curriculum development

Digital Expansion Initiative Program Developer

Organization: 
People's Production House
VISTA Name: 
Kristofer Rios
Program Start: 
7/2008
Program End: 
7/2010
Project Description: 

PPH has three major projects: Radio Rootz, which teaches classes in radio journalism and media literacy in public schools; the Community News Production Institute (CNPI), which trains low wage and immigrant workers as radio journalists; and our Digital Expansion Initiative, which works to educate and organize the public around access to digital technology. We build media organizers: media literate youth and workers who can create and demand a media system that works in their interests.

This position is part of the Digital Expansion Initiative. For 2008 to 2009, the CTC Vista participant will
• formalize our Digital Expansion curriculum and conduct educational workshops for community organizations and public school classes throughout New York City;
• work with the Digital Expansion team to analyze data from our surveys and interviews;
• conduct original research into the state of Internet access in New York City and train others to do the same;
• record, edit, and produce radio journalism and train others to do the same;
• review and compile new research and articles related to Internet access and Internet policy.

Project Outcome: 

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.

Community Outreach and Accessibility Development

VISTA Name: 
Anita Lie
Program Start: 
6/2007
Program End: 
6/2009
Project Description: 

Since it opened over 8 years ago, the DISKovery Center has provided technology education services to over 3,000 community members in a wide range of skills and computer applications. Over 100 members, who include youth, adults, and seniors, enroll in over 20 classes at the DISKovery Center’s programs every quarter.

The DISKovery Center is seeking a full-time VISTA volunteer (monthly stipend provided) to help build the capacity of the Center to reach out to learners with physical and developmental disabilities through assistive technology, program planning, staff training, and community outreach. The VISTA member will assist the program manager with a variety of responsibilities, including the following duties:

• Develop strategies for outreach to persons with disabilities

• Collaborate with other organizations to develop outreach plans to expand our presence in the disabled community.

• Participate in assistive technology trainings provided by our collaborators to become an in-house accessibility specialist, who will then train other staff on teaching strategies

• Develop resources for accessibility including training materials for both staff and individuals with disabilities

• Help develop a new space plan at the center for better accessibility

• Help establish and coordinate a committee composed of staff, members and volunteers to inform the center on disability access needs.

• Help develop a new intake survey and registration process incorporating disability information, and revamp the current database to track this information.

Project Outcome: 

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.

Impact Quote: 

Our VISTA has been invaluable in assisting the center with its accessibility goals, and has been central in coordinating all aspects of the DISK4All Project. She has been committed to utilizing information and communications technologies to address the needs of our communities. Without our VISTA we would not have the staff nor capacity to achieve our accessibility goals.”
- Steve Wong, supervisor

Community Organizing and Wireless Network Deployment

VISTA Name: 
Melissa Niiya
Program Start: 
9/2009
Program End: 
9/2011
Project Description: 

The AmeriCorps*VISTA project we are proposing is a critical component of our community technology program to promote broadband deployment and adoption in the low income neighborhoods we serve. We seek to build the capacity of our wireless and wired networks that will be installed in our affordable housing projects through the development of a program that will distribute community-based resources (equipment, trainings, information), establish resident advisory committees, and deploy wireless networks.

Our AmeriCorps*VISTA member will support our initiative through community outreach, surveys, and technical support. Specifically, s/he will:

- Develop and implement community-based outreach strategies for community wireless adoption and participation.
- Collaborate with other project partners to develop outreach plans to expand our presence in the targeted communities.
- Develop educational resources for community technology staff and residents in the targeted communities.
- Coordinate and build the capacity of a community advisory committees in the targeted communities
- Organize, coordinate, and develop community education workshops delivered by volunteers on community wireless networks
- Develop sustainability models for the deployment of community wireless networks
- Coordinate volunteer efforts to plan and deploy neighborhood wireless networks
- Meet with technology center managers to coordinate community workshop activities
- Work with project partners to build the technology skills capacity of youth in South Los Angeles
- Develop a volunteer base of technology and community activists to support the deployment and sustainability of community wireless networks

Goal 1: Promote and increase the adoption of broadband within low-income communities
Goal 2: Build the capacity of deployed community Wi-Fi networks through community participation.

Project Outcome: 

The VISTA member has been instrumental in increasing the overall capacity of the Community Technology department. We now have documented standards and procedures for deploying residential and community Wi-Fi networks, as well as a track record and experience that can be used to provide technical assistance to other groups seeking to deploy similar Wi-Fi networks. We have compiled not only the technical procedures for wireless deployment but also a best practices guide, as we have learned from the challenges we’ve faced. The VISTA also helped to develop criteria and a process for selecting future contractors for our new networks. To ensure the sustainability of our networks we need to continue working with LTSC’s real estate and property management departments to develop a system for ongoing support and maintenance of the networks.

