SUMMARY: COMMUNITY NETWORKING
Larry Tague (ltague@physio1.utmem.edu)
Wed, 2 Apr 1997 21:50:24 -0600 (CST)
SUMMARY OF COMMUNITY NETWORKING DISCUSSIONS - Larry Tague
Before I begin to summarize, let me thank all of the participants who have
provided commentary to this discussion, Rashidah Hakeem - Co-Moderator,
Chris Hasegawa, Bob Carlitz, Nora Sabelli, Dave Farley, and Kathy
Schroerlucke. In particular, I applaud the efforts of Bob Carlitz and
Lauri Maak for their untiring efforts to keep the "discussion balls
rolling". This is not an easy task.
"It Takes a Village"... even though this book title has been over used in
many context, it has functional aspects relative to community networking
and networking infrastructure for education. As I summarize the
information provided during the past two weeks+ of discussion on the
subject of community networking, it will become evident that all of the
different subgroup discussions have included various aspects of community
networking. In other words, it takes a community along with community
networking to provide effective networking infrastructure for education.
I have perused all of the e-mail sent to the different subgroups for
references to community involvement in their discussions, and it is
curious to note that much "community networking content" has been injected
into almost all of the various subgroup discussions.
I will proceed with this summary by outlining the issues for discussion
and
including excerpts from the various discussions when appropriate. These
excerpts
are in quotes with the author's name in (). Unquoted information I have
provided.
Please excuse me if I have misquoted anyone.
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VALUE OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT:
I tried to "bait" this topic discussion by volunteering a few statements
related to various aspects of community networking, and I asked that an
aim be taken on educational reform. On the basis of commentary submitted,
it is abundantly clear that without community involvement, you cannot have
effective community networking.
"building of community is really what is needed to have
successful educational reform." (Chris Hasegawa - COMMUNITY NETWORKING)
Building community by networking community for their potential involvement
will produce value-added interactions with many segment of the community.
As Chris pointed out, the best way to get the community involved is to
involve them with the technological utility of the program.
"A strong collaborative project, pulling diverse elements of the community
together to aggregate demand for telecommunications services, is often the
only way to convince providers to bring access into rural areas." (Aleck
Johnson - COLLABORATION)
This is valuable for community networking in the sense that the political
forces of the community help add computer and networking infrastructure.
At the end of 1996 we extended our collaboration to include the Bath
Schools. We are currently working with a number of community groups to
have other collaborations - the businesses in the community, the
municipalities, the Navy Base and others. These collaborations take time
to build and each has different needs." (Ann Adjutant - COLLABORATION)
Indeed, it does take time to build community collaborative involvement.
They must first understand the value of community networking before they
might want to become involved in the NIE process.
LINKING COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES TO EDUCATIONAL GOALS:
This is a natural link, but with the "control" desired by educational
institutions this can at times be a difficult "hat trick". Here in
Memphis I have excellent relationships with the teachers that I am
currently using with my senior-student projects. They understand the value
of the senior population, contributions that they can make to the
education of their students. However, these activities have now extended
beyond the school and teachers. The parents are now involved, and they are
very excited about this program.
Our community networking with the HUD Neighborhood Network program will
again combine community networking with educational objects for the
seniors as well as additional K-12 students.
Our association with the TIIAP program to establish three learning centers
in the Memphis Family Life Centers will also have an educational object
for all members of the family.
"The National School Network is a community of over 400 organizations -
schools, institutions, government agencies and corporations who use
networking in support of systemic change in education at local levels."
(Melanie Goldman - COLLABORATION)
"Collaboration was key to my teaching in Bowdoin, as my 3rd grade
colleague and I integrated an archaeological project across the
curriculum, taking the kids out into the community and bringing the
community into the school." (Jim Moulton - COLLABORATION)
This project based linking of community elements to education is an
important example of how to link community to education. Direct community
involvement in terms of "participating in the process" is what is needed
to support the linking of objectives.
"The Math Forum is endeavoring..... We're trying to form a community in
which all these groups have good opportunities to interact both internally
and across groups. We have interactive volunteer-driven programs for
students" (Gene Klotz - COLLABORATION)
"Networks are already helping teachers and students extend their reach far
beyond the classroom. To create these kind of opportunity for all
students, the collaborative spirit that has energized the connected few
must spread to parents, communities, businesses and other institutions.
