Background

Family and community bonds are weakening. The technology gap between us is widening. And our schools and day-care centers have, in many cases, become the institution that gets the blame for the failures of an ailing community. Ultimately, many people feel the benefits of living in a community are inaccessible to them. The Education Connection Project seeks to provide a comprehensive approach to improving our communities by focusing on Community Service, Technology, Educational Enhancement, and Service Learning. By focusing in and around the schools as a basis for closing the technology gaps that separate us, we are on the road to building a better community for all.

This year, every student in 5 classrooms in Delaware received a completely refurbished multimedia computer to take home that included Microsoft Windows98 and Microsoft Office along with an Internet and email account from DCANet. As in previous years, the computers are built with new and used components with the assistance of The Philadelphia of School District's Urban Technology Project and Americorps' KickStart Program in Delaware (two technology related service learning programs in this region). In order to take advantage of this technology, the students received custom lessons developed by The University of Delaware Math and Science Education Resource Center, and technology training by WHYY's Electric Schoolhouse. Lastly, Public Allies of Delaware will be working on ways of involving the families in this new school-based and virtual community. After the year is completed, the families will be able to purchase the computers that have been in their home for a fraction of the true retail value. By offering the computers for sale at the end of the year, the project is able to provide an inexpensive yet comprehensive program that provides and supports computers with Internet access to all families regardless of income, race or even past student performance. With continued assistance from organizations within this region, the Education Connection Project is on its way toward a comprehensive approach to addressing the problem of the digital divide.

But the successful delivery and support of technology into the homes of all Delawareans is not the end but only the beginning. The sad truth about our society is that even though laws are in place to insure equality, everyday, people are discriminated against and feel that they are powerless to economically and socially participate in their community. The result is that even if everyone could afford the new emerging technologies, many people wouldn’t participate because they consider themselves "outsiders". This valuable human asset is forever lost to our society.

The digital divide is in fact, not the problem but a symptom of a larger political problem where large groups of people have come to believe that they are outsiders living within the geographic boundaries of someone else’s community. We only have to look at voter registration between black and white communities to see evidence of this disparity. While the Education Connection and others continue to work on the successful delivery and support of technology (a necessary part of the solution), this project proposes to investigate how this technology can be used to increase economic, technology and social participation by all groups within our community.

Concept

Over the past 3 years, The Education Connection Project has investigated an online question and answer technology that can be used to provide inexpensive large-volume technical support. The concept is that people would be asked to post answers to online questions. In exchange for good answers, questioners and information seekers would be asked to say "thank you". For every "thank you" received, an online advertiser would send a coupon for goods and services to the Answerer. As designed, the site would provide large-scale technical support access to thousands of students across the region.

But the Question, Answer and Thank You system has its greatest potential in the realm of community participation. The site could be expanded to include offering answers to questions concerning social services, parenting or even medical advice. In fact, the design lends itself to the delivery of any kind of information and allows anyone to ask questions as well as participate in the formation of the answers. Because the system rewards good answers in the form of coupons, everyone can gain monetarily by sharing their own expertise on any topic.

Ultimately, people will increase their economic, political, and technology participation when they perceive an economic benefit in doing so. The delivery of services and information already represents over 50% of our country’s Gross National Product and information delivery alone is expected to grow to over 50% in the next 20 years. The Question and Answer forum will provide a powerful economic incentive to both adopt the new technologies as well as increase their participation in the community in which they live. The result will be a more empowered, economically prosperous and stable community.


Plan

The Education Connection Project has already begun the process of developing the Question and Answer technical support web site. In December, the Education Connection Project paid approximately $1300 for books and software necessary to begin the process of developing the site. Beginning in January, five of the high school students and Americorps Volunteers involved in the Education Connection Project will start developing the site as part of their ongoing educational and service learning experiences. The plan is to continue meeting every Saturday through the end of 2000.

To continue with the development of the site, we will need funds for additional equipment, software, instructional materials and possibly instructors. None of the developers will be asking for any funds for salary. The following is an estimate of the project costs:

Over the course of the next 6 months, the team will be working on the simplest design involving technical support. By December 31st 2000, the project expects to have a prototype that includes multimedia discussion with the ability to receive coupons for every "thank you" on almost any topic.