Transmission Project - americorps

Why is technology missing from CNCS's strategic plan?

Ben Sheldon — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:45:31 +0000

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency that administers AmeriCorps, is readying its strategic goals for 2011-2015 [PDF]. Conspicuously absent from its goals or plan is nearly any mention of technology or media. Their proposed priorities are:

Economic Opportunity
Education
Environmental Stewardship
Disaster Services
Healthy Futures
Veterans & Military Families

Of course, technology and media can play an important role within each of these 5 priorities, but past experience has shown CNCS reluctant to explore solutions without an explicit mandate, despite a strategy to “Identify and invest in innovative local solutions, as well as the infrastructure that supports them.”

Explicitly acknowledging public media and technology infrastructure as a necessity in support of these priorities would enable many critical and impactful projects to receive support from CNCS; support for which they might otherwise be determined ineligible.

Where technology is mentioned is within CNCS’s strategic goal to fortify management and internal operations:

CNCS is committed to setting and sustaining the highest standards of stewardship. Thus building upon our current infrastructure, we will strengthen and stabilize our IT systems, grantmaking and grant management processes, human capital and transparency efforts so that CNCS is optimally positioned to enable grantees and service participants to succeed.

A focus on building IT capacity internally would be valuable, for example CNCS’s 2010 annual report recently announced “First high-speed internet access for 35 of the 52 field offices”.

Listening sessions with CNCS stakeholders [PDF] over the proposed 5-year strategic goals have identified the opportunity a focus on technology can offer for CNCS:

Challenges: Participants cited challenges related to access to opportunities, as well as at-risk populations in need of skills development and job readiness.

Opportunities: […] Additional opportunities exist to engage potential job providers and skill developers as CNCS partners and to advocate for the growing role of technology in employment and education.

Whether this stakeholder feedback will be integrated into CNCS’s strategic plan at an actionable level remains to be seen.

One place for optimism in the strategy brief is the strategy to “Embed service-based approaches with federal peers and partners that align with CNCS priorities.”

This strategy leverages CNCS’ national leadership role and potential to catalyze efforts that feature service-based solutions to pressing needs. For example, given our priorities in education, health, economic opportunity, the environment, military families and veterans and disaster services we will seek, and create where necessary, opportunities to partner and collaborate with other federal agencies and organizations. Specifically, we will prioritize those opportunities where national service combined with the capabilities and resources of our partners’ yields stronger, sustainable and scalable results.

The FCC’s National Broadband Plan recommends just such a partnership between CNCS and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)—Recommendation 9.3—in the creation of a Digital Literacy Corps. Time will tell whether CNCS or NTIA will have the capacity to develop such a large-scale partnership.

Despite the opportunity for federal-level partnership, much of CNCS’s resources are aimed at generating local non-profit partnerships. Without a specific focus on technology or media in CNCS’s strategic goals many innovative technology and media projects—and the individuals and communities they support—will not benefit from CNCS’s capacity-building service model.

CTEP VISTA Leader

admin — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:23:55 +0000

Digital Literacy Corps Resource Roundup

Ben Sheldon — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:47:56 +0000

The newly proposed Digital Literacy Corps—part of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan recommendations—has been a source of pride for us: a recognition of the importance of our 10 years of service through the Digital Arts Service Corps and the CTC VISTA Project before it. Of course, back then we were trying to get folks on dialup… nothing has changed but the speeds.

Here are some recommendations and articles on the role national service can play in connecting and strengthening communities:

National Broadband Plan: Recommendation 9.3: Creating a Digital Literacy Corps.

Some Corps members might be based out of urban schools where they could work with teachers, staff and administrators to create digital literacy lesson plans and integrate digital skills into the teaching of other subjects. Other members might work with broader social service programs to provide digital literacy training as part of a workforce development program. Still other members could incorporate demonstration projects into training activities in rural areas to show the relevance of broadband technology to rural non-adopters and to encourage people to invest time in digital skills training.

Corps members will help non-adopters overcome discomfort with technology and fears of getting online while also helping people become more comfortable with content and applications that are of immediate and individual relevance. For example, Corps members might help people research health information, seek employment, manage finances and engage with or utilize government services.
Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy: Recommendation #12.

Imagine a “Geek Corps for Local Democracy” where, as a post-college opportunity, American youth volunteer to help connect a physical community to the networked infrastructure. They would be assigned to diverse communities to help local government officials, librarians, police, teachers, and other community leaders leverage networked technology. Geek Corps participants would teach community members how to use technology. They would help local leaders to understand technological shifts and how they can leverage new technologies for community practices. Participants from all the communities involved would be connected into a national network of participants to share best practices, develop collectively usable code, and build a network of information systems for local democracy.
Huffington Post: A Plan to Connect All Americans to the Digital World:

Like the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps, the Digital Literacy Corps will recruit youth and adults as volunteers to work in underserved communities, helping people get connected – not only to broadband, but to the educational and economic resources that broadband can bring to the next generation of Americans.”
Computerworld: FCC to propose national digital literacy corps:

The National Digital Literacy Corps, modeled after other volunteer programs like AmeriCorps, will target communities with low numbers of broadband subscribers, including low-income housing developments, rural areas and tribal lands, said Mignon Clyburn, a member of the FCC, speaking Tuesday during a conference on the digital divide in Washington.

“The Digital Literacy Corps will mobilize hundreds of digital ambassadors in local communities across the country,” she said. “This is about neighbors helping neighbors get online.”

Some other proposed, existing and just-launched programs based upon a service model:

National Black Programming Consortium: Public Media Corps: “Creating engaged communities, for a networked world”
Community Technology Empowerment Project: “helping youth and adults use technology to better access social, civic, educational and economic opportunities.”
OneCommunity: Connect Your Community: “charged with increasing broadband awareness, teaching basic skills related to broadband technology, and stimulating household adoption of broadband.” (BTOP Fact Sheet)