Community Networking.. Week Two
Larry Tague (ltague@physio1.utmem.edu)
Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:06:13 -0600 (CST)
Community Networking Participants,
Some of my quote marks "" in the following did not transfer correctly.
Please forgive me, but I am just too tired to correct it. Anyway the
"meat" is what is important...
> Lets talk about the value of community networking as it relates to
> educational reform.
> But first lets understand what we mean by educational reform, and when
> and where this
> might should occur. I am going to make a few statements related to
> potential concepts of
> educational reform as it might relate to community networking. Some of
> these statements > you might agree with, and for others you will, or at
> least could have major objections.
Well I suppose you would like for me to answer some of my own questions.
So here goes.
> 1. Community networking that provides store-front computer network
> access
> contributes little if anything to foster educational reform. Public
> access to networked
> computers without an educational objective is of no value.
Of course, I do not completely agree with this statement. However, there
are problematic areas which need to be watched closely. Educational
reform must start somewhere, and sometimes free and open access to
something new, in an unstructured environment, is the best place. Problems
arise when this access is unstructured to the point that very little
useful learning occurs. Lots of civic minded groups are now into
community networking to various degrees, and sometimes they are counter
productive to the needs of the user. As an example (my co-moderator may
want to jump into this since she has worked directly with this group) The
Boys and Girls Club of America (BGCA) recently installed eight computers
in one of their facilities not far from the MECCA training center in
LeMoyne-Owen College. A group of these BGCA attendees from the Girls
Academy were originally attending the MECCA training sessions where a
rather structured learning environment exist with a full-time teacher.
Opposed to this is a very unstructured game playing only environment at
the BGCA. Some of the kids frequenting MECCA in the past have now decided
that game playing without the teach is a lot more fun, and that the only
thing that they really desire from the computer is its ability to function
as a sophisticated game machine. These children are learning to use the
computer in one sense, but in another there is very little useful
learning. In addition, at one point six of these eight machines were
disabled primarily as a result of their unsupervised use. Even if we were
inclined to provide more unstructured time with the MECCA machines, we
cannot afford to see our investment misused in this manner. I suspect at
the BGCA success is partly body count, and that in itself does not produce
progress, and by taking these children away from a learning environment,
in one sense, they are not being attentive to the best interest of the
children or the community. MECCA fully intends to keep its eye on the
educational needs of the community relative to utilization of its
resources.
I think it is now time to start organizing this and similar fragmented
efforts to maximize the outcome. Hence MECCA will document these groups as
best we can, and then call an alliance meeting with all these groups
included to discuss various issues surrounding community networking. Our
NIE hat will be worn in these meetings to assist educational reform
efforts where direction is needed.
> 2. Community networking should be separated from formal educational
> institutions.
> Collaborations with schools are counter productive for community
> networking because
> schools have been one of our worst examples of how computer mediated
> communications (CMC) can best be used. For that matter schools have
> been generally
> unimpressive in the use of any communication technology (Washington
> Post, Oct. 27,
> 1996 - Larry Cuban - http://www.mecca.org/~ltague/PITTCONF/niiteach.html
).
> Community networking has little if any value to our schools.
I will discussed the various implications of an article by Larry Cuban via
an html link. Please refer to this for a more complete discussion. --
coming!
> 3. Community networking has the potential of including knowledgeable
> segments of our
> population in educational activities who would otherwise be left out.
A good example of this statement relative to our programs is the Senior
Citizen / K-12 Connection. Seniors represent a valuable segment of our
educational community. However to tap this resource, you must either move
the senior to the children or the children to the senior. We have
discovered that by utilizing our network infrastructure we are able to
facilitate an educational collaboration between children and seniors. We
have found that the best formula for this interaction is a mix between CMC
activities and in-person activities. Our seniors have been working with
these children to produce web based materials, entered some of their works
into web contest for children, and they are in the process of organizing
educational adventures for the children via the network and on-site field
trips in Anthropology. Watch the MECCA pages for these upcoming projects.
> 4. Due to the dynamic constantly changing landscape of politics,
> community networking
> enthusiast should avoid all forms of political involvement
> (collaborations) with those
> institutions who are associated with local governmental agencies that
> require an ongoing
> relationship for community networking support. Local political support
> is often a two
> edged sword.