The VISTA member also assisted with grant writing, reporting and research to support and build the capacity of the Community Technology department. She also helped with program and curriculum development for the DISKovery Center’s digital media classes covering basic computer and internet skills to more advanced digital video editing and production. She also established a public access WiFi network at LTSC’s DISKovery Computer Center in Little Tokyo. The VISTA’s accomplishments in these areas seemed a natural addendum to the stated goals. She has proven herself to be highly competent in many areas and has therefore been given additional projects and responsibilities, as time and her own interests allowed. Since she is extremely self-motivated and is capable of accomplishing projects thoroughly and quickly, we were able to involve her in additional projects beyond what was proposed.

- Development of community and residential wi-fi resource materials made available online.
- Development and dissemination of publicity and outreach materials to promote the Little Tokyo community through flyers, a community blog developed by and for community wireless users, print materials and a community wi-fi website.
- Establishment of a community wireless blog to document the challenges and successes in deploying community wireless networks.
- Deployment of three new free community Wi-Fi networks in LTSC’s affordable housing communities. Accomplishments toward achieving stated goals:
- Curriculum developed for wifi trainings in the form of a wiki. The wiki was developed with some server assistance from Wataru Ebihara, LTSC’s Network Administrator.
- Resource materials developed for wifi users / volunteers / nonprofits wishing to start wifi networks, also on the wiki.
- Flyers for outreach developed with Spanish translation help from Sugey Salazar, computer instructor.
- Community blog developed using a free blogger account. The VISTA has worked to transition administration of the blog to the LT community council for its ongoing sustainability.
- Computer Adoption Program (CAP) program planned and organized, and additional wifi curriculum developed for the class
- 10 families served.
- Wifi deployed in the Reno Apartments using open source mesh routers from Open Mesh and broadband over power (BPL) technology to deploy a robust network at Reno. Switched Angelina Apartments to open source Open Mesh to enable better usage tracking.
- Usage tracking of Wi-Fi networks
- using free and open source tracking called CoovaOM, developed tracking methods and documentation for residential Wi-Fi networks.
- Developed a Request for Proposals for the development of 5 new broadband networks in affordable housing projects; developed criteria for selecting a proposal and oversaw selection of contractor for these new networks.

iConnect Project Developer

Organization: 
KNON Community Radio
VISTA Name: 
Mark Woodward
Program Start: 
7/2009
Program End: 
7/2010
Project Description: 

The CTC Vista volunteer will increase our capacity by providing the technical assistance to develop a new media training program, systems for volunteers to use an interactive website, and develop volunteers to become trainers themselves for future participants. The VISTA’s role is to help us through this transition and move KNON into a position where we can provide existing services in newer, more relevant forms. Once the project is completed, the additional volunteers, trainers, training tools, online protocols, online audience, and online tools will augment our community connections by making sure the station is as interactive as possible and acts as a community resource that uses the latest technology to give its listenership a voice in the community and the ability to affect positive change in their own environment.

The CTC Vista will be responsible for:
Work with volunteers to mae presentations to organizations serving lower-income and minority communities in DFW
Work with community members to conduct surveys to determine community media needs
Develop curriculum to train to community organizations and their members to utilize media tools including blogs, audio recording and editing, video recording and editing, and social networking.
Train volunteers to train additional community members to utilize media tools.
Work with volunteers to develop a community media campaign around one identified issue that will be used as a template for future issue campaigns
Develop protocols for volunteers to maintain the equipment and website for volunteer media work

Project Outcome: 

Mark developed a list of 100 community organizations and events in coverage area and Developed outreach material describing community media project and volunteer interest forms. Developed on-air announcements and recruited audience members for project Recruited participants from current audience, community advisory committee and existing volunteer p Surveyed existing volunteer usage of social media networks and other online tools Integrated KNON station brand into new station website, facebook and twitter. Established user interface for volunteers and staff to update station’s online presence Activity 3: New Media Training for Community Volunteers Develop ed training series for community members for blogging and video (youtube) origination, editing and uploading onto station webtools. Also developed social networking training. Mark did all of this by reaching out to those at the station and in our audience during meetings and on air. He was assited by KNON volunteers and staff

Fundraising web componants. Developed well and continues to help us in fundraising

Outreach & Volunteer Coordinator

Organization: 
Latinitas
VISTA Name: 
Claudia Escobar Lopez
Program Start: 
9/2009
Program End: 
9/2010
Project Description: 

As part of the CTC VISTA Project, Latinitas would recruit a VISTA member to serve as an Outreach & Volunteer Coordinator. This position would assist with:
Primary Goals:
-organizing an advisory board that will develop a comprehensive curriculum guide with a series of media-based, enrichment activities for girls.
-coordinating a volunteer leadership team that will assist with future club leader recruitment, trainings and management
-developing training procedures and volunteer manuals to empower volunteer club leaders to guide girl empowerment activities
Secondary Goals
-creating a marketing plan to outline strategies for effectively recruiting volunteers, identifying strategic community partners and sponsors and beginning the initial phase of volunteer recruitment.

