model for electronic network providers to become active in providing services to disadvantaged and low- income communities. The KRH Group will serve as Project Facilitator.
Objectives:
Electronic communications must be readily accessible to low-income communities and should make use of existing electronic communications networks. Therefore, the project seeks to:
1. Improve how community institutions and their staffs communicate, both internally and externally, by providing a meaningful and usable vehicle for exchange of techniques, successes and experiences;
2. Develop technology leadership and expertise within and through the youth centers;
3. Engage the youth these centers serve in the use of electronic communications to help them reach out, to learn and develop, at the same time that they provide the ongoing support critical to the effort;
4. Encourage communications software vendors to develop products to meet the needs of these communities;
5. Provide a compelling model of success that will attract major sponsors and innovators.
Process:
The project will address these objectives by networking selected community youth centers across the country and by developing local expertise to facilitate the use of electronic communication technology. This pilot effort will take the following steps:
1. Train youth center staff in the use of electronic communications and emerging computer technologies.
2. Develop and implement curricula focused on electronic communications and emerging computer technologies for use in youth centers serving low-income communities.
These curricula will address:
a. electronic literacy, including technical skills;
b. educational skills, including reading, writing, mathematics, and research;
c. social skills, including group dynamics, self-esteem development, and expansion of the children's known world.
3. Build a repository of information about youth center programs, curriculum models, drug abuse programs, counseling, intervention programs and training courses, to be accessed and supported by youth center staff, clients, and the community at large.
4. Establish a national network linking youth centers across the country to facilitate both access to the repository and communication among youth center staffs and clients.
5. Build community electronic leadership skills through the training and employment of high-school-aged low-income youth in youth centers.
6. Sponsor an annual youth center networking conference at which youth center staffs and clients will share programs, ideas, and experiences regarding the application of networking technology in community youth centers.
The project will build on existing youth center programs across the country and on existing electronic networks. It is designed to increase educational, social and technical skills among low-income youth and to make fundamental changes in the way that youth center staff, youth and families, and youth center sponsors communicate among themselves and with youth centers throughout the country. This project will increase electronic literacy and research skills among populations most at risk of being left out of the information society, will facilitate the delivery of services to these populations, and will foster and support the sharing of information about youth programs across multiple geographic and social communities.
Service Delivery Model:
LEAP operates educational and social development programming for 7 to 14 year-old children in seven sites in Connecticut -- five in New Haven and one each in Hartford and New London -- all serving low-income communities. LEAP's educational model targets child literacy, and the organization is nationally recognized for its development of educational curricula focused on low-income black and Latino youth. Through donations of building space from Yale University and computer hardware from foundations, corporations, and individuals, LEAP opened a computer learning center on July 1, 1994. This center utilizes computer technology to develop academic skills and computer proficiency for children. Electronic communication technology is central to the development of both of these objectives.
The LEAP Computer Learning Center will serve as the model of a community youth center utilizing electronic communications technology. It will provide the following services in this project:
1. Test networking models developed by the other partners;
2. Develop curricula for use of the network with 7 through 14-year old children, focusing specifically on
(i) electronic communications to foster reading skills,
(ii) electronic communications to foster social skills;
3. Train and employ local public high school students from low-income neighborhoods to develop teaching and mentoring relationships with younger children relating to electronic communications technology;
4. Provide its expertise in building community leadership skills generally.
Facilitation Model:
Plugged In designs and operates computer literacy projects for local community-based youth service providers in East Palo Alto. Serving over 300 children in its own facility and in neighborhood-based community youth centers, Plugged In staff runs collaborative learning projects that use new technologies, providing training and technical support for staff at Boys and Girls Club facilities in the area. Already implementing network based projects with many of its children, Plugged In is uniquely positioned to expand these efforts and serve as the model for introducing electronic communications technology to existing community youth centers.
Plugged In will:
1. develop curricula that teach electronic literacy skills;
2. provide training and support for youth center staff and young community leaders;
3. develop collaborative projects which allow for joint learning experiences between students in the different youth centers.