The result will be producing students better prepared for work and
citizenship in the twenty-first century." (Mavis Green - COLLABORATION)
The primary educational goals of most communities center around preparing
the student to be an active and beneficial member of society.
Collaborative community networking enhances the learning environment of
many students and allows them to more readily link to the educational
goals of the community.
"The use of the network is both the object of the National School Network
research and the medium for our collaboration. 1) As research the NSN is
looking at the role of school-community collaboration in implementing
school reform and use of the Internet. We have come up with 8 types of
school community collaborations - project-basedlLearning with the
community as an audience and resource, school to work experience,
community service learning, community members as volunteers, leadership
roles for schools, community education, family-school connection."
(Melanie Goldman - COLLABORATION)
"My own example is my NSF project, The Well Connected Educator. It's an
online publishing center for K-12 teachers and others (administrators,
parents, community members) to write and talk about using technology for
teaching and learning." (Gwen Solomon - PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT)
Open communication is one of the keys to linking the community via
community networking to educational reform. Community network based
e-mail and chat groups can help establish community links to education.
"The foundation is this passion; the curiosity for learning that must be
shared, nurtured and valued by student and teacher, community and family.
With that 'how' in place, adding in the wonderfully powerful and creative
content becoming available online, just imagine what will happen." (Jim
Moulton - PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT)
GROUPS TO INVOLVE IN COMMUNITY OUTREACH:
Don't leave anyone or any group out of this community networking process.
You never know at the beginning of the project(s) the potential value of
the various elements. Actively solicit community groups. Prepare
demonstrations and talks that can be used with a variety of community
groups. Sustainability of community networking will depend to a large
extent on your efforts toward community outreach.
"we have made efforts to involve as many groups as possible, and then
community based organizations, parents and parent groups, and school staff
people sort of self selected to become heavily involved at the beginning."
(Chris Hasegawa - COMMUNITY NETWORKING)
"Collaboration meant an attempt to involve the community through
volunteers." (Barry L. Chad - COLLABORATION)
Investigate every potential volunteer. If they decide to become heavily
involved, they become valuable assets to the program.
"Our particular network is called: The Community of Learners. Our network
is more than a school-to-school network. We are currently in the process
of finding ways to have community members involved. We have been engaging
in conversations with a variety of community groups to see what kinds of"
(Ann Adjutant - SUSTAINABILITY & INSTITUTIONALIZATION)
"The experience of Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh (http://www.info-ren.org/projects/ckp/)
and Bridging the Urban Landscape (http://www.info-ren.org/projects/ckp/ and
http://www.info-ren.org/projects/btul/exhibit/exhibit.html) suggest that collaboration
is a key element in facilitating the optimistic view of community
networking." (Bob Carlitz - COMMUNITY NETWORKING)
TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE REQUIREMENTS:
Technical infrastructure requirements vary. However, any community
networking group should be prepared to handle a variety of networking
needs depending on the network demand at a particular site. What you
provide can be as simple as voice mail, or it can be as network intensive
as distance education using interactive video. Be sure that your technical
infrastructure has been well thought out relative to specific task.
Sometimes it is necessary to provide both the network infrastructure as
will as the workstations to make the network connections. Keep it simple
at first. Failure "in a big way" is no fun. Technical support at each site
is essential. Recruit teachers or community volunteers who can be trained
to help with technical management.
"I am also the principal investigator on an AT&T funded project where we
are
trying to build a learning community by providing computers, phone lines,
and
a voice mail system to the families and teachers of an inner city school
in San
Francisco." (Chris Hasegawa - ASSESSMENT AND EVALUTAION)
"Through community grants, scoping the district storerooms, and sheer gall
I
was able to amass eighteen relatively powerful computers. I cleaned out
the back storage room and developed the Application Center." (Don
Livermore -
CONTENT)
"At each school or community site we have tried
to encourage the development of a group of people knowledgeable
enough in the use of the technology to teach their colleagues
how to use it and to provide the first line of maintenance of the
network and attached devices." (Bob Carlitz - SCOPE AND SUPPORT)
GAINING POLITICAL SUPPORT:
The political arena is the most difficult relative to community
networking. We
work with very diverse groups.. sometimes competing for the same support.
Don't
get your program caught in political stereotyping. Stay neutral on all
community
issues except the need for community networking. Political support can be
obtained via mutual collaboration between your community networking group
and
outside groups (schools, etc.) who can work together on various project
which
have common interest (grant proposals, etc.). Political alliances through
collaboration can help assure sustainability. Actively pursue positive
public
exposure through the news media. Public knowledge of your purpose and
future
direction is important in the process of obtaining both political and
additional
collaborative support.
