Digital Wish is extremely excited to be a partner in e-Vermont, the Community Broadband Project.  Over the coming months we will be working with leaders from participating organizations and exploring fellow 1:1 computing initiatives across the nation. This grant will empower us to bring 1:1 computing to selected classrooms throughout Vermont as a means to strengthen local communities and the state’s economy.

Overall, e-Vermont’s statewide partners will help local groups develop ways to take full advantage of the Internet for job creation, school innovation, providing social services, and increasing civic involvement. Digital Wish will provide essential training so that students, teachers, and parents can use the internet more effectively.  With sets of computers that travel from school to home, internet projects and community engagement will flourish.  When 21st century tools and teaching practices become an integral part of every day, at school and at home, student engagement, motivation, and participation rise across the curriculum.

In addition, by structuring the implementation of the program on the success of Digital Wish’s pilot schools, we will further refine a replicable model for school technology adoption that can eventually be utilized by schools across the nation.

Community, connection, and classroom learning are keys to a successful future, and effective internet use will create a generation of students who will form the basis of a new knowledge economy.

Digital Wish embraces this opportunity to help prepare students for the 21st century workforce and ensure future economic development. We are looking forward to working in classrooms with students, educators, and administrators, as well as with parents and communities. We will share everything we learn, and all the tools we develop, freely through www.digitalwish.org so that all school statewide and nationwide can benefit. We encourage you to contact us with any questions.

For more information about the towns involved and general info about the e-Vermont project please visit http://www.vtrural.org/

We'll see you in the classroom,
 Heather Chirtea
 Founder
 Digital Wish
 (802) 375-6721 ext. 202
 [email protected]

 Eric Bird
 Lead Trainer/Peer Coach
 Digital Wish
 (802) 681-8840
[email protected]

Digital Wish is proud to be a part of the Vermont Council on Rural
Development team helping to increase community broadband usage
throughout the state of Vermont. Our goal is to effectively manage the
education initiative,  stimulating increased broadband use throughout
the state by implementing 1:1 computing in area schools.

MONTPELIER, VT – e-Vermont is a new $4 million initiative to help
rural Vermont towns take full advantage of the Internet and advance a
wide variety of local needs including economic development, school
innovation, job creation, downtown marketing, community engagement,
and e-commerce.Two dozen communities statewide will be selected to
work with the new e-Vermont Partnership in a comprehensive effort
combining online services, training, access, awareness, and planning.

By reaching the bedrocks of Vermont communities—schools, businesses,
municipal government, libraries, health and social services
groups—e-Vermont will promote new collaborative efforts for
identifying and implementing previously untapped resources and help
our towns fully realize the potential of the digital age.

The e-Vermont project will learn from each of the selected towns and
share these best practices in the uses of digital tools through
symposia and conferences statewide.

e-Vermont is supported by a $2.5 million stimulus grant from the U.S.
Department of Commerce. Additional support comes from the Evslin
Family Foundation, Vermont Community Foundation, the Jan and David
Blittersdorf Foundation, UVM’s Center for Rural Studies, the Vermont
Rural Partnership and by donated services and equipment from Dell,
Microsoft, and Comcast.

Key to this major campaign is the new “e-Vermont Partnership” led by
the Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD). VCRD is a non-profit
organization dedicated to the support of the locally-defined progress
of Vermont's rural communities.

In addition to VCRD, the e-Vermont Partnership is made up of the
Vermont State Colleges, the Vermont Department of Libraries, the
Vermont Department of Public Service, Vermont Small Business
Development Center, the Snelling Center for Government, Front Porch
Forum, Digital Wish, Evslin Family Foundation and Vermont Community
Foundation.

Local committees in participating towns will work with VCRD staff and
the e-partners to customize a two year plan from a menu of programs
and services such as:

- e-government - training and consultation on podcasting, on-line
meetings, community scheduling, website development.

- Front Porch Forums that link neighbors to each other and to local services
Computer equipment and enhancement of e-services in libraries.

- Free Netbook computers for 4-5th graders and extensive teacher
training to imbed technology in the curriculum.

- Specialized classes ranging from basic computer literacy to advanced
applications to meet the range of community and business needs.

- e-commerce classes and one-to-one counseling for local businesses.

- Building community calendars, business directories, buy-local maps,
arts and crafts tours, sports schedules, ride shares, and a variety of
new locally-driven digital applications.

- Expanding on-line computer health information and opportunities.

- Expanding the use of web-based tools to facilitate community
engagement and advance locally-designed initiatives.

“The federal stimulus money provides a tremendous opportunity for
Vermonters to ensure that our communities take full advantage of
broadband technology, including advancing the bottom line of our
businesses,” said VCRD Executive Director Paul Costello. 

