Open Minds with Open Source, a Midtown Community Literacy Partnership

Requested amount from Knight News Challenge: $350,000

Expected amount of time to complete project:

Total cost of project including all sources of funding:

Describe your project (1800 characters):

The open source ethic, under the aegis of social technologies/services and web 2.0, has been instrumental in growing a cultural, creative, and data commons that has reanimated the original democratizing force of the internet. Open source today is a description of this cultural shift from consumption to participation and production. However, technology has notoriously been distributed differentially along the related axes of race and socioeconomic status, and our proposed project, which will network Mt. Zion Human Services (MZHS), the University of South Florida St. Petersburg (USFSP), and local public schools, seeks to leverage web 2.0 to facilitate community (user-generated) responses to the challenges currently facing Midtown St. Petersburg. MZHS, established in 1983, provides a continuum of services to children, youth, families, and adults in need to serve and strengthen its’ local community. MZHS serves without regard to race, gender, economic circumstances, or religious preferences, providing preschool, before and after school care, summer camp, boys and girls scouting programs, a youth drum line, adult basic education, life skills development, literacy enhancement, tutoring, and affordable housing programs to Pinellas county residents. Recently, MZHS established a partnership with USFSP to establish a Community Literacy program that will give the youth of Midtown exposure and instruction in computer technology. In phase one, USFSP-engineered Linux-based thin-client environments running opensource software and services will supplement our small group tutoring program and after school program. Through mentoring and collaboration, phase two will establish community literacy projects and a transferable public domain opensource code/knowledge base that can be sustained by MZHS community and exported to neighboring community centers and schools.

How will your project improve the way news and information are delivered to geographic communities? (750 characters)

While our project seeks to establish a positive mesh of cultures - local, university, and open source, the impetus is not strictly pedagogical or research-based. Our goal is prevention of risk behavior by creating a sustainable learning and human services approach that will help Midtown, St. Petersburg and other similar communities overcome staggering demographic factors such as school & academic failure, under & unemployment, high crime and violence rates and overwhelming poverty. We will offer accessibility, training, mentoring, and support to hundreds of youth who would otherwise have no exposure to this technology. Users will generate locally exigent print, radio, and journalism pieces in traditional and web 2.0 formats.

How is your idea innovative? (new or different from what already exists) (750 characters)

While proprietary software is a business model, open source software is connected to a real culture of learning and networking that promises to easily coordinate with values of a civically-engaged university (USFSP) to affirm and amplify already existing cultures and practices in Midtown. At the same time, in an effort to invtervene on Midtown's poverty, violence, and illiteracy, we hope to introduce and inculcate new forms of community literacy vis-a-vis wikis, social bookmarking, and the tools of multimedia composition made available in every Ubuntu distribution. Coordinating college students and Midtown youth in a mentoring environment promisies to render responses to immediate problems and create an innovative mesh of creativity.

What experience do you or your organization have to successfully develop this project?

Through a partnership between Mt. Zion Human Services, Inc. and University South Florida, St. Petersburg, there is an abundance of human and intellectual capacity to implement this project within Midtown, St. Petersburg as well as the ability to ensure replication in other similarly challenged communities. Pat Fried, the Executive Director of MZHS, has over 20 years experience in developing and implementing educational and prevention programs for delinquent and at risk youth. In addition, in her previous position as Vice-President of Quality for a 90 million dollar nonprofit company, Pat provided oversight and support for the development and implementation of an electronic clinical record to be used by over 400 end-users across nine states. Pat's expertise in community-based programming coupled with her knowledge of technology will ensure that efforts all are coordinated, community partners are established and technology supported to ensure that the Midtown and other disadvantaged youth benefit from this project. Dr. Trey Conner, assistant professor of English at USFSP, researches technologies of communication, collaboration, and education, and pays special attention to the way communities of writers share and transform information and ideas. While completing his Doctorate at Penn State, Trey was a fellow of the Leonhard Center Technical Writing Initiative, tutored in the Writing Center, and consulted for the Lionshare peer-to-peer software development project. At USFSP, Trey's grant-supported Distributed Learning Project has established a Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) learning module tuned for use in education and community centers such as MZHS.

fodder for reference, linking, and expansion

We will provide 4 multi-purpose open source LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) networks on a safe and neutral community environment (crucial and invaluable real estate in the neighborhoods surrounding our center) where creativity and learning can flourish. Alternative approaches to solving problems and stoking creativity are welcomed and nurtured at Mt. Zion, and established journalism and radio broadcasts will

-proximity to JHOP

-using FOSS (free and open source software) and Ubuntu Linux server software networks, build and expand upon existing radio and print journalism

-writing components:

pen pal programs: within Mt. Zion, between schools and across neighborhoods,

these 1-to-1 communication practices can be expanded into community writing projects via mentoring + social media (wiki, twitter, youtube)

While our project seeks to establish a positive mesh of cultures (local, university, and open source), the impetus is not strictly experimental, pedagogical, or research-based. Indeed, our main goal, in light of the trends and policies centered on risk and p, is to create a sustainable learning and human services atmosphere that will help Midtown address the following major problems:

• Midtown is a 5.5 square mile area located at the core of St. Petersburg. It is home to over 30,000 residents, 92% of whom are African-American, 45% of whom live below the poverty line.
• Unemployment is more than two times the citywide rate, and nearly 60% of the City’s welfare recipients live in Midtown. The average household income is 53% of the citywide average.
• An overwhelming 40% of families with children are lead by single women, and 54% of households have no husband present.
• Crime rates are far higher in Midtown than other parts of the City or in Pinellas County. Midtown’s dominant zip codes 33705, 33711, and 33712, (Mt. Zion Human Services targeted service area) account for the highest number of delinquency referrals in Pinellas County to the Florida Department for Juvenile Justice.
• The problems significantly impact the educational performance as well as 83% of Midtown’s 12th graders failed to pass the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in Reading; the failure rate was 74% in Math (Source: Pinellas County, FCAT Scores).
• According to the 2000 Census, 37% of adults in Midtown did not complete high school. Pinellas County School Board reports that only one out of four African American Males graduate with a high school diploma.

-the "mesh" of cultures (local: at-risk community known at Midtown St. Pete, university: usfsp, opensource: ) is the innovation. While proprietary software is a business model, open source software is connected to a culture of learning and networking that promises to easily coordinate with values of a civically-engaged university (USFSP) to affirm and amplify already existing cultures and practices in the Mt. Zion area as well as stopping the perpetuation of poverty, violence, and illiteracy . This mesh of communities promises to create new possibilities and make a difference in Midtown.

program overlay (mesh of cultures):

-getting the draw to the center, giving the kids access, via open source, a common platform to all 3 commons i our mesh

-coordinating college students and Midtown youth in a mentoring environment

-exposure to mentors=exposure to ideas, attitudes, and styles of learning=opening young minds to new possibilities, such as college=teaching and inculcating community literacy vis-a-vis wikis, social bookmarking, and the tools of multimedia composition made available in every Ubuntu distribution.

this program overlay is essential to our long-term social goals: reducing risk factors and increasing protective factors in Midtown

-this project is designed to be sustainable beyond the grant period. Because the goal and ethic is open source (an ethic most famously compressed by Eric S. Raymond's share early and often mantra), i.e. because our entire project including documentation necessary for duplication will be in the public domain, our projects will be exportable to other neighborhoods and contexts throughout St. Pete.