Curriculum Development and Outreach
Organization:
Korean American Community Services VISTA Name:
Katherine Smith
Program Start:
8/2003
Program End:
8/2004
Project Description:
•curriculum development (in coordination with the Multimedia Instructor)
•volunteer recruitment and management
•student outreach
•development of outreach networks and relationships
•student instruction/discussion facilitation
•development of program documentation
•participation in program evaluation
•developing a resource library for students on a variety of topics (gender, multimedia, education, etc)
•Website development in coordination with web design curriculum development.
Project Outcome:
Girls Get Digital trains women in the use of media; program participants create multimedia resources for local nonprofits and other clients. GGD was able to see the fruits of our labor during our pilot year. As in the first half of her year with the program, Kathy was the keystone of our success, though additionally exciting was watching Kathy truly come into her own in her coordination of the program.
A strong curriculum was created in our pilot year. This is under constant review and reconstruction, but curriculum work (including reflection on what worked and what should be changed) in the first year has created a strong foundation for that.
The GGD application and program evaluation documentation was created prior to the first session and has needed very little revision since. Documentation for the rest of the program was created on as-need basis, and has largely followed guidelines by our summer session funder, which provided a standard set of consents, incident reports, etc.
Kathy did a great job conducting outreach in schools, through local social service organizations and in clubs for participant recruitment. Kathy also did great work with a volunteer and the Multimedia Instructor to identify field trip sites.
Kathy’s excellent research and writing skills were a huge asset to the program and resulted in our funding by AfterSchool Matters (for the summer and now the fall GGD sessions) and for our very first foundation funding.
Kathy developed and circulated press releases. The newsletter was tabled for the time being, and is now being developed by our current VISTA staff.
Initial work on identifying local program and online resources for program participants was completed. In a city as populated and large as Chicago, an exhaustive resource library is a Herculean task. Kathy assisted with the foundations for this library and the task is being carried on with staff at this time.