|
Creating
an Information Commons
November 26, 2002
On
November 26th Jasmine Brennan and Shaun Devaney, Humboldt
High School students and members of the Community Information
Corps presented their work to the Saint Paul School
Board.
School board members were duly impressed. The support and
encouragement of Saint Paul School Board members was
great
recognition for the young people who worked to make this
contribution to their community.  School
Board members commented that to have a strong sense of
civic engagement, young people need to have intersections
between their in school and out of school lives. They noted
that the Public Achievement work at Humboldt High School
through the JROTC project built an important foundation
for CIC efforts. The board was impressed with the results,
a comprehensive learning needs assessment for the West
Side Community. Several board members thought mapping results
could be useful in other Saint Paul communities as well,
particularly for Community Education work.
The
excitement for the community mapping project has been contagious.
Even though there were technical difficulties in showing
the
PowerPoint presentation, the presenters continued with
professionalism and ease. The support from the Humboldt
High School community
was also clearly represented by the presence of the principal,
Steve Lindberg and the JROTC/Public Achievement director,
Lt.Col. Howard Johnson. At the end of the presentation,
Jasmine
Brennan remarked: "Up until now, I was having a really
bad day. This made my day. We should do presentations all
the time." The CIC members have discovered that making
public work public can be invigorating and refuels their energy
to continue.
The
Community Information Corps project is an intersection of
several CDC projects, including Public Achievement, the Neighborhood
Learning Community and the Jane Addams School for Democracy.
The overall goal of the CIC is to provide a neighborhood information
commons that brings youth together to use technology for public
work. For more information, visit the evolving CIC website
at: www.westsidecic.org.
|
