Google Fiber's Digital Inclusion Fellowship: First Year Results & Introducing Year 2 Fellows
Staff Report From Metro Atlanta CEO
Wednesday, August 17th, 2016
From a local perspective, fellows in Atlanta trained 135 residents per month -- more than any other Google Fiber city -- on basic computing skills and more than 200 staff and volunteers to become instructors. Atlanta hosted three fellows during the first year:
- Maithri Vangala, TechBridge: After kicking off participation in the inaugural cohort of the NTEN Digital Inclusion Fellowship Program in July of 2015, TechBridge initiated the digital inclusion pilot program, a nine-month program which partnered with five nonprofit organizations to increase digital literacy and broadband adoption in Metro Atlanta. The programs targeted adults in digitally divided communities. TechBridge supported each organization during these nine months with training and resources to begin digital literacy programming for clients. At the conclusion of the pilot program, the five participating agencies decided to sustain the benefits of the project through a Digital Inclusion Network. By participating in this collaboration, the partnering agencies agree to engage in a series of activities that will focus on identifying existing barriers to partnership development and information sharing, understanding the effects of the digital divide in their clientele/communities, establish best practices for implementing the digital inclusion service model and identifying ways to partner with and empower youth and families.
- DeAndre S. Pickett, Literacy Action: During the 2015 Digital Literacy Fellowship with Literacy Action, DeAndre enhanced the organization's academic program by not only creating curriculum for Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced classes but also developing a Train the Trainer toolkit, which was used by participating nonprofits, organizations and the other two Atlanta fellows, that presented best practices on how to provide effective instruction to participants and how to provide adequate training to volunteers and staff. De'Andre also implemented a student mentoring program that encourages students to help each other while learning the material themselves. Through alternative learning methods including distance learning, differentiation and curriculum compacting, classroom enrichment infusion and practical technology applications, De'Andre has equipped local teachers with how to be more proactive and innovative in their engagement with students.
- Aneta T. Lee, City of Atlanta Parks and Recreation: Lee successfully implemented ongoing computer literacy trainings and leveraged the relationships with her Fellow colleagues to implement a basic computer literacy curriculum to provide digital inclusion training to the Recreation staff members. She also created a partnership with the City and a local nonprofit organization to provide ongoing technology training to the recreation center's senior citizen programming. Aneta also established a mobile (portable) technology lab that will provide relevant internet training to communities outside the recreation center's walls.
In year two, the Digital Inclusion Fellowship will pair 22 people with local community organizations in 11 cities, where they’ll spend a year creating and helping to lead digital literacy programs.
In Atlanta, the fellows will work with PowerMyLearning and Literacy Action. Our fellows are Felicia Tillman, a second-year PhD student at Mercer University, and Rondalene Wright, a University of Phoenix graduate. Tillman will be working with PowerMyLearning and Wright will be supporting Literacy Action.
We’re also sharing the Digital Inclusion Toolkit, which includes case studies of fellow work guides for organizations looking to join the digital inclusion movement.