Month 9: Curriculum & Program Development

Through March-April, a very intense month, I guided several initiatives to create new training programs for youth and adults, to build volunteer activities at the IMC, and to make general improvements to our facilities. The most involved of these is the Champaign, IL Don Moyers Boys & Girls Club (DMBGC) Teen Computer Lab project, a partnership between the Boys & Girls Club, the Independent Media Center, the University of Illinois, and the local, private computer consulting firm SupporTech. During the first month of planning, the partnering organizations agreed to a vision and mission for the new computer lab and training program to be offered by the DMBGC, which will be an ongoing program available to youth ages 6-18, throughout the year. The IMC has led the development of surveys, curriculum, and budget, informing the design and staffing being organized by the other partners. Our Program Development Intern Jason Keist wrote the surveys to assess the children's experience and interests, and I have been composing the lab budget and compiling a variety of technology and media tutorials and activities, all of which will also be stored with the IMC as documentation.

Along with IMC member Danielle Chynoweth, I presented a workshop on producing radio news for Free Speech Radio News (FSRN), a grassroots independent half-hour newscast available online and syndicated to over 100 stations worldwide. Please see the attachment for the training guide I wrote (geared towards Audacity, though any audio editor is appropriate). Anyone can pitch a story, headline, or feature to FSRN, and once you produce the content, FSRN pays you and includes your piece in one of its daily newscasts. I strongly recommend that other VISTAs encourage members, customers, and trainers in your organization(s) to learn and participate in FSRN as a resource for citizen journalism, media reform, smearing the digital divide, and earning income for a job well done.

I also participated in a roundtable discussion on social media presented at the University of Illinois by Chicago's Community Media Workshop (CMW), a group devoted to training news producers and journalists, and strengthening ties between media and populations in Chicago and the midwest. I recommend CMW as a useful resource to anyone working in these geographic areas. They inspired me to create a Twitter account for the IMC - simple, but necessary.

Spring was productive in even more ways at the IMC, and I organized three volunteer workdays - one for the Shows/Booking group to troubleshoot, repair, and re-organize the PA, mixer, stage, and cables; one for WRFU 104.5FM to produce new station IDs and clean and paint the studio; and another for just plain spring cleaning of the building. Along with volunteers in the Librarians and Tech working groups, Nicole and members of the Community Connections group, I setup a staffing desk with a computer workstation, IMC merchandise tables, and staff storage space in the entry to the main space of our building.

For the Production group, I offered three more workshops on video editing, wrote Terms of Use and Borrowing for our production room and public equipment, and upgraded one of our video workstations with funds we raised during the Film Festival. Finally, following Nicole's hard work to obtain summer youth (ages 14-24) positions at the IMC through the Champaign Consortium, I defined one of the positions, a WRFU Audio Trainer and Archivist, who will join us soon to produce regular on-air content, update our public affairs automation, train members on live and studio broadcast, and archive our existing audio materials.

And then there was all the planning for another major fundraiser, the IMC Fest... (see next month)