Throughout the project, the VISTA member will work directly with an advisory board and volunteers to develop a curriculum guides, club leader training manual, volunteer procedures and volunteer recruitment marketing plan. These tangible products will enable Latinitas to replicate our media-based, culturally-relevant, bilingual, girl enrichment programs into additional communities. Latinos make up about 15 percent of the U.S. population and are the largest and fastest growing population. Despite the growth and size of this population, very few programs exist nationally that focus specifically on this population. The tools developed in this project may serve as a model framework and curriculum to share with the field of Latina-focused girl empowerment programs nationally.

Project Outcome: 

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.

Program Development Coordinator

Organization: 
Latinitas
VISTA Name: 
Marisol Guzman
Program Start: 
9/2010
Program End: 
9/2011
Project Description: 

The Corps member will help develop a model for volunteer-led media clubs for low-income girls in the rural outlying areas near El Paso.

The Corps member would manage a pilot test of the volunteer-led module, provide trainings and technical support to volunteer club leaders, gather feedback from club leaders, revise club leader manuals and procedures, build on our curriculum to add advanced lessons for high school students, recruit new leadership team members, and build the infrastructure for our leadership team.

Media Literacy Analysis and Curricula Development

Organization: 
Access Humboldt
VISTA Name: 
Sam Kaplan
Program Start: 
9/2010
Program End: 
9/2011
Project Description: 

The Corps member will survey the constituents of Access Humboldt, analyze the data, incorporate these key elements into our programs and curricula, and increase the awareness of the available resources.

Curricula Development and Program Building

VISTA Name: 
Molly Higgins
Program Start: 
9/2009
Program End: 
9/2011
Project Description: 

While being involved with some of CAPAY’s youth/community/media programming plans, our proposed 2009-2010 VISTA member, will primarily be responsible for enhancing CAPAY’s current and future organizational capacity

Goal 1: Activate and mobilize CAPAY’s alumni network to provide increased/ongoing resources
Goal 2: Using Web 2.0 tools to support and streamline organizational communications, mapping of organizational assets (including alumni networking), and outreach/promotion.
Goal 3: Initiate and nurture long-term organizational partnerships in addition to shorter-term project-based collaborations.
Goal 4: Develop assessment and reflection tools with which to document short-and long-term impact of CAPAY program and project participation on youth participants, community members/organizations, and CAPAY alumni
Goal 5: Expand CAPAY’s financial base, including earned income, donations, and grant development.

Molly’s main role in the 2010-2011 service year will be to collect and organize pre-existing content, produce some original content, and produce/package training materials for staff and volunteers to take over the project. This includes archiving CAPAY’s collections of resources and workshops and digitizing them for the CAPAY website and also developing a training curricula that could potentially be used as a revenue stream for CAPAY in the future. The VISTA will also partake in fundraising and grant writing for the program.

Project Outcome: 

our VISTA member goals for 2009-2010 were: - Provide staff support to assist organizational members in convening and revitalizing the CAPAY Alumni Network. - Develop community partnerships and collaborations, including youth/community internship sites, to build sustainability of the program into future years. - Develop grant/funding proposals and enhance CAPAY’s funder networks in conjunction with CAPAY staff and Adult Advisory Board. - Organize grassroots fundraising events for CAPAY programs. - administer/maintain CAPAY’s website and Web 2.0 presence (e.g., updating Facebook, Youtube, Google maps, etc) while exploring possibilities for online revenue streams and other relevant sources of earned income. - Develop assessment and reflection tools with which to document short-and long-term impact of CAPAY program and project participation on youth participants, community members/organizations, and CAPAY alumni. Molly was successful in implementing Web 2.0 tools to support and streamline organizational communications. She took over the management of CAPAY’s communications, including CAPAY’s Facebooks and listserve. She worked closely with the CAPAY coordinator Tri Quach to integrate Web 2.0 tools into the new CAPAY website. This includes the development of CAPAY’s media portal, designed to gather Asian American media such as digital stories, blogs, and artist websites (including original CAPAY content). She also worked with one of the CAPAY youth to develop a city-wide blog for youth organizing. Molly made progress in initiating and nurturing long and short term partnerships with other organizations. This includes the promotional video she made with other UMass Boston students for MASAE, a local basketball team. She successfully planned and administered all of the CAPAY YouthLearn internships at other organizations, including UMass Boston’s Asian American Studies Program, BCNC, AACA, ATASK, AFH, and Close to Home. Molly re-established connections with CAPAY alumni, the Alumni Network, which has been meeting actively since June to develop fundraising initiatives and to provide planning assistance and support for the November 2010 CAPAY youth symposium. Molly developed several grant proposals that are pending review.

