Project information
| Status | Finalist |
| URL | Go to website |
| Category | Education Lifelong and informal learning |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Operational areas | Urban |
| Target groups | Children, Youth, Women, Men, Seniors |
| Fixed connection | DSL |
| Wireless connection | WiFi |
| Access points | Home, School, Library |
| Interact | Desktop Computer, Laptop, PDA |
| Software License Types | Proprietary |
Project location
Random images Challenge 2008
Aston Pride Computers in the Home
- Brief description
- Aston Pride in partnership with Digital Birmingham, UK Department for Education and Skills (DfES), Project Schools, ICT companies(Gaia, Tempus and Microsoft), University of Central England (UCE) and the Birmingham E-learning Foundation are attempting to address the digital divide in one of the most deprived areas of Birmingham by utilising the ICT capabilities of the young people of the community.
- Vision, Objectives and Goals
Education is a crucial element in the development and sustainability of a flourishing community. The project is guided by the following principles which will demonstrate :
- How ICT can support the learning family within a community.
- A learning partnership between the home, the school, and the project partners.
- An inclusive approach to, opportunity for, a disadvantaged and diverse community.
- Links between ICT and the rich cultural heritage of the community
- A clear link between ICT engagement and children’s attainment in core skills, particularly numeracy and literacy.
To achieve these principles the following milestones are crucial:
- An investigation of the potential of a wireless cloud generated by the schools within the community (Achieved).
- Inclusion. All families in Aston should have the capability of accessing the ICT provision. At the moment over 600 families have access of which 450 families have been supported by the project. The aim is to support every family in Aston that needs access to ICT. (In progress).
- Support for the ICT infrastructure via the provision of a Help line and technical support team (Achieved).
- Support training of adult family members. This is being achieved through school based training, adult education training, ECDL and Microsoft Training packages (In progress).
- An investigation of ways in which adults members of the community can be engaged by the ICT provision (In progress).
- The sustainability of the project (In progress)
- How does ICT contribute to the organisational objectives
- ICT is integral to all aspects of the project. The success of the project is linked to the ICT infrastructure of the schools and the way in which they integrate its use into teaching and learning. This gives the pupils (young people of Aston) the necessary skills and attitudes to lead the development of ICT skills within their family units.Internet safety is of crucial importance to the communities that the project serves. This is achieved by offering the same filtered internet access that the pupils receive in school.
- Transferability
The CiTH Project is showing that homes can access a broadband access that will support the whole family. Gaia is now looking at extending the wireless access across Birmingham using the CiTH initiative as a model.
The Microsoft home learning material has been recognised as being an important addition to the credibility of home learning and in Birmingham, the accrss to it has been extended to 5000 secondary pupils.
- Project summary
- The project continues to expand. After two years of trials the project at the end of its third year is impacting on four schools, approximately 600 families and maybe 3,600 individuals (initial evidence suggested that each computer had at least 6 users). In the next year (Sep 2007 -2008) the project will increase this to six schools and 1000 families linked to 6000 individuals. Ways in which adults can be engaged with the ICT will continue to be pursued. The concept of 'Subtractive Bilingualism' will be explored via school learning podcasts in home languages. Specially commissioned Microsoft training materials will be evaluated and in January of 2008 developed, with UCE (Now Birmingham City Univeersity) examples of children's multimedia productions will continue.
Schools will continue to investigate the potential teaching and learning capabilities of VLE’s and the engagement of parents in learning.
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