Transmission Project

n the beginning, Katrina centered on constructing infrastructure in KKCS’s practices and procedures. She has worked with the Head of School to develop institutional policies and procedures, and worked diligently to implement effective and efficient practices in the After School Program. Through recruiting and training volunteers, she has expanded the number of people working with students, thus lessening the student to teacher radio. She has worked to build an efficient Healthy Snack Program which provides the After School students with nutritious and balanced snacks every day. Katrina also has her sights set on the long term impacts that technology can make on KKCS and has been a part of the planning process for our student and school database. Through these and many more tasks, her comprehensive understanding of both the day to day operation as well as the long term goals have helped to bring KKCS to a higher level.

For the first time, Math/English is offered in the After-School program. Katrina designed the curriculum which follows the Boston Public School standards, recruited student teachers from colleges and Boston Latin School to teach these subjects two days a week for two hours each day. Katrina has also provided additional resources such as lesson planning templates, sample lesson plans and best practices. The Math/English program continues to be offered in the After-School program.

Though Katrina drafted several of the school handbooks, none were adopted. In an effort to gain input and feedback, it was hoped that separate constituient committees conisisting of teachers, parents and students would be formed. This was not done. Time and resources were the challenge. KKCS’s website updating was not addressed by the school administration. The Parent Teacher Association had several starts, but did not get organized. This is a brand new concept to KKCS; the appropriate leadership needs to be identified.

Gabriel had a very successful year of service with our organization and we are very happy with the work he has done. He was responsible for a number of improvements at our center.

1. Gabriel established a relationship with RCN and was able to arrange a deal to change all of our organizations phone and internet service, including our wireless backhaul, to RCN, saving us more than $1000 each year, and more than doubling our bandwith.

2. Gabriel developed a plan to have our organization host three technology events, titled Boston Tech Days, where low income residents would be given the opportunity to interact with technology professionals in Boston to receive computer repair services and computer trainings. Gabe wrote a short proposal to help us fund these Tech Days. This proposal won us over $1500 for each Tech Day (approximately $5000 total) to help us pay for equipment, staff, and other expenses.

3. Gabe assisted us in establishing a new location for our Computer Repair Clinic that offers free technical support to all Castle Square residents. With his help, we were able to respond to over 250 requests for technical support from residents during his year here. The Computer Repair Clinic also offers refurbished PCs to residents in need, and under Gabe’s management, we have already donated approximately 100 computers this year. Before he left, he initiated a plan to move the Repair Clinic to the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology, which will significantly increase our capacity and ability to serve residents of the entire South End.

4. Before Gabe left, he helped us to write a proposal that won us $5000 from Social Justice Works! an organization in Cambridge that funds programs by Cambridge Public School graduates. This money will enable us to start a Youth Council that will be entrusted with redesigning our playground over the next few months.

This year, Kristofer took the lead in developing and formalizing the curriculum for our youth-led policy program, the Digital Expansion Fellowship (DEF). After taking feedback and evaluations from our first DEF summer project, Kristofer redesigned the summer curriculum into a full 8-week summer course for a new round of fellows. The new curriculum is a comprehensive training in media policy research; combing basics in digital journalism and an introduction to policy analysis. This summer the fellows used their newly acquired digital reporting skills to examined mobile broadband and cellphone policy from a community perspective. They produced a news feature looking at how a proposed bill requiring ID for prepaid cellphones would impact low income and immigrant communities. They also produced four cell phone literacy workshops that will be included in a collaborative tool kit project focused on expanding cell phone literacy.

People’s Production House proposed a large community media network project during the second application round of the Broadband Technology Opportunity Program. Our proposal brought together 21 New York City community organizations to imagine a constellation of community media centers across New York that would work as media production centers for a community news outlet. Kristofer was the main outreach organizer for this application. He helped recruit many of the organizations to the project proposal and coordinated a lot of the application process with the groups. While we weren’t awarded our BTOP grant, the organizing provided us with an opportunity to advance our goal of strengthening our community media network. We are taking the momentum from our BTOP organizing to develop a New York City Digital Justice Coalition. Throughout the year, Kristofer also engaged with other community media organizations to share or work, exchange ideas, and collaborate on larger national projects.

