African American Legends; Patricia Bransford, National Urban Technology Center

. . . . . . The African-American legend series highlights the accomplishments of blacks and areas as various politics, sports, aviation, business, technology, literature, and religion. We will explore how African-Americans have succeeded in areas where they had been previously excluded because of segregation, racism, and lack of opportunity. I'm your host, Dr.

Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., and with us today is Patricia Bransford, the president of the National Urban Technology Center. I, Pat, welcome to African-American Legends. Now, let's talk about technology, because we are on technology and everybody talks about technology. And you and your colleagues have founded this National Center for Urban Technology, so tell us about it. It was founded back in 1995, Roscoe, when we first saw the problem that existed between the technology have and have nots. And we, quite frankly, were afraid that if we didn't put a plan in place for providing access to technology to people in low-income communities that they would really be on the dirt road, so to speak, and never be able to catch up. Well, you mentioned we, who are the we? We, there were group of us had retired from IBM and had seen the benefit of technology over the years in

corporate America, in telecommunications, in finance. And when we retired, we really felt like the next arena, if you will, was the community in terms of using technology effectively and efficiently. Well, it's very interesting because I did some work with IBM many, many years ago. And I found that they were sort of on a cutting edge. I was a professor at New York University, and I was a president. And we did a number of things with the IBM technologies, but those are the old days of the punch cards and the tapes and so on. Now we have all of the internet, the digital, et cetera. So it's right there on your desk now. There was a time you had to send it out to the computer center. Now it's right there at the desk and you can manipulate your data and information and so on. But then the question is for those of us, particularly those of us who are older, maybe

some who are younger, what does it take to become computer literate? What are the elements of computer literacy? Well, there are a couple of things. One is you need access to the technology. You need someone who's there to provide training. Okay, well let's stop right there because I know many of us would be in our businesses teaching. They put a computer on them. They give you a manual and you learn how to turn it on, but then from then on it's a self-learning technique. Now many organizations do not have computer specialists or programming specialists to work you through this. So what does that kind of person do, whether in school or business or at home, when there's no one to help them? Well, yeah, I think you bring up a couple of points. First of all, technology in and of itself is not going to drive you to use the technology. Just because it's sitting on your desk doesn't mean you're going to use. It's got to be

integrated into what you do. It's got to be a tool. For instance, most businesses, when I was at IBM in the early 80s, the sales manual was put on the internet. The internet then was simply a network that connected all of the IBM offices. It also communicated the message of the president. So it made it necessary for you to learn that technology in order to be a productive person in the IBM community. And the same thing exists in other environments. For instance, in the home, it's got to help you buy more easily and more efficiently. It is true that that occurs, for example, the data indicate that the amount of internet purchasing a holiday time increased by about 30% for

department store sales with fairly level. Right. But as one who has used internet purchasing, there's a certain amount of anxiety in terms of whether they get the order, right? That's right. Do it by credit card the right way. I'm going to get it on time. That's right. Now it's true after they do it a couple of times and they satisfy you your comfort level increases. And that's the key is your comfort level has to increase. When that increases your proficiency increases and then you're a lot more productive when you use the technology. Well that's the National Urban Technology Center. What do you do to improve the comfort level of people in business education, in the home, etc? Well the National Urban Technology for 10 years has been putting technology centers in communities all over the country. I mean, we're in 50 states. We're in 400 communities across the country in partnership with Department of Justice, the Weenseed program,

Department of Education. And what we do is we come in and we plan with the community to make sure technologies integrate it with the community strategy for revitalization, for example, for youth development, for economic development. We then provide some training and what we call it community of trainers so that everybody has the expertise and a curriculum so that residents can be trained and we provide technical assistance to each of those sites. So those components have to be in place in order for those sites to be successful. All right let's see I'm a citizen living in middle America city of about 500,000 and I want to develop a program to improve youth participation in recreation, drama, social events, etc, but walk me through how you would do that. Well and that's a wonderful question

because youth development is probably one of the key applications out there for technology and that's because youth are very adept at using technology. You'll find that the early adopters of technology have all been very young and so if you can use technology to help give them access to the internet so that they can explore, to research, if you can teach them life skills, leadership skills, you see. Well how would you do that take me one step? How would you do that through your center? Well what we have done starting in 1997 is we've actually developed a smart interface called the Youth Leadership Academy and through that interface we deliver across the country a curriculum that uses technologies, animation, music, access to the internet to teach topics that are relevant to

