The Education Connection Project
Administration & Partnership
Coordination, Partnership & Dissemination
Approach: The WHYY Education Connection Project requires a substantial number of dedicated partners. When done properly, the number of simultanous events provide a true scheduling challenge. Starting with the Delivery of tons of computer equipment, to the scheduling of many simultanous parent orientations, to the delivery of computers during weekend computer trainings, it is important to bare in mind that administrative assistance and a functioning corporate administrative infrastructure is a necessity.
Partners: WHYY, Public Allies
Partnership Activities: The most valuable asset of a Public Broadcaster is its brand equity. It allows us to be trusted and to pull together partners in, at times, untested ventures. The Education Connection Project required the partnership of many organizations who were willing to go along in large part because it was WHYY. The process of partnership development is always time consuming and unending. In each of the Education Connection components, there are partners that need to be kept informed.
The first partner approached was the Internet Provider. Internet access must be reliable and it is the single biggest cost of the project. But key to the selection of the first partner is someone who will have a similar interest in the local community and the success of the individuals in that community. In some communities is might be a college or university. In others it might simply be a school. But important to keep in mind is that the organizations should be able to act and make decisions quickly. The process of building, delivering, supporting, training, and adapting content in order to enhance academic performance changes every year because of the technology. An organization must be able to able to act with the speed of a for-profit while keeping the mentality of a not-for-profit. It is estimated that partnership development accounts for as much as 20% of the managers time.
This coming year the Education Connection Project will be participating in the following partnership activities:
- The Education Connection Project will continue to work with the City of Wilmington and the School District of Seaford as test-sites. In addition, there are also schools interested the Philadelphia School District and there is also a community center in Delaware that has expressed interest in the project. Throughout the course of the year, we will be investigating these and possibly other opportunities.
- The Delaware Education Connection Project will continue its conference calls with the other National partners each month. In addition, the National partners will meet two times this coming year.
- The Education Connection Project is also investigating the use of non-school community organizations as a way of delivering standards-based academic content to students. By delivering computers and tutoring services to members of community centers and other non-school based community organizations, it is hoped that we will be able to provide an alternative method of enhancing student academic performance.
Coordination Actvitites: One of the biggest surprises of the project was the amount of coordination that was needed to plan and implement so many events at so many schools. The key to understanding this is to keep in mind that because there are so many aspects of the project that are new to everyone involved. Most schools have no mechanism of handling these events and the planning of these events falls on the project coordinators. For example, for every classroom of students, there is a summer assembly and configuration program, a September parent orientation, an all-day computer delivery and training session, bi-weekly student support and training sessions, monthly teacher professional development sessions, monthly technical support supervisory sessions, 2 family outreach technical support sessions, and finally an end of year family and computer return event. It is estimated that coordination accounts for as much as 50% of the managers time plus the time of an administrative assistant. Dispite the workload involved in coordinating this project. It is believed that by replicating this project within one region, economies of scale can be realized and costs can become significantly lower on a per person basis.
In additon to the activities mentioned above, the Education Connection Project will be participating in the following partnership activities this coming year:
- A listserv will be created by DCANet to keep project partners informed of project activities. In addition, meetings will be held on a regular basis in conjunction with the five teacher meetings.
- Project events will be included in quarterly reports. Furthermore, explanations will be given for any activities that are not being completed as planned, or have been determined as unsuccessful. In addition, we will be creating a web site with a project calendar in order to facilitate better project coordination as resources allow.
Project Buildout & Information: In order for people to know about the project and in order for the project to grow locally, some attention must be paid to the creation to such things as a brochure and web page. The Education Connection was able to produce a web page and brochure, but only after 4 years of experimenting with the project and changing information around on an almost daily basis. For those of you not familiar with developing a new project. Expect and budget to create and re-create informational literature several times before getting it "right". In order for the Education Connection project to finally get it "right", it was necessary to acquire the services of an Intern from the University of Delaware and a Delaware Public Ally.
This coming year the Education Connection Project will be participating in the following partnership activities:
- The Education Connection is expected to finish a draft of its website/manual by the end of this summer.
- The Education Connection will continue to enhance its brochure.
- The Education Connection has begun and will continue to video some of its events in order to better document what is happening within the project.
Timeline Project Admininstration - Coordination |
Before July |
Set up staff listserv Get all contracts signed |
July/August |
Build Computers |
September |
Parent Orientation |
June |
Student / Parent Final Event Sell computers and pickup the rest |
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Page last updated on 08/13/00
Send comments to the Education Connection Project Director, Jay Cohen
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Table of Contents
Title Page
About the project
Low-Cost Home Technology
Workforce Dev. Technology Support
Standards-Based Content
Administration & Partnership
Coordination & Dissemination
Evaluation
Project Links
Calendar (in development)
Tech-Support (in development)
National Project
Project Materials (in development)
Student Pages (in development)
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