One of the goals that Kristofer set for him self was to help us develop workshops and training materials in Spanish. Kristofer lead our first Spanish language community journalism training in his first year as a VISTA and he wanted to take it further by developing media literacy tools that could accompany the trainings. This year Kristofer helped organize the first Spanish language track at the 2010 Allied Media Conference. In developing the Spanish language track, Kristofer engaged some organizations that serve the Spanish speaking in New York, helping to develop Spanish language community reporters.

In addition to the work completed in our project proposal, Kristofer also helped refine our 12-week media community journalism training curriculum. The curriculum needed an upgraded and he assisted with the process. Kristofer also helped strengthen ties to partner organizations through his involvement in organizing the Allied Media Conference and his participation in the Media Action Grassroots Network. Through these conferences and networks, Kristofer has helped facilitate projects on a national scope, including our upcoming Cellphone Literacy Toolkit, which is a collaboration between allies in New Mexico, California, and New York.

Scott worked with mentor Brittney Fosbrook to create an ongoing, nearly self-sustainable strategic plans for a volunteer-run program in our Community Technology Center. Scott created an online volunteer guide which contains all the “how to’s” and useful links for our volunteers.The guide also contains volunteers agreements and lab rules. Scott also worked with our Systems Administrator to create customized, bilingual computer profiles for our clients, making it easier for our guests to login and use the lab with minimal computer experience. Scott also cleaned up the space physically, getting rid of unused materials and installing useful information sheets for additional resources. In addition to volunteer outreach, Scott also conducted major outreach to clients and to our case management staff, so that they understand the resources available and their potential value to clients.

The volunteer program in the CTC has been successful in that it has increased lab attendance, increased volunteer engagement, and has decreased the amount of staff time necessary to run the lab. However, the CTC is not able to self-sustain on volunteers alone. Scott has been hired as a full-time employee, with half-time duties related to CTC coordination.

Scott was a key player in HPP’s first steps in social media, creating a Facebook and Twitter presence, as well as advising the development of our revamped website. This developed as the need was identified at HPP and matched Scott’s skills and interests.

Our CTC VISTA is the DISKovery Centers Accessibility Coordinator. She coordinated all of the meetings with staff and project partners. She also became our in-house AT specialist, and helped recommend our software and hardware purchases. She has developed advanced curriculum at Pacific Bridge. She has also coordinated and facilitated the access committee meetings. Our VISTA has also coordinated our Computer Adoption Program and has developed curriculum for the program. She has also trained staff on the Ubuntu Operating system so that staff can then teach the participants enrolled in our Computer Adoption Program.

Although we have partnered with other organizations that have given us a small number of users with disabilities, we are still short of our goals. Our VISTA has assisted on our outreach plan, and has developed outreach materials but both our centers in Little Tokyo and Echo Park are struggling increase our numbers.

Claudia has organized recruitment efforts, orientation sessions and meetings to help build our advisory board. She has been instrumental in developing and documenting the procedures for effective volunteer training and management. She has developed an orientation and training module which we will utilize in preparing future volunteer club leaders for their role in leading multimedia clubs for girls. In addition, she has developed a comprehensive volunteer leader manual which clearly outlines the role, responsibilities, procedures and policies in the management of volunteer led clubs. The manual includes club leader job descriptions, club meeting outlines, attendance policies, dress code, code of behavior, classroom management tips, mentoring tips, recruitment tips, Internet safety guidelines, material checklists, equipment checkout procedures, attendance sheets, volunteer hour logs, club member evaluations, club fact sheets and other valuable tips on managing a media club for girls. Furthermore, our VISTA member has worked collaboratively with a team of volunteers to develop a new Club Leader Curriculum Guide building on our library of club lesson plans. Thanks to support from our VISTA Member, we now have over 100 multimedia lesson plans developed that we can implement in our multimedia clubs. These lessons are focused on teaching young Latinas in grades 4-8 about how they can use media as a tool for creative self-expression. These lessons are bilingual and bi-cultural and focused on writing, art, photography, audio production, film making, desktop publishing and web design. Our VISTA has also initiated a pilot test program training 4 volunteers to lead volunteer media clubs. She has recruited the volunteer club leaders, implemented and tested a club leader training session and provided technical support to our club leaders. The volunteer training module and curriculum guide has proven to work successfully with this group and our VISTA member is helping us lay the foundation to implement this program on a larger scale in the future.