Provider Model:
The Morino Institute will serve as the model for national network service providers to offer technical assistance and support to community youth centers. Standard 'worldware' software (word processing, electronic mail, educational programs) will be employed to facilitate youth center operations, to introduce electronic computer communications into the youth centers, and to deliver services to the communities. The Institute will link the centers electronically via the Internet to share the resources, ideas, successes, and techniques that have been collected in an information repository. Through these links, center staffs and youth from low-income neighborhoods can draw information about programs and activities that will be of direct interest and application. The Institute will manage the network and provide assistance in its operation and expansion.
The Morino Institute will:
1. Build the national youth center electronic network;
2. Build the repository of information on youth centers and related programs;
3. Establish and provide technical support for the electronic network;
4. Host an annual youth center networking conference at which youth center staffs, clients, and sponsors can share programs, ideas, and experiences.
Knowledge Base Model:
Through the efforts of the project partners and additional advisors, significant expertise and knowledge will be collected. This knowledge will include operations methodologies and implementation strategies developed by Plugged In; curricula and service delivery materials created by LEAP; and funding, technical assistance, and collaborative efforts identified by the Morino Institute. This information will form the foundation for a repository of community youth center knowledge.
Information for the repository will be generated from a sweep of the existing information about youth center programs, education and training courses, services, and use of computer technology and applications. The repository information will be indexed and formatted to be easily accessible by youth centers and the general public in standard text as well as electronic formats. The sweep will be coordinated and facilitated by the Morino Institute. Youth center staffs and clients will provide significant support in the collection, indexing, and maintenance of the repository information. The Morino Institute will physically manage the repository and provide electronic access to it.
Services:
The primary services resulting from the project are a national youth center electronic network and a national youth center information repository. The network will insure that the communications links established among the youth centers during the project will endure beyond the end of the project and that a vehicle will be in place to increase the number of youth centers that can be linked in the future. The information repository will be supplemented with additional knowledge immediately relevant to clients and staffs of community youth centers, including drug abuse prevention programs, counseling and intervention programs, and training courses.
Systems:
The project will employ several systems in meeting the objectives of the study. First, the project will use the existing service and program delivery systems of the selected youth centers. These systems will be enhanced, as needed, through deployment of electronic networking and communications applications. Second, the Project will use existing national and international electronic communications systems such as the Internet and commercial electronic networks to link youth centers across the United States. Third, the Project will use the electronic networking services of the Morino Institute to operate and manage the youth center electronic network and the youth center information repository.
The Internet and commercial electronic networks are proven vehicles for linking distributed sites electronically for communications and information sharing. The Morino Institute has the capabilities and skills to manage and operate the proposed youth center network. Awareness and deployment of electronic networking within the youth centers will vary; however, regardless of the experience of the youth centers in the use of networking technology and applications, the use of electronic networking as proposed will be guided and supported by more experienced youth centers as well as the institute.
Financial Information:
The total budget of the Project is $431,264. LEAP will contribute $82,460 of in-kind equipment and personnel support. Plugged In will contribute $19,500 of in-kind personnel support. The Morino Institute will contribute $103,000 direct cash and in-kind support to the Project. The NTIA request is for $203,554, or 47% of the total Project budget.
Summary:
This project defines the public information network model for the community youth center in terms which match the needs of a large segment of the American public. The demonstration project also ensures that research in community networking is problem-driven, dealing with real problems affecting real populations and providing real outcomes. Those who are most directly affected by the outcomes will have daily control over the design and operation of the electronic networks.
The model that emerges from this project addresses networking processes as much as networking architecture. It includes community empowerment as much as community information. It seeks community outcomes as much as community presence. If this pilot demonstration effort is successful, additional community youth centers in additional communities across the United States will be added to the model to demonstrate scalability of infrastructure and impacts.
"One reads about the global community, but the Internet enables (students) to walk the walk, not just talk the talk."
Anonymous -- The Internet in K-12 Education
Carnegie Mellon University
For even more information, contact director Bart Decrim at PluggedIn@aol.com ```
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