Teen Tech Team
Submitted by admin on Thu, 2006-04-06 15:49.
Prairienet, a unit of the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Greater St. Mark COGIC and Computer Village, a nonprofit training organization has formed a partnership known as the Teen Tech Team. This project is designed to address the technology literacy needs of youth in East St. Louis (metro east area) Illinois. There has been significant interest by local youth in developing hard ware skills. There are currently no instructional programs of this kind in the area. As Prairienet (through LIS 451) develops more and more public access computer labs and the Digital ESL Collaborative continues to distribute more used computers to the homes of low-income families, the need for hardware repair will increase. The intent of this project is to teach youth hard ware skills that they will in turn use to repair and upgrade computers in the community.
The Teen Tech Team is a program that targets youth between the ages of 14-18. These youth are provided instruction in hardware skills. They learn hardware repair and upgrade. They learn how to build and repair computers. They also learn software applications and diagnostics. The intent of the program is to develop skills in the community that can be returned to the community in the form of a computer repair service. The youth will continue a program begun by Prairienet whereby used computers are distributed to low-income families. Prairienet and Computer Village will contribute donated computers to the program. The youth will recycle the computers and distribute them to the community.
A second feature of the program is to introduce the youth to entrepreneurship and business. The youth will be taught how to start a for-profit business. The youth will be assisted in developing a business plan. The business will address the need for repair and upgrade of computers in the community. As the number of computers in the community increase, the need for low cost computer repair will be crucial for low-income families.
A third feature of the program is to introduce the youth to possible careers in technology and future education at the University of Illinois. Youth in the program will have the opportunity to visit the university with tours of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, the Computer Science Department, the College of Business and NCSA, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. To facilitate an introduction to technology and job possibilities, the program will also include mentoring and job shadowing with professionals in the technology field.