Molly’s organizing and facilitation with these other Asian American youth programs led to the creation of a Steering Committee (SC) representing the Asian American Civic Association’s Youth Center, the Asian Community Development Corporation’s A-VOYCE, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center’s YouLead, and the Chinese Progressive Association’s Chinese Youth Initiative, along with CAPAY. This is an unprecedented accomplishment in terms of Boston Asian American community youth capacity-building and provides an organizational framework to foster programmatic collaboration and coordination, shared research and advocacy, and joint grant submissions.

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.

Assistant Editor and Curriculum Coordinator

VISTA Name: 
Danielle Martin
Program Start: 
8/2005
Program End: 
8/2007
Project Description: 

A VISTA will help coordinate the variety of content that supports the CTC VISTA Project and that the Project produces for the community media and technology fields. This position provides an excellent environment in which to develop professional editorial skills in various media. This VISTA will serve as Assistant Editor of the Community Technology Review

As specified in this year’s project basics (www.cpcs.umb.edu/vista/projectbasics.htm), all organizations participating in the VISTA Project will be required to do some work in one of four areas (community networking, community organizing, technology assistance to nonprofits, and digital media for youth). Nationally known experts will be coordinating each of these areas. The Curriculum Coordinator will work with these experts to develop curricular material to be used for people with interest these areas and for the College’s Community Media and Technology program.

Project Outcome: 

In her capacity as Assistant Editor of “The Community Technology Review” (www.comtechreview.org), Danielle ably undertook a wide range of responsibilities including taking over the reins from the previous Associated Editor and completing all organizing and author communication already in the works, coordinating sections and writing a substantial number of articles for the fall issue. She oversaw the development and production of the online version, dealt with university printing services in arranging for hard copy printings, and did author/contributor follow-up. Following this, she was helpfully involved in working with the Advisory Committee in undertaking future planning, and when the decision was made for the publication to go on hiatus and be replaced in the interim with the Project newsletter/report, she accepted oversight responsibility and published the first issue (see www.cpcs.umb.edu/vista/newsletters) in its entirety. She has followed this up with taking primary responsbility for planning future issues for the remainder of the project year, including coordination with the Priority Area Coordinator materials, as that dovetails and integrates with her work with them in developing curricular material for the project that can be integrated with the College’s Community Media and Technology Program (www.cpcs.umb.edu/cmt). In addition to these things, she has proved to be a key and invaluable member of the project leadership team at office headquarters.

Danielle serves as liason between the Community Media and Technology Program curriculum building efforts and the VISTA project’s content focused learning groups. She has been extremely effective in working with faculty in curriculum design, making real connections between the field work of the VISTA’s and the CMT curriculum. She has also worked to assist me in the Tactical Media project, a project-based learning initiative of the program, in coordinating planning and research, presentations and communications flow for the project. She has also taken the leadership in creating and presenting a number of new media workshops, digital storytelling, for example. Along with her VISTA partner, she coordinated a digital media mini conference for students, faculty and staff. Danielle has undertaken extensive curriculum research for a study on community media our program is doing in conjunction with the Benton Foundation, as well research for the development of future courses in the College of Public and Community service. Danielle has performed at a very high level of thoughtfulness and strategic insight. Danielle has made an enormous contribution to the CMT program’s development.

Danielle has quickly become an important part of the Project headquarters team. She has shown admirable persistence in her efforts to draw some useful ‘curriculum’ from busy VISTAs and under-utilized ‘priority area coordinators.’ I actually think that she has accomplished more in this area than she gives herself credit for– mostly through her exchanges with VISTAs in the field but also through her (and Shannon’s) efforts to get VISTAs involved in workshops and events related to the CMT program. She has in some sense become an unofficial VISTA leader through here extensive contact with VISTAs across the country. She has also done a good deal of evangelizing for the Project– a number of new organizations will be applying as a result of these efforts. She’s a gifted/natural-born communicator and that’s just so helpful in so many ways.

Transmission Project