Since our VISTA member is perfectly fluent in Spanish and English, she was able to assist us in translating numerous documents in our volunteer training manual as well as other materials for the public. We work with a largely Spanish-speaking population of recent immigrants, so her assistance in creating bilingual materials was a great asset in preparing all the needed documents for our volunteers to go out into the community to serve Spanish-speaking girls and families. In addition, our VISTA member developed a volunteer recognition procedures to assist in our volunteer retention efforts including creating volunteer certificates and awards, organizing volunteer appreciation events and developing a system for recognizing volunteers in our newsletter and special events.

I know that I speak for the entire staff of the Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP) when I say that Ellen-Rae Cachola has been a boon to our organization. As her supervisor in the Community Technology Center it has been my pleasure to work very closely with her for the last 12 months. She is highly committed, intelligent, and industrious. She is extremely productive and always looking for new projects. She is also very personable, able to interact warmly with the diverse groups of people who work in our program and who come here for services. We are very lucky that she has stayed on at HPP as a part-time employee while she attends graduate school in San Francisco.

Ellen’s duties at HPP have included maintaining two websites, teaching technology in English and in Spanish, maintaining and developing the client database on Microsft Access, as well as trouble shooting technology problems in the lab and at staff workstations. She has worked with the local cable television access station to create PSAs and informational programming. In addition she has created an online generator for our paper forms which allows staff to print forms on an as needed basis from their own computers. She has also designed and published agency literature and signage in english and in spanish.

As an Americorps Vista volunteer, Shlonda has supported and enhanced four Durham County Literacy Council (DCLC) projects; the Parent’s Part Family Literacy Project, Techcelerated Pre-GED and GED, PC Basics, English as a Second Language and has gained valuable experience as a teacher and trainer. She has recruited and trained volunteers to teach or assist in all projects. The VISTA has maintained a working relationship with partner sites CET, NCCU and the YMCA.

Shlonda successfully taught Parents’ Part in Cornwallis Road public housing neighborhood in Durham, NC.

At the Durham Literacy Council’s main office, Shlonda taught students by using technology-assisted GED software.

As a tutor Shlonda has taught ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes, which includes creating lesson plans, leading small group conversations and trained new tutors to teach the traditional and computer-assisted ESL software.

Shlonda has been instrumental in establishing and maintaining an after school program for Kestrel Heights Charter School.

Shlonda has improved technical support at the Literacy Council, Kestrel Heights Charter School and assisted in maintaining and installing computers in all labs.

Career Passport is a portfolio or notebook containing documents certifying you have met specific academic and workplace standards. The latest implementation is the Internet career interest/personality inventory. Shlonda is the field test manager of this project and has successful coached 4 individuals in completing their portfolio. Shlonda expanded upon DLC’s Career Passport by initiating mini-workshops with focus areas such as “Preparing for the Job Interview.” The project is now nationally recognized and endorsed by the Literacy Volunteers of America. The Career Passport can be found on the LVA’s Promising Practice website.

Kim Oanh has played a strong role in organizing and coordinating community events for BPSOS. She was a tremendous help in the coordination of various workshops that we have held throughout the year, the largest workshop which is a collaboration of 4 different ethnic groups (Vietnamese, Korean, Latinos and Muslims) on domestic violence which had an attendance of 300 people.

Kim-Oanh has coordinated and organized activities for youth at the Moon Festival. For youth and Senior Citizen at the Lunar New Year Festival at Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland. These holidays symbolize the heritage, culture, and life of the Vietnamese people.

She also organized the Carry Day for youths. She invited six speakers, she contact with 100 students and parents came that day.