Use of This Guide for Trainers, and for Fund-raising!
This guide is specifically intended to be used as a customizable resource for citizens helping citizens to understand their own full potential using Internet tools and resources. You’re invited to customize any part of this guide, and the matching web pages, to make them more relevant for your local community and culture. The entire 146 page word-processing downloadable WORD ’97 formated file is listed at the top of the online table of contents at: http://lone-eagles.com/guide.htm
The type of workshop that would generate the greatest general interest in any community would demonstrate how anyone can use a digital camera to take their own pictures for their own web page. Each workshop participant would enjoy the hands-on experience of taking their own pictures and perhaps also their first web page incorporating these images!
Beginning with demonstrating various ways of digital storytelling, and demonstrating how easy it is for anyone to create their own web page is a good way to begin. A digital art tablet should be demonstrated to show how anyone can easily create amazing digital art using the computer’s ability for special effects, regardless of one’s art talent or training. Wacom ArtzII art tablet from http://www.wacom.com and Painter software from http://www.metacreations.com .
A $99 MIDI musical keyboard (Yamaha PSR 140 from http://musiciansfriend.com would demonstrate the amazingly affordable musical capabilities now available and how music can be added to web pages, and/or self-published through the Internet, even for beginners.
Leading with Digital Art, Music, and Photography
to Promote Gender Equity
Digital art and music applications are likely to attract a broader segment of their communities than would be attracted to computers and Internet alone. This will increase gender equity and emphasize the full spectrum of individual and cultural self-expression options.
Digital art skills are now at the top of the list of employability skills. Digital music skills relate directly to multimedia use of audio in multiple formats, including Internet streaming audio and video. Via Internet, youth can now host their own radio stations and/or video broadcasts. Aside from these obvious and necessary technical benefits, digital art and musical applications are inherently motivating and represent the best of Internet for humanistic expression!
Workshop Presentation Tools and Resources
Presentation software, such as Microsoft’s PowerPoint, allows for attractive display of multimedia pages and speaking points. PowerPoint Tutorial http://www.actden.com/pp
An offline browser such as Webwhacker, http://bluesquirrel.com allows for convenient display of web pages and web sites. This is a tool designed to reduce the user's dependency on an Internet connection. Webwhacker downloads ("Whacks") single Web pages, groups of pages, or entire Web sites, including text (HTML) and images, and stores them on the local desktop. You’re able to browse these pages offline with instant display capability, ideal for presentations without worrying about the "World WideWait." It is easy to learn and use, too!
A Youth-based Community Internet AwarenessToday’s communities, and their diverse cultures, are faced with the urgent challenge to adopt Internet use for cultural and economic survival. Youth are the key change agents and technology leaders in all cultures and communities. Youth literally embody the future of their cultures and communities.
The missing component of most digital divide "solutions" is bottom-up validation by members of their respective communities, and cultural groups, as to the "real benefits for real people" from their own people. Digital divide populations need a process by which they assess and disseminate the best resources, training materials, tools, and practices, themselves.
It is now possible for those populations at the lowest levels of Internet literacy to leapfrog ahead by receiving, on an ongoing basis, the best, free online tools, self-directed learning resources, and practices, for collaboration, teaching others, storytelling, cultural expression, and Ecommerce.
This workshop model will demonstrate how youth mentoring skills, online and face-to-face, can become an immediate community resource, and can evolve into a genuine vocational opportunity, allowing youth to work locally to build a future for their communities and cultural groups.
Youth will host multimedia presentations for their communities and cultural groups showing those Internet applications which produce "Universal Social Benefits" to allow their people to protect and empower one another.
Examples of how local individuals are helping each other, and supporting their families, communities, and cultures, will be celebrated and made accessible via Web Tours which youth will maintain as ‘living’ documentation of Internet applications for self-empowerment and mutual support.
Youth from multiple cultures and communities will share the goal of simultaneously creating global resources for youth in the 15,000 cultures worldwide which will be receiving Internet access within the next 10-20 years in a world where today less than half the world’s population has made a first phone call.
Digital Storytelling to Raise Awareness
A youth-based "train-the-trainers" program would kick-off with a one-day workshop demonstrating how local youth can integrate public web-based storytelling with community Internet training while raising awareness of successful, replicable, home-based E-business models by showcasing local examples, along with their own skills for creating additional successes.
Youth would partner with local elders to create multimedia presentations including original digital photos and web pages representing local needs, and web-based applications aimed at meeting those needs. Where possible, digital art, music, and photographic applications will be highlighted as these are the most motivational applications for the most people.
The goal will be to generate community awareness, excitement, and the motivation to innovate locally using newly available tools and capabilities. These community multimedia presentations could be shared with other community teams via Internet as files, or as "live" webcasts. Digital Storytelling http://www.storycenter.org/storyplace.html
Citizen Engagement, Training, and Community Publishing
Local youth teams would establish basic community web sites and maintain hot-lists of the best training resources, and local E-business successes. Included would be a community talent database as a topical listing of those with local expertise who have expressed a willingness to mentor others online, and/or offline. Youth would assist citizens to develop their first personal resource web sites, to include digital photos, to allow them to share their knowledge and willingness to mentor others on specific topics. Article: http://lone-eagles.com/mentoring-mission.htm
About.com, http://about.com , is a commercial model where human mentors are available free along with their topical resource collections!
A social recognition program for celebrating achievement of those successive empowering skill milestones that allow local people to empower themselves, and others, will be created with emphasis on active mentoring relationships.
Summative listings of the best sites for community education, including family, parenting, and kids resources, will be made conveniently available on the community web site with the explicit invitation to link to citizen’s personal or topical web sites.
Youth teams would be provided with a robust "starter-set" of customizable community training materials, (as represented by this guide and the associated hyperlinks to additional resources,) resource web pages, grant templates, a community network plan, and related planning resources.
Evaluation Methodology
Social recognition for those who contribute their time, knowledge, and skills for the good of the community would be a key means of documenting the level of success of this project; measured by the number of people involved in sharing a measured number of specific skills, with an emphasis on viewable web-based results and resources.
Minimal Equipment Needs to be provided by local Sponsors
Loan of 1 laptop, multimedia projector, a digital camera, and appropriate software (roughly $800) in return for which youth-led teams will host a recommended minimum of six two-hour community presentations, over a six-month period. Presentations would be conducted in as many different community gathering places as possible, raising awareness and demonstrating the potential for local youth to serve as community trainers helping others replicate successful web uses and businesses.
An ideal model would be for a bank, or local business, to sponsor loan of the equipment
to be used by a minimum of three youth teams:
*One team to learn and demonstrate digital photography and video technologies,
(Use of digital cameras, digital video cameras, and Adobe Photoshop)
*A second team to learn and demonstrate use of digital art tablets and web-based
audio and musical applications, (Painter 5, MP3, MIDI applications)
*And a third team to demonstrate presentation software incorporating the above
multimedia technologies, such as PowerPoint (presentation software,) WebWhacker (offline
browsers for web presentations,) and ClarisWorks (or similar web authoring software.)
The Key Objectives of this program are to:
More resources on the topic of youth training programs are at http://lone-eagles.com/youth.htm