young people today. Topics like conflict resolution and personal appearance and personal relationships. What about disease, aids and things like that? We have a series on healthy living where we talk to them about substance abuse prevention and HIV and AIDS awareness. Tell me how do you talk to them on the computer about drug awareness and AIDS awareness? What do you actually do? Well we start with an animated movie that is three to four minutes. It uses characters that are like the youth in these cities so they see themselves in the curriculum and through that movie we actually communicate the message about good healthy habits and about the dangers of substance abuse but we don't stop there. After we actually communicate that message we give them a chance through

that use of that interface to discuss that with their peers so we call that a group discussion. Is that on a computer or is it an animate discussion? It is on the computer but it is directed by a facilitator who actually involves the young people in the in the class in a spirited discussion about the issues that have been raised in the animated movie. Well would you use a webcam for example? I know that's a more advanced technique but many groups now are using webcams to do video conferencing. Well in fact through that through that interface which we call on the real we can use our animated movie or we can do a live webcast or we can do stills. We can actually use any media in that it's a stage if you will that we use to communicate the message

about those topics that are critical to youth. So I'm in a community and I see this program and I get motivated. I want to do something. How does urban technology get into a community? How does one get in touch with them? What are the steps? Well in in many of those community centers where we've already put technology centers we can actually disseminate or distribute this software through the internet and so those residents who come into the center can access the the youth leadership academy in the center. You mean to say that there's a physical place where people can go to access this material? There is. I mean they can go to a community-based organization but we're also in schools. For example in New Jersey we are integrated into the nine to three curriculum so those students come in and use the youth leadership academy to

prepare them for American history for example. Well how does the youth leadership academy prepare them for American history? Well we give them a chance to express themselves. Young people are saying that they they need a few things in order to make school more interesting to them. First of all they need to see themselves in the curriculum so we do that through the animated movie. They need to deal with topics that are critical to their lives that are relevant today. The other thing is they they want they want to express themselves. They want to show their originality about topics. They want to do some problem solving and some critical thinking with their peers and they also want a chance to play games. They want feedback. So they want to use this technology in a way that's creative and innovative for them. Who designs your instructional modules? The animations. We have a development team that does

research on an ongoing basis and then we have used research over the years to decide on what topics that are important to youth and then what those what those chapters are if you will or those important sub sub topics that need to be included in first of all personal appearance and then we actually have people who animators and we have curriculum development people. We also have a back-in system called Apollo that tracks the progress of young people through this curriculum. Do you always use animation or do you use video as well? Well for our youth leadership academy today we use we use the animated movie as the curriculum but we also teach youth in that program how to do their own videos as a way of expression. So we you know we have seven different paths if

you will because young people learn in many different ways. So it can start with the animated short or movie and then the next the next path is break it down which is the group discussion. We have another one called right to the point which allows them to do written composition or e-journaling which is saved in the back-in system. We then have a path called we got game and during we got game we have role playing we have debates. Now role playing is that on the computer? That's on the computer actually. We write script both lose lose and win-win situations and then we allow the facilitator to use the students in the class to play them out. Now the facilitator is an intimate person with animate students. For example if you are teaching American history and you're

dealing let's say with the reconstruction period where the victories of the union were attenuated by the fact that they removed the federal troops. How would you do that? What would you do? Would you go to a teacher guide where you have certain objectives and then develop questions around those objectives? You got it. I mean we have a curriculum guide that we have designed to support the interactive interface and that curriculum guide is really for the facilitator and it really provides many different kinds of activities that the facilitator can be involved in or get the class involved in to supplement some of the curriculum material. For example just to answer your question the facilitator may go and clip out some news articles that from the New York Times or from

the news or from other periodicals. Maybe magazines, maybe Oprah, that that illustrate or supplement what we are teaching in conflict resolution. But students learn how to express themselves and that's the important part. If you give them an environment that is a safe environment where they can express themselves about a topic they begin to build their own values systems and also they begin to relate better to the reconstruction period. They can see themselves in that period. One of the things happens though with some of the instant messaging in the blogs there's some very unsavory things that are said and done under the guise of the anonymity of the computer or even the identification of the person's sentence messages. What do you do to eliminate or

to moderate that type of concern because that is a concern which has led some schools even to censor what we don't believe in but to censor some of the things the students are writing. What do you do when students get off that I get off the track but when they're expressing the real world which is a world of violence and drugs and sex and racism what do you do when that comes through? Well that's a very good question and we thought long and hard about that when we were developing the curriculum and that is one reason why we script it so carefully but we also because it is an internet-based web-based curriculum we actually can not only refresh it but also monitor it and in one of our paths so to speak we have something called Hotland Library and we give the facilitator links that are positive content that illustrate or supplement the material

