program building
Digital Archive Program Development
Organization:
Southern California Library VISTA Name:
Tiffany Otoya
Program Start:
9/2010
Program End:
9/2011
Project Description:
The Corps member will develop a comprehensive, sustainable, and consistent program for digitizing materials from our collections that we simply would not be able to do otherwise, given our limited staffing. The member would also strengthen our ability to integrate out community partners, staff, board members, and volunteers into the digitizing program.
L@TCH Program Developer
Organization:
Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition, Inc. VISTA Name:
Devon Smolca
Program Start:
9/2010
Program End:
9/2011
Project Description:
The Corps member will build on relationships staff create with local school partners, community-based groups, non-profits, corporations and funders to develop strategies and resources (volunteers, computer donations and funding) for community technology adoption programs. Specifically the L@TCH home computer program which distributes computers to the families of K-12 students that are attending Baltimore City schools.
Neighborhood News Network Project Manager
Organization:
Bay Area Video Coalition VISTA Name:
Anne Simmons
Program Start:
9/2010
Program End:
9/2011
Project Description:
BAVC developed the Neighborhood News Network Project in order to take advantage of the high-speed fiber optic network that connects the local public acces, educational, and government channels to nearly fifteen community sites throughout San Francisco. It has the capacity to support live video streaming and high resolution file transfer from any connected site. In the initial n3 pilot, BAVC will focus on three unique organizations and the constituencies they serve.
The Digital Arts Service Corps member would serve a central and defining role as Project Manager in building and launching the neighborhood news network project, with complete focus for one year on building, implementing, documenting, and evaluating the project, in a way that no current staff member could do without letting their essential duties drop. The Corps member wold be responsible for identifying San Francisco neighborhoods, organizations, and programs that could most benefit from the added capacity of tools and skills required to share relevant, timely, and hyper-local news and information with each other, to conduct research, outreach, documentation, and evaluation tasks, and subsequently to implement a pilot program in a successful, sustainable, and replicable way with guidance, input and participation from BAVC staff and our community partners.
Youth Community Technology Program Development
Organization:
Korean American Community Services VISTA Name:
Molly Szymanski
Program Start:
8/2005
Program End:
8/2006
Project Description:
Molly will work with the Youth Community Technology Program (YCTP) a youth project within the Korean American Community Services Community Education Department serving at-risk youth ages 17-21 through technical instruction and holistic services. In Particular, Molly will help develop a sustainable system of outreach for you youth technology program students and volunteers (guest speakers, field trip sites, etc), will assist with program activities, will research information around issues of the digital divide to create a program Statement of Need for use in grant writing and will research possible funding streams for the programs.
Oregon Learning Lab Outreach Coordinator
Organization:
Portland Community Media VISTA Name:
Ryn Shane-Armstrong
Program Start:
9/2005
Program End:
9/2006
Project Description:
Ryn will participate in OLLIE productions as a trainer, work with community partners to plan successful OLLIE projects and events, and develop youth outreach and education efforts of Portland Community Media and Multnomah Community Television.
Project Outcome:
In the past six months, OLLIE has provided digital media training to over 150 youth through 17 projects at 11 community locations. In addition, OLLIE has scheduled projects to serve an additional 180 youth over the next six months. Each round of OLLIE projects has balanced new and returning community partners. Our VISTA has served as a group coordinator for many of these sites, facilitating communication between the OLLIE staff and volunteers, the OLLIE coordinator, and community partners. Ryn has also begun to identify volunteers to support this project. He identified the post-production talents of a community partner and utilized them to finish a student project.
In addition, OLLIE’s curriculum design has evolved. Based on participant feedback, trainer input, and research into youth media best practices; the teaching methods, practice exercises, and time allotments for each segment of production have changed to better serve the youth we work with. Ryn’s insights about classroom teaching experiences and research into youth media curriculum are of great value to this process. I am looking forward to further utilizing Ryn’s expertise to design and implement our summer intensive “Adventures in Television”sessions. He is one of the leads for this project.
