Connect To College Now!HEC Symposium

June 10, 2013

Tom Miller, OneCommunity

Wanda Davis, Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center

Samantha Schartman-Cycyk, OneCommunity

Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center (ASC³)

• The mission of ASC³ is to bridge the Digital Divide gap in our inner city communities by addressing the technology needs of mature and older adults with limited income via education, resources and training through technology literacy and access to technology.

OneCommunity

• OneCommunity is a non-profit Internet provider who provides broadband for Northeast Ohio public schools, hospitals, libraries and government entities. Part of our mission is to advance Northeast Ohio’s economic development by expanding high-speed broadband access to improve health, education and government services.

Connect To College Now!

• Coalition of 7 partners• Served over 400 low-income families• 6 month period• Increase the ability of CMSD parents to support their

child’s college and career planning.

Building On a Track-Record of Success!

• Connect Your Community• Knowledgeable partners, solid partnerships• Dependable resources• Supportive funding• Proactive research design• Open-source tools

Connect Your CommunityOneCommunity’s CYC Project, a Sustainable Broadband Adoption

initiative supported by an $18.7 million Federal broadband stimulus grant, helped more than 33,000 disadvantaged residents of

Cleveland, Detroit, Appalachian Ohio, and five other communities to cross the broadband divide between September 2010 and

December 2012.

This includes more than 7,000 newly connected residents of Cleveland and East Cleveland.

CTCN Partners (in alphabetical order)

• Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center• Cleveland Housing Network• College Now of Greater Cleveland• Esperanza• Mobile Citizen• OneCommunity• RET3

Alignment of the project to partners capacity and mission

• ASC3 – Training• CHN – Training• College Now – college prep resource planning• Esperanza – Training• Mobile Citizen- low-cost broadband• OneCommunity – Project leadership• RET3 – refurbished computers

Resources

• Free Computers– Refurbished computers from RET3

• Low-cost broadband– Mobile Citizen

• Incentives turn into investments

Supportive Funding

• Time Warner Cleveland City Council Neighborhood Technology Fund – (Cleveland Foundation)

• Evaluation generously funded by Hobsons

Proactive Research Strategy

• Pre and post program survey• Google Voice tracked participants• Phone survey conducted on program

completion• Moodle (MySql database) recorded basic

contact and demographic information

Leveraged open-source tools

• Dropbox• Google Voice• Survey Monkey• Low-cost webinar technology (Glance,

Loopup)

• Moodle• Edmoto

ResearchThe combination of home broadband, a

computer and hands on training position a parent for better communication with their child’s school and ability to utilize online

supports like Naviance for career and college planning.

Foundational Research

• K-12 Survey – Conducted as a part of the Connect Your

Community project.– 456 Cleveland and Akron parents of K-12

students were surveyed

Foundational Research

• Cuyahoga County Survey – Commissioned by the Connect Your

Community project.– 261 Cuyahoga County parents of K-12

students were surveyed• County parents are 20% more likely to have a

broadband connection in their home than non-parents!

About the CTCN Survey

• 467 total Cleveland residents participated in the program

• 215 completed surveys – (46% of all program participants!)

• 115 K-12 Parents– 63 high school parents (8-12)

• 100 college-bound adults

CTCN Survey Findings

• Before having Mobile Citizen Broadband in their home, 74% of all survey respondents said that the primary way their child accessed the internet was through the library.

Respondents: Parents of High School students (8-12)

41.3%

14.3%

30.2%

14.3%

How much time does your child spend online researching col-lege or career opportunities?

1-3 hours a week

3-6 hours a week

6-10 hours a week

My child is not researching college or career path

CTCN Survey Findings

• With many libraries putting time limits on computer use, students without home access are at a disadvantage compared to their more connected peers.

CTCN Survey Findings

• Only 24% of students in grades 8-12 live with an adult who has been to college.– Less than half of these adult completed their

degree

CTCN Survey Findings

• 98% of high school parents surveyed report that their student is interested in going to college!– 76% report being interested in a STEM field

CTCN Survey Findings

• Only 14% of High School parents are aware of Naviance Family Connection– An online software package for supporting a

student’s college prep activities.

BUT…..

• 100% of the parents that ARE aware of and have used the tool rated all components of the software 5 out of a possible 5 (1-5 rating scale) rating!

Survey Summary

It’s about opportunity and awareness.

ChallengesOpportunities for improvement

and collaboration

Outreach and Recruitment

• Multi-modal approach to program engagement– School Board, student, and community presentations– Student events– Counselor meetings– Principal meetings– Leveraged partner communication channels– Word of mouth (Parent to parent)

Program Design

• Scheduling– Flexibility is a must!

• People have many motivations• Aligning people’s needs to the program

mission.

Challenges

• Limited (and complicated!) access to parent groups

• Affordability continues to be a challenge• Meeting the needs of parents multiple

literacy levels (language AND digital)• Buy-in from local leadership (City, County,

school)

Challenges Continued…

• Partnering with organizations with similar objectives

• Incentivizing parents

Lessons Learned• Choose the best fit partnerships • Create Awareness before service delivery• Find the value of being • Create relationships with the principals and

instructors• Parents need incentivizing • Increase awareness among policy makers• Find the best marketing venues in advance of

program rollout

Next Steps

• Recruiting is still a challenge• Need additional research to determine

how to reach the target audience• Opportunities to replicate this program are

still available

Contact Infoo Ashbury Senior Community Computer Center (

www.asc3.org)o OneCommunity (www.onecommunity.org)o Connect Your Community (

www.connectcommunity.org)

o Wanda Davis (wdavis@asc3.org)o Samantha Cycyk (sschartman@onecommunity.org)o Tom Miller (tom.miller@onecommunity.org)