Even if you become politically "snake bit" as a result of
political-collaborative efforts, it is important to re-group and try
different approaches to obtaining political collaboration. Yes our MECCA
collaborations have most often had two sides -- our agenda and their
agenda. The idea when possible is to get the two sides to cooperate such
that combined resources and human efforts are not counter productive. All
parties in this business of NIE have territory both in a physical and
cyber sense. If you dont think this is correct, then either you are not
doing anything in a community environment, you have no territory of your
own (highly unlikely.. not human), or you just havent managed to step on
another persons territory yet. This political aspect of our NIE agenda is
probably our most difficult work.
> 5. Providing computer and networking infrastructure should not be part
> of the NIE
> objective. Only those institutions or groups who currently have a
> computer infrastructure
> should be targets of outreach. Our NIE computer networking programs
> should only
> provide the connections and functional support and nothing more.
A mix is in order here. Economically depressed areas of the community
would receive little or no networking infrastructure if we confine our
resource support to networking as in running the cables alone. The
community learning center model that we have tested with our senior
residential center network has become a model for the HUD Neighborhood
Network Program (http://www.hud.gov/nnw/nnwindex.html). Having network and
educational resources combined at central ACCESSIBLE locations relative to
HUD assisted or public housing areas (Campus of Learners -
http://www.hud.gov/nnw/campus.html) is of the utmost importance for the
purpose of using our NIE programs to inject systemic educational reform.
MECCA has formed community alliances with the Neighborhood Network efforts
in Memphis. Not only have we received private foundation funding for
expanding our current models (senior residential) into community network
learning centers, but we are also collaborating with ALCO (for profit
housing management company) and the Neighborhood Christian Center
(community assistance and tutoring) to bring connectivity and hopefully
educational reform into HUD (for profit) low income housing at two Memphis
locations which serve a total of about 1200 children.
Another good example of the community networking model would be the
MECCA/TIIAP/Mid-South United Way partnership to provide social service
information in conjunction with the city of Memphis Family Community
Centers. Three networked computer resource centers will be provided
through these efforts.
Please note that the above description provides for a partnership of
community effort, and includes both computer and networking infrastructure
modeling with our NIE resources.
Now where computer and/or networking infrastructure already exist, our NIE
resources can become more fruitful in less time and with less expense.
Hence we should never shy away from these opportunities. What we provide
relative to our networking efforts should be aimed at educational reform.
A good example of this approach would be our work to provide network
connectivity for the NASA Aviation Academy 2000 Program at Wooddale High
School in Memphis (NASA funding has provided for the network connection at
the high school side along with about eight classroom of computers). MECCA
has provided professional development through training the trainer efforts
with the director of this program, Internet connectivity via an ISDN
connection to the MECCA server and web server space.
> 6. The primary value of the NIE community networking program is
> associated with the
> models of functional educational reform that are established through our
> efforts. Only
> when these models are expanded and implemented community-wide can we
> deem our
> efforts successful.
I firmly believe that this statement is fundamentally sound.
Sustainability depends on this expanded community implementation with
verifiable results.
We are presently working to expand our teacher development summer project
by pairing summer k-12 students (Young Memphis Scholars - URL:
http://www.mecca.org/~ltague/SENIOR-K12/senior-k12.html) with teachers
from the same schools and classrooms (Fall 1997) to teach methods of
network utilization for classroom delivery and facilitation
(http://www.mecca.org/~ltague/annapp.html). This is a new model which we
hope will be expanded in the same way that our senior citizen - k-12
teacher model has been expanded
(http://www.mecca.org/~mpatton/kpals.html). As mentioned earlier our
Senior Community Learning Centers
(http://physio1.utmem.edu/HUD/SENIOR_PROJECT/ ) are expanding. This last
URL needs to be updated to include our foundation funding.
Please do not forget to continue with the above discussion and include the
following:
WEEK TWO:
Relationship to educational reform
Linking community activities to educational goals
Technical infrastructure requirements
Thanks for your attention to these issues, and please contribute a little,
my fingers are getting tired!
Larry
Larry Tague
Co-Director of MECCA*
Research Associate Dept. of Physiology & Biophysics
Phone Bus.: 901-448-7152 U.T. Memphis
Phone FAX: 901-448-7126 894 Union Ave.
e-mail:ltague@physio1.utmem.edu or Memphis, TN 38163
ltague@mecca.mecca.org
*MECCA (Memphis Educational Computer Connectivity Alliance)
URL: http://www.mecca.org/