From Free Press:

May 12.2009
Clyde's of Gallery Place, 707 7th St., NW
Washington, D.C.

"The second in a series on 'Spending the Broadband Stimulus,' will consider one of the leading definition questions that remains to be defined by the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the FCC, and the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service: Who is served by broadband, and who isn't.

BroadbandCensus.com announced that Rep. Rick Boucher, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee, will speak at the Broadband Breakfast Club on Tuesday, May 12, 2009. read more...

Free Press spotlights the urban digital divide as the FCC considers national broadband plan

This is very timely as CCTV and its community partners discuss ways to expand the Digital Divide pilot project launched in Newtowne Court last year.

check out the Digital Divide blog and this Free Press video.

Stimulus could revitalize muni Wi-Fi, other stalled projects

Colin and I walked over to Newtowne Court today to look at the signal - it was strong outside and in the Pisani Center - any of you residents want to let us into your apartment so that we can see how it is inside? We have heard feedback that the signal weakens in the evening, which is when more people are sharing the bandwidth. We put up a splash page to let people know they are using Cambridge Public Internet, and how to contact us - looking forward to some feedback on that, too.

Hope to see you all at the next meeting of the Digital Divide Committee on March 18th at City Hall Annex....lots to talk about!

This week I was finally able to get to the business of reaching out to our participants in the Digital Divide project and offering some new opportunities for further training. With all of the necessary preliminary work done and a better awareness about how things work here at CCTV I was able to implement everything in the form of direct contact with those we are hoping to help. I left many messages, got a few call backs, and ended up talking to a handful of people one-on-one. Most seemed very enthusiastic, and there were a few that asked to view the upcoming schedule. The most common concern, of course, was having the time to devote to such an endeavor. Hopefully they will be able to find time in their schedules to come and learn more about media-making as a next step towards producing their own media. read more...

On June 2, the city is hosting an event at City Hall to celebrate the success of the digital divide pilot program.

During the event, students at Rindge School of Technical Arts who refurbished the computers and provided technical support for participants, as well as the collaborators who worked so hard to design the program, will be recognized for their contributions. We also welcome participants from Newtowne Court who participated in the program to attend the celebration.

(photo above by Elizabeth Thomsen available under a Creative Commons license)

I. Preliminary Post-Assessment Results

• Competency numbers (comfort with use of technology, etc.) are higher than pre-assessment
• 6 people out of 25 responded that they could not connect to the wireless network at Newtowne Court. But the call center has since worked with them.
• Most people felt that they received enough training, however people who had little or no training coming into the program responded that they did not receive enough training from this program (committee agreed that three trainings were not enough)
• However, a few people said they have sought extra training (e.g., at CLC) since the end of our training program.
• Most people said they would recommend the program to someone else

II. Call Center

• There have been the same two students every week running the call center, It’s been a learning experience. Students have been very responsive. Half of the calls coming into the center have been hardware related and the other half wireless/network related. Beginners (participants with less computer/Internet experience) were calling more.
• Call center students are both coming to ITD this summer read more...

Earlier this week, Gabriel Fishman treated fellow VISTAs to a rooftop tour of the open-mesh WiFi network at the Castle Square Tenants' Organization.

read more...

Today marked the final week of computer trainings at CCTV, as outlined in the program proposal.

8 more participants received their computers at the end of the training session today. However, many of the participants felt that more computer training would be very helpful. Particularly for those with little to no previous experience with computers and the Internet.

Therefore, I hope that at the Steering Committee meeting this week we can discuss ways to make sure that participants receive the additional trainings they need. As I'm sure others would agree, it's necessary that participants feel comfortable with their computers and confident that this program helped them get closer to achieving their stated goals.

(Photo above by Tim Plenck for CCTV available under a Creative Commons license)

It was another busy Saturday in Central Sq. this past weekend as our second week of digital divide computer training sessions continued. Here's a breakdown of what happened:

8 participants attended their first week of PC training at the Community Learning Center's Brookline St. computer lab.

14 participants attended their second week of PC training at the 119 Windsor St. computer lab.

5 participants attended their second week of Mac training in computerCENTRAL @ CCTV.

7 participants came to CCTV for a one time only two-hour PC training session. At the end of this session participants went home with their new (i.e., refurbished) computers.

It was a very successful day! I look forward to our 3rd week of trainings this coming Saturday.

(Photo above by CCTV available under a Creative Commons license.)