"Political support is very important. The building of a community really
requires buy in by all of the players, and to get that commitment, you
need to make sure that the political pieces are in place before you start
any project." (Chris Hasegawa - COMMUNITY NETWORKING)
"Additionally, there are groups of people who are so suspicious of any
official "government-like" entity like a university that they shut down
when we try evaluative or assessment activities and although we've used
community members as interviewers, we've had a terrible time connecting
meaningfully with some folks, particularly in the inner city and language
minority populations." (Chris Hasegawa - ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION)
"Collaborations seem to be encouraged by funding agencies--more bang for
the buck--but they are also ways of establishing community and
relationships. In some senses, accomplishing a project is only secondary
to those contacts that emerge from doing a project." (Barry L. Chad -
COLLABORATION)
"It may be impossible to create formal alliances between school districts
and units of government which compete for tax dollars with these school
districts." (Bob Carlitz - COMMUNITY NETWORKING)
"But through community collaborations, new forces emerge to assure that
network resources will remain available in the district." (Bob Carlitz -
COMMUNITY NETWORKING)
"As parents and community groups become knowledgeable about the
technology, they begin to seek it out at the school level. Principals
learn that both parents and teachers support this effort, and they, too,
begin to support it. More importantly, they begin to use the technology
themselves to communicate with these groups, which play an important role
in neighborhood politics." ((Bob Carlitz - COMMUNITY
RELATIONSHIP TO EDUCATIONAL REFORM:
Community networking produces positive educational outcomes resulting in
reform when established models can be extended locally and/or nationally,
and be used by the educational mainstream. Reform in schools is indeed a
community responsibility, and community networking has assisted this
process by providing CMC between educational and community programs with
common interest. As Bob pointed out in the last quoted statement under
this issue, use of successful technology leads to educational reform. Our
projects in Memphis have experienced successful utilization of technology
for our ISDN connection to two high schools, three model computer learning
center projects with seniors, one student/adult learning center at
LeMoyne-Owen College, computer workstations at ORDIS (GED Program), and
server and network configuration for supporting these various sites.
"In my mind the true test for successful dissemination is that products
are getting used by other than project participants in both the local
community(first goal) and the national community(or even international)."
(Kurt Maly - DISSEMINATION)
"The students then have the opportunity to legitimately work as novice
scientist and engineers, so they have the opportunity to learn to work as
scientist and engineers. This "learning to work" on meaningful projects,
with a real audience, using appropriate tools, within a community of
learners/scientists/engineers seems to us to be one of the most important
"contents" enabled by curricular reform and a technology infrastructure."
(Jim Laffey - CONTENT)
"Reform in schools is a community project. It is also a greater community
project - the state and the nation. One teacher in one classroom doesn't
make reform happen - but two teachers in a building is a beginning. By
working with teams of teachers in school buildings and community members,
reform is possible." (Ann Adjutant - SUSTAINABILITY &
INSTITUTIONALIZATION)
"We've also been trying to establish small communities within the schools
and complexes (a high school and the intermediate/elementary schools which
feed it), and then weave these groups into a statewide community of
learners and resource people. A few of our key strategies have been:
Help the community understand the bureaucracy so they can set up their own
learning environments." (David Lassner - SUSTAINABILITY &
INSTITUTIONALIZATION)
"We have attempted to forge connections between communities of different
role groups that hold different perspectives with diverse ways of
knowing...teachers, administrators, university researchers, students."
(Ellen Miyasato - SUSTAINABILITY & INSTITUTIONALIZATION)
"The optimist: What counts in the effective use of technology by any group
is an adequate understanding of its potential. In this sense any project
involving technology implementation necessarily becomes an educational
project. Furthermore, since technology - and particularly networking
technology - is a potent agent for change, successful projects involving
technology implementation are agents for educational reform." (Bob Carlitz
- COMMUNITY NETWORKING)
FUTURE RESEARCH:
"We must build on ongoing achievements, and engage in "action research""
(Nora Sabelli - COMMUNITY NETWORKING, ETC.)
Kathy Schroerlucke points to "participatory research methodologies" for
new research in the realm of Community Networking.
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Hope all who are traveling to Pittsburgh have a great trip. See Y'all
there!
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/