Vermont’s congressional delegates have been strong supporters of the
e-Vermont concept.  Senator Leahy pointed out: "The impact of
e-Vermont will yield both short-term and long-term community
development benefits, creating new jobs, educating children and using
technology to improve Vermonters' lives."

e-Vermont partners worked closely with Vermont’s stimulus office
through the application process.  According to Governor Douglas, "This
effort is a key part of the SmartVermont strategy. In order to reach
our goals in e-Education, e-Health, e-government, and e-Energy, we
need to remove all obstacles to Internet use for Vermonters. Even when
the problem of access is solved, other challenges like lack of
equipment and training remain.”

Municipal leaders and other local organizations that are interested in
having their towns apply should contact Margaret Gibson McCoy at VCRD
at 802-223-6091 or by email at [email protected].  Details on the
application process are posted at www.vtrural.org.

Written by guest-blogger, Christine Berg

Last spring, after a presentation at a staff meeting about the benefits of service learning in the classroom, I decided to design my own service learning project for my French IV class. I contacted a former French teacher at our school, who is Haitian, about partnering with a school in Haiti. My vision was that we would correspond with them via email and video, and organize a benefit to help them purchase whatever supplies they needed for their school.

I contacted our IT department to find out what video equipment we had available, and they advised me to request the Flip video camera from our librarian. My students and I fell in love with it the first time we used it. It was so easy and fun to use! I immediately decided to use the grant money that I had received for the project from NYSAFLT (the New York State Association of Foreign Language Teachers) to purchase a Flip video camera for our friends in Haiti. Thus began our correspondence. On January 12th of this year, a massive earthquake hit the exact spot where our partner school was located. We were beside ourselves with worry. We took up a collection at our school and raised $500 for them within a few days. After about a week, we had an email from one of the teachers saying that the school had been destroyed, and the whereabouts of many of the students were unknown. They were going to move their base of operations a few miles out of Port-au-Prince and try to set up a relief center there. We sent them the money we had raised, and set about organizing a benefit where we were able to raise an additional $2800 for them. A few weeks later, we received an email stating that the school was caring for 60 children with the money we had sent. The best part was the attached video (taken with the Flip video camera, which had miraculously survived the quake!) of the children thanking us in French for our support. This was an amazing, life changing experience, and would not have been nearly as meaningful without the Flip video camera.

I have become such a believer in the power of the Flip that I recently convinced our district to purchase one for a student who was selected to study abroad in Russia for a semester through the National Strategic Language Initiative for Youth. She has been sending videos of her experiences in Russia which I have been sharing with my
students. These videos have energized my students and have had a tremendously positive impact on students’ interest in language learning and travel. They have opened a window to the world for them.

The Flip video camera is an incredible tool which can bring people and
cultures together, which is what language learning is all about.

Written by Jon Ketchum

In less than one month, fifth grade teacher Stacy Yetzer campaigned for $500 in community donation through Digital Wish. To help spread awareness for her classroom campaign, Yetzer worked with students to craft, stamp and mail hand-written letters to local business owners in Kersey, PA.

For nearly a decade at Fox Township Elementary, Yetzer has been committed to teaching students how to take ownership of their knowledge. As the facilitator of the classroom, Yetzer says that she continually strives for an equal balance of student and teacher participation.  

“Finding a balance is difficult but I think once you do, it's well worth it for the kids,” Yetzer said. “By showing them that I am willing to work with them and be one of them, they open up and really give me what they're capable of.”  

Yetzer often turns to technology to enhance independent student study and peer evaluation. Since receiving an interactive whiteboard, Yetzer says that she has been on a mission to put more technology into her classroom.

“I haven't had my Promethean Board for too long, but hands down this is the best asset we have in our classroom,” Yetzer said. “So I navigated through Digital Wish and read the instructions on how to actually start accumulating money for more technology.”

Soon after, Yetzer decided that she was going to ask her students to participate in a letter writing campaign. When the students realized that their letters could turn into classroom tech, they jumped at the idea.

“We started the campaign as an in-class writing activity,” she said. “We brainstormed ideas around the technology that we wanted and then we wrote rough drafts and edited them before we sent them out.”

Just two weeks after the letters landed in local mailboxes, Yetzer and her students started receiving donations. In total, the 19 letters sent inspired local business to give 4 cash donations and 2 product donations totaling $500 in funding. They raised nearly one donation for every three letters they sent.

“I found that the businesses that donated to us really appreciated the student's attempt and effort in writing letters,” Yetzer said. “I also had several business owners tell me that they appreciated the fact that the students added comments about our classroom and how their money would be used.”

Through the success of her campaign, Yetzer was targeted by her local PTO to speak at the next board meeting. According to Yetzer, Fox Township's PTO is looking to get more teachers involved in Digital Wish. Through the meeting Yetzer is also hoping to introduce the idea of PTO contributions to Digital Wish classroom campaigns at Fox Township Elementary.  

“I have volunteered to help get the other teachers in our school on board through Digital Wish because it has worked for me,” she said. “It's a huge help, people truly don't understand the different costs a school has and how much we try to do with what we have."