Transmission Project

Since Sam’s arrival, we have put a radio station on the air and are also streaming on the internet. We have undergone several rounds of training, preparing youth and adults to participate as music hosts and news reporters for the station. Sam has been involved in all phases of this process, helping to build the infrastructure, train radio staff and conduct outreach.

Sam also assumed partial responsibility for starting “The VIllage,” a weekly meeting of youth and staff that allowed for wide-ranging discussions of issues important to the Zumix community, Also, he was the key link between Zumix and the B.U. School of Digital Imaging, which resulted in a video documentary on Zumix. This video has already proven to be an effective outreach and fundraising tool for our organization.

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/

Angela’s accomplishments included the development of a 100- page curriculum unit that included a Teacher’s Guide and a Student’s Guide for middle school students (8th grade level) on hydrogen fuel cells and engineering design technologies. The development of the curriculum unit was the stepping stone to establishing stronger relationships with institutions such as the Boston Renaissance Charter School, the Boston Public Schools, and the Roxbury Community College.

The development of this curriculum unit was just the start of several initiatives designed to share the knowledge of this technology with students, teachers and young adults. Angela had the opportunity to teach the unit to an after school class with students enrolled at the New Beginners after school program at Roxbury Community College (RCC). The after school program reinforces environmental technology education at the community level, where students from 13 to 16 years old learn about clean energy technology.

Diliana’s background in communications has only strengthened her contribution to UTEC by focusing on increasing the capacity and sustainability of our multimedia programs through various development-based responsibilities. She also works with and trains teen leaders of the Fundraising Team in all aspects of their development work. In addition, she assists with the program development in the areas of video production, sound recording, and web design. It is obvious what a tremendous asset Diliana is for our organization, but it is also apparent that Diliana herself has grown professionally from the hands-on development work of our multimedia programs. She plans to continue this type of work well into the future.

Diliana has played a major role in being an active participant in the organization’s overall development. She has consistently supported her co-workers, emphasizing the team environment at UTEC. Diliana has the skills to bring an idea to life. For instance, UTEC’s first major fundraiser will be taking place early next month. Diliana worked with teens in the Fundraising Team to gather ideas/themes for the event. Since then, she has developed and followed a timeline to make the event a future success!

Diliana has accomplished the following major tasks as based upon her workplan:
• Completion of first-ever UTEC newsletter (second issue now in progress)
• Just recently completed first-ever Annual Report.
• Completed three monthly Open House Nights (and built a system for carrying out this work).
• Developed new mailing list for all fundraising activities.
• Secured donations from various businesses as part of program ads for newsletter.
• Completed and submitted various grant applications (as well as grantwriting training course).
• Developed new bios for all staff.
• Currently documenting all work as part of a new Fundraising Resource Guide.
• Currently planning a special event fundraiser to support a new capital campaign.
• Interviewed and hired teen fundraising staff.

A pretest and post-test was implemented during the first section of CLICK, which underscored the need for CLICK and the quality of the lessons. The pretest/post-test was a shortened version of the skills portion of the North Carolina Computer Competency Exam. The mean score on the pretest of the students who completed CLICK was 22.5%, with a high score of 49% and a low score of 6%. Coming into CLICK the students were lacking the most basic of computer skills. The mean score on the post-test of those same students was 74.3%, with a high score of 89% and a low score of 60%; a drastic improvement. On an individual student basis, no student increased his or her score by less than 32 percentage points. With a mean score increase of 51 percentage points, it is clear that CLICK is both needed and effective.

Some of Chad’s major accomplishments have been that he successfully introduced the program to Lyon’s Park Community Center; revised all of the lesson plans and oversaw the development of new lessons for the younger audience at Lyon’s Park; completely redid the website; instigated the donation of computers from the Franklin Center to Rogers-Herr; put together background and procedural information for future coordinators of CLICK; instigated a relationship with Gary Ybarra in Engineering, which resulted in $5,000 worth of support in the form of assistant coordinators; and successfully set up the program for next year (so the transition is as seamless as possible).

The relationship between CLICK and the Rogers-Herr after-school program has changed in the past and most likely will change in the future. During the first semester of CLICK there were two sections meeting twice a week. One section was for students enrolled in the after school program and one section was for students who were not part of the after school program. Attendance for the after school section was very poor while attendance for the non-after-school section was good. This was caused, at least in part, by changes in after-school administration and staff shortages at Rogers-Herr.

1. Regional Web portal: our Vista, Pat, and I worked with our teen web programmer, David Wiles, to complete the site’s functionality and design. The site went live in mid-September. Pat issued a press release which resulted in at least three stories and recruited two youth to staff a table at our region’s largest fall festival, which was attended by over 10,000 people. Since then, Meanwhile, Pat and several youth work continue to research, gather and enter content. We have a bevy of volunteers, including a disabled YES alumni, Alan, who works at our wheelchair desk two afternoons every week, gathering web addresses for the 975 business and organization listings in the site’s directory. In November, Pat forged a partnership with two town-specific websites (OrangeTownGreen.com and PetershamCommon.com) to collaborate on soliciting site sponsors from among the region’s business community. Our site now has 22 sponsors, who pay $225/year, which is split between YES and our partners. The funds are helping recoup some of our development costs and in future will create a revenue stream to sustain the site. The site has over 75 registered users and is growing.

