Transmission Project

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.

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.

Our VISTA, Caitlin Feeley, made significant contributions to our work. She created a youth-friendly ScienceQuest website including original graphics and content, and strived to keep the site accessible through engaging, youth-appropriate writing and valid HTML. She coached two ScienceQuest teams this year, helping students create their own projects on topics ranging from space to chemical reactions to the laws of motion. She produced and edited a digital video that we used to introduce our program to new coaches and coordinators at the 2004 CTCNet conference in Seattle. In addition to these major projects, Caitlin also provided day-to-day support for ScienceQuest by updating and maintaining our website, providing technical and other support to coaches and coordinators, writing correspondence, manuals, reports, and other materials, managing our listserv, and other administrative duties. If you would like to learn more about her accomplishments, we encourage you to visit her website at: http://www2.edc.org/sciencequest/vista/

http://thecsl.org had a plain design emphasizing casual pictures of people in my old MCSE classes. Erik’s graphic redesign, while not so flashy as to be hard to use, has a smoother, more worldly look.

Other improvements to the look of our site included:
• the random display logos and pictures from our sponsors.
• A RSS feed from slashdot. (headlines)
• XHTML 1.0 compliance.

We have increased our publicity through our VISTA’s work on designing our annual report, developing a template for our newsletter and designing our website. Dan Chen worked on the design and layout of the annual report which was published in December. The design was significantly more professional than in the past. It is sent out to donors and other interested individuals as part of our year-end donation appeal. This past year, the year end giving exceeded the amount raised in past years. Although we can’t determine if it was due to the design of the annual report, we did receive many comments about how well done it was. The Pui Tak Center has not had a regular newsletter for 7-8 years and has intended to restart it. Dan assisted in developing a design template. The newsletter will be mailed to supporters and donors as well as distributed in local churches. Dan has also begun work in redesigning our website. He has completed the initial design and site map. We are currently working on the content. After that is completed, Dan will work with a programmer to get the site up and running. All of these efforts improves our communication with current and potential supporters (donors, volunteers, etc.).

The Youth Media Institute and Electronic Community have had a very succesful six months, in no small part thanks to our two VISTAs, Colleen and Dina. Dina’s technical expertise was critical in determining what type of content management system to use in creating the beta site for Project: Think Different’s Electronic Community. In addition to driving the design of the site and the management of the forums and other features, Dina was active in training other staff members, including the Media Watch Team in using the site, so that they could share their expertise with other users and actively participate in the online community.

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.

Tony successfully created a project plan, lesson plans, program write-ups and evaluations for programs in the past year. These programs provide valuable skills to students in the following areas. Photoshop- design and tools, , Movie making, Robotics, Music Making, Diversity training, Literacy enrichment, Web Design, Graphic Design/Arts and the Techathalon (a state wide event). The Americorp Vista participated in outreach and recruitment with several community groups. He secured several donations for fundraising efforts through community relations he developed. During the past year, he visited the Young Champions program and urged them to participate in after school programs at the club site, greatly increasing the size and reach of our programs.