that we're teaching and so yeah we we actually even though this is a open palette for the facilitator we we are very careful about scripting what is on the interface now tell me about the facilitator the facilitator sitting in front of a computer sitting in front of a class how does the facilitator operate? Yeah it's a mixture we think technology again is just a tool and teachers and guidance counselors are very excited about and very inspired about using this innovative tool which as I said gives them a palette so we provide maybe the animated movie and the questions in break it down but they can bring in the newspaper articles to supplement what they're doing those facilitators are trained by us in the use of the computer the use of technology but it's very easy it's a very intuitive product so it's very easy

to use really the training comes in teaching about the leadership skills for life skills because teachers are taught to teach algebra in history and they are not taught usually to teach self-discovery or conflict resolution or personal appearance in fact teachers had said they're a little concerned about dealing with certain sensitive issues and so we make them comfortable with those social and emotional issues it's very important that they do that because otherwise they cannot reach the kids and to teach them okay we're in the New York metropolitan area if someone see the views this program and says look I'm really excited about that how do they get involved how do they get facilitators what do you do? Well they can call

us and we'd be happy to you know come out and plan with the administrators on how YLA leadership can be integrated with their curriculum in the most effective way and then we actually work with teachers to prepare them for using and implementing the program and then we provide ongoing technical assistance we go on site as they're teaching to actually co-teach with them for a period of time then they become believers and actually are able to really enrich that curriculum with their own style and that's when it becomes very interesting but we also have an 800 number that they can call us that they can call us see that 800 number what is it? It's 1 800 and well let me give you the 2 1 2 number okay 528 735O for people in New York City they

probably would rather have that the 800 number for people outside of the city it's 1 800 998 3 2 1 2 and when they call this number they'll get an animate person oh they do in fact it's not we don't we don't put them on hold it is somebody who has already worked with them it is the person who taught them who is constantly in touch to make sure that they are able to implement this comfortably which is the important piece now how many sites do you have in New York City at the present time? We have probably about you know 50 sites we did a project in Region 8 in Brooklyn with guidance counselors very successful 12 schools 24 guidance counselors and the youth leadership academy is actually used by them with young people who are pulled out of the

class because of a behavior problem and they begin to build some of the values that they need in order for them to be successful academically. Now the funding for this comes from you or from the schools or the community. Well in that case it came from the schools but it's a very small person comes out to be about $10 a student a year it's a very small amount and what we're offering now for a period of time is if a school wants to be involved it's $1,500 for unlimited number of students and so that but the school has to provide the computers of course. Yeah in the case of Region 8 we also provided the computers because the guidance counselors did not have computers and it was not in the budget and we did not want that to be an inhibitor so we can get very good computers that are refurbished

and we put the software on it and there's good as new so we try to you know eliminate any kind of obstacle there is to getting the technology including providing it ourselves. Well going back to your mission to bridge the gap between the halves and the half-nights I guess halves and half-nights has to do with economics but halves and half-nights also has to do with willingness and ability to use the computer. Absolutely. So what are some of the impediments that keep people from using computers either education, business of the home? Very good question and this is the this is the most important question about addressing the gap because it changes behavior for a person and if they're too busy to learn or to accept a new tool or if they're afraid of technology they're afraid of

making a mistake they won't touch the technology. If it doesn't relate to their lives, how do you help it to relate? Well and it goes back to coming up with applications that help them be more productive, they get them what they want in life that help them get educated or get a product, get a product. So it's got to fit in to their everyday lives to what they need. How do you do that? That really is that gap in there. They know they might need it but they're afraid of getting out there. I think first of all it comes with we have found over time it comes with providing access in a place in a neighborhood close to their home where they can drop in and you know just experiment with it and get comfortable but with a coach someone nearby that can help them

you know figure out what keys to hit and make them comfortable that they can't make a mistake really with technology. They can but it can be easily corrected. It can be easily correct and then you teach them how to do that and then once they become comfortable then they'll move into a class and they'll learn certain things that help them today to do maybe a bulletin or to help do their homework or research paper and to see how easy it is to adopt technology because it it just reduces so many steps that they would normally have to take. Well we've been talking mostly about the young-in children in schools and communities. What about the older and the senior citizens of nursing homes and so on? Do you do anything there? Oh yes. Well we find that our senior programs are the most one of the most successful actually because it provides certain things for

them to do like you know sending photographs, accepting photographs from all over the country of grandchildren making phone calls. I mean we worked with people that come from different countries who can make a phone call or communicate with a relative free of charge. Is the cost a great cost or a minimal cost? Very minimal. I mean to make a phone call to you know I don't know South America might be what? $25 for a couple minutes but it costs nothing if you've got access to email in the internet. Okay well this has been a great discussion. I've learned a lot about technology and I know our audience has learned a lot. We've been talking with Patricia Bransford who's the president of the National Center for Urban Technology and we hope that you use technology as well. Thanks Pat for being with us. Well thank you Roska for inviting me.