A very exciting part of OLLIE’s evolution is the creation and implementation of a graphic design identity package. Ryn has served as a lead contact in the process of recruiting and hiring a designer, developing a logo, and working with vendors. Currently Ryn is leading efforts to develop and refine copy that will promote the program in print, web, and video materials. Ryn also was able to develop his web design skills to create a first draft of a website for OLLIE: www.ollietv.org. Behind the scenes, he has created extensive outlines for future implementations of a site that will be useful to project staff, community partners, and program participants.
Impact Quote:
An amazing thing about Ryn is the way in which he integrated himself into the media center community. He put himself ‘out there’ as willing to help, learn, and volunteer on his own time to help others and make the media center a better place. He has organized the staff on more than one occasion to attend cultural events and support each other. He is an exceptional asset to the Oregon Learning Lab for Information Education.
Program Development
VISTA Name:
Jeff Benton
Program Start:
8/2005
Program End:
8/2006
Project Description:
The VISTA would be involved in a variey of activities including assisting and acting as a trainer in our Introductory computer classes for families, and working with volunteers to prepare the home computers that are critical to our community. The member would also be instrumental in building our second classroom, defining and preparing curriculum for delivery in this “high end”, multimedia learning environment. The member would become familiar with and provide assistance in our other areas including our “Cyber High at home” program.
Project Outcome:
Jeff has taken the lead role in building our second classroom. This was completed the middle of February. Jeff is very effective in identifying what needs to be done and completing it with quality. He is an integral part of all aspects of our home computer program including scheduling and coordinating families in our classes, coordinating the work of adult and youth volunteers, and many, many other things that are needed in a small organization with a big mission.
Jeff has also attended a KQED workshop on digital story telling and is working with Domingo Vaszuez, a multimedia professional, to finalize the curriculum for our upcoming digital story telling pilot workshop. The workshop has been scheduled, 20 students have been selected, and all is a go for the week of Spring Break, April 10-14.
We are currently working with project SOAR to schedule 200-300 7th graders into our summer technology workshop. This one week workshop, for 6 separate sessions, will run from June 26 to August 4. We will be updating our first classroom to also accomodate the students. The curriculum we will use will be that piloted in April. Jeff is involved in every detail of this large, (and new to us) endeavor.
Website and Program Building
Organization:
Heart of Los Angeles Youth, Inc. VISTA Name:
Emily Yoshida
Program Start:
8/2005
Program End:
8/2006
Project Description:
Our VISTA is building the infrastructure for “STUDENTS” to be able to develop meaningful skills that will serve them well later in life. Journalism, Digital Media and in the future, E-Commerce are areas that HOLA youth will now be able to excel in because our VISTA built out the technology and curriculum to one day master these skills. This will in turn allow our kids to realize HOLA’s mission of advancing their lives (Through technology) and revitalize their communities with the new skills and experiences they will have had because of technology.
Project Outcome:
Emily went on to set up our new HOLA website in HTML, which was awesome! She is very gifted artistically and her contribution to that project will be felt and seen for a long time to come.
The Wireless Lab, the system for check in and check out, plus the Web Journalism project using this lab have also been successfully initiated by Emily.
Impact Quote:
Our VISTA’s technological skills were an incredible asset to HOLA. Her willingness to share her knowledge was invaluable and we are already feeling her absence.
Community Outreach and Organizing
Organization:
Friendship House VISTA Name:
Mike Connolly
Program Start:
9/2004
Program End:
9/2005
Project Description:
1. Form a Steering Committee to assist in the development of the CTC.
2. Complete community analysis and assessment.
3. Design the initial program and determine requirements.
4. Develop a business plan.
Project Outcome:
• Completed the demographic analysis of the neighborhood
• Formed a Steering Committee (SC)
• Developed a survey form for assessing and prioritizing the desires of the neighborhood
• Assessment of the neighborhood is underway
• I attended 3 grant-writing seminars (2 general and 1 on government grants)
• I helped define the scope and vision for the project and the organization’s future
• I am overseeing a pilot program
• I supervised the expenditure of $45,000 for technology equipment
• I am in the process of developing an operational budget and MOU’s
• I am researching funding opportunities