2. IC3 & MOS: Pat contacted CertiPort and registered with them to become a training and certification site. She helped our TechVenture! teaching team incorporate IC3 into this 16-hour youth computer training program, which was offered last June. Pat raised over $500 in cash and in- kind contributions from local businesses towards the cost of the program. We also investigated funding through the Verizon foundation and through the state employment and training consortium. Pat also solicited in-kind contributions of computer hardware (two computers, miscellaneous parts, a network switch) and eight task chairs for our classroom. She also helped streamline the operation of our weekday Teen Cyber Cafe by having youth and adults create user accounts (sign an agreement of terms and conditions, etc.), with account settings that protect the computers from viruses, etc. There are now 125 registered users.

Will assisted with the completion of the Spring 2006 class by helping to organize the graduation screening. Shortly before that screening, Will recruited students and professional filmmaker mentors for the Fall 2006 class, which began in early October 2006. The Fall 2006 class has now graduated (as of March 28, 2007) and again Will assisted with the organization of the graduation screening, our longest and best attended yet. This past winter, Will again recruited students and mentors, from regular partner schools and new partners, for the Spring 2007 class.

The Reel Impact program has been completely overhauled with Will’s input and support into a series of workshops and working meetings on distribution and outreach for graduates of the Lab. He has been in charge of distributing our films over the web at four different partner websites - including Reel Works, ListenUp!, Uth TV, and AOL. Will has been releasing a new film (from our library of over 100 films) every two weeks and last year we had over a million viewers of our work! Our first Master Class, a yearlong advanced film production class, was recruited for and began in the late fall. Will is currently arranging specialty workshops such as screenwriting and lighting for film for the Master Class students.

Our first ever benefit was held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in November 2006, and Will contributed to the creation of the “Labumentary”, a film about Reel Works’ mission, for the benefit screening. He also coordinated our student workers for the evening, who were charged with selling tickets for and running the raffle at the benefit reception.

This spring, we are in the process of strengthening our recruitment efforts with our partners at local schools and non-profit organizations. Will is part of the team who is meeting with these partners, educating them fully about our mission and requirements and developing deeper bonds in order to reach more students who might be interested in our programs.

All of these activities that Will has been in charge of and assisting with are directly affecting the ability of Reel Works to reach more and more of New York City’s teens who are interested in developing critical thinking, media literacy, self-esteem and relationships with professionals in the field of filmmaking.

Lauren has been an integral part of ensuring a year- round, sustainable youth media program. She has been developing policies, researching, compiling content for the Youth Media Block and leading several of the outreaches and youth- media classes. The VISTA has also been vital in assisting the Education Coordinator with her duties such as classes, curriculum development, and community outreach.

This year we had a number of major accomplishments with AJ McGuire, including establishing a new course at the Social Justice Academy called Committee, that has added a core of projects for teens to complete in after school. After school projects for example, are incorporating Action Research principles that allow students to examine issues such as Global Warming and it’s impact on energy consumption and lifestyles, and equity in education in the Boston Public Schools and at the Social eeJustice Academy. The after school Mosaic program screened their videos for the entire student body in March, and we continued to make connections with new teachers and students both during school and after school. We have increase the number of teens participating in After School to 17. Our program has expanded to three full days per week. Two of our teens from the Social Justice Academy After School continued to work in our Summer Intensive at the Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN) in the Mall of Roxbury, where AJ was the lead program developer. Working in teams of 5 with three other team leaders, AJ helped to develop the curriculum, developed a web site workspace where projects could be posted and created a web based project tracking system based on the Drupal programming language.

Both of our VISTAs have been very dedicated and resourceful in supporting the media lab after school initiatives. They have found themselves being passionate about our mission to help teens develop creative, multidisciplinary media and education projects that foster teamwork and communication skills, community building, insight into critical issues, and ways to express those issues to others.

Kevin increased the number of teens participating in after school to 30 and cemented our relationship with Xavier Rozas, the media teacher at the school. We have developed a new curriculum, created a prototype blog and self paced instructional web site, with project and management support for volunteers and have introduced new technologies such as Live Type, into the after school lab space.

We have also initiated a new internship program for our teens which will begin this Fall at the Schattuck Hospital and we have developed internship agreements with Harvard University and Emerson College. Our e newsletter contacts have increased by 1,000 names. Kevin completed a manual for new employees and volunteers at HOME, Inc. to help new volunteers and VISTAs to more easily integrate themselves into the programs at the media labs. Both of our VISTAs have been very dedicated and resourceful in supporting the media lab after school initiatives. They have found themselves being passionate about our mission to help teens develop creative, multidisciplinary media and education projects that foster teamwork and communication skills, community building, insight into critical issues, and ways to express those issues to others.