a. Develop a distributed Midwest Adult Literacy Network (Regional Hub) on the World Wide Web which provides a link to national, regional, and state-specific resource materials and professional development information.
b. Develop the capacity of each state to implement its own adult literacy web site by providing equipment, training, and technical assistance.
c. Publicize the LINCS/SLRC sytem to literacy educators in the Midwest to make literacy educators aware of the resources available and the opportunities for training on the system.
d. Provide training on the use of the Internet and the LINCS/SLRC system to Midwest SLRC staff and other literacy providers and educators in the region.
e. Extend the usage of the Midwest Adult Literacy Network and the LINCS system to local programs and practitioners by selecting ten local literacy program sites and assisting them in their efforts to use the LINCS/SLRC system.
f. Evaluate use and effectiveness of the Midwest Adult Literacy Network by gathering and analyzing data on the use of the system and the effectiveness of training.
2. Significant Accomplishments
In the first ten months of the grant period, the Midwest Hub has been able to achieve the following accomplishments in meeting the stated goals of the grant. Activities will continue in all goal areas for the remainder of this grant year and during Year II to expand the development and use of the LINCS/SLRC sytem even further.
a. Development of Midwest Adult Literacy Network
1. M-Net Home Page developed which includes links to NIFL, About the M-NET, Search the LINCS system, Tools and Utilities, What's New, and the Midwest State Literacy Resource Centers.
Search the LINCS System contains links to the NIFL and regional hub searches, local search engines (including a tutorial), and large search engines.
Tools and Utilities connects to tools, utilities, and general Internet information on the World Wide Web including Web/HTML editors, web page design and editing, internet utilities, internet information, and imagemap information.
What's New has links to the What's New pages at NIFL and the other two regional hubs, Great New Resources links, and dated links to new materials and tools on the midwest states= home pages and the M-Net site.
Midwest State Literacy Resource Centers links to each of the twelve Midwest states' home pages.
2. The Hub created a homepage for each state and put it in their own directory which they have absolute control over. All twelve Midwest states have expanded upon the prototype home pages. (The last state to add to the prototype will have new items on its home page by the end of August.) Each state has developed their own goals for materials to be added to their web site. However, states were asked to include common elements on their home pages:
Nine states have calendars of coming events.
Five states have directories of local providers.
Seven states have bibliographies or catalogs of materials.
Nine states link to other agencies and resources within their state.
Seven states have added locally produced material full document online.
b. Development of capacity in each state to implement its own adult literacy web site.
1. Purchased computer equipment to fill needs for eleven states. Installed webserver software on two of the machines (Netsite Software). $ 55,356 in equipment went to support the states. Most states received a minimum of 120 MHz pentium with 16 mb Ram and a 1 gigabyte drive; however, actual components, memory, and drive space were supplied as needed. Identified minimum configuration for machines running WWW servers were 120 Mhzpentium, 16 B hard drive and 32 mb Ram running Windows NT.
2. Put homepages for each state in their own directory which they have absolute control over.
3. Made HTML editing software available to all states.
4. Moved website from Hub server to a local server in five states. At this point only five states (including Ohio) operate off the Hub server.
5. Upgraded the OLRC (M-NET) server (HP 735-125) disk space by 4GB.
6. Upgraded Hub web server software and listprocessor software to newer, higher performing versions.
7. Installed and configured the local material and local program forms and scripts.
8. Installed and configured Free Wais SF.
9. Installed and configured SWISH search script.
10. Installed and began using MomSpider to check for dead links.
11. Installed 800 number for use by Midwest states for technical assistance. Listserv established for Midwest states. Provided technical assistance by phone, email, or in person to approximately 200 requests.
12. Installed 800 number which connects directly to Hub server for use by states in training.
13. A three-day training for 21 staff members from 11 stats was held at Kent State University January 31- February 2, 1996. The training consisted of planning time for aspects of the project, web site and html training, time to begin developing homepages, and Starting Point training.
c. Publicity about the LINCS/SLRC system:
1. Hub/OLRC Activities
Coverage of the grant appeared in the Kent State University staff newsletter, Inside Kent, the student newspaper, The Kent Stater, and area newspapers, the Kent Record Courier, the Akron Beacon Journal, and the Stow Sentry.
Articles about the grant and network also appeared in the Fall, 1995, state association's newsletter, News and Views, and the Winter issue of the Ohio Literacy Network's newsletter, The Communicator, with combined circulations of over 5000.
The Spring, 1996 issue of the OLRC newsletter included an article on the grant and an 8 page Tech Talk section which included information on purchasing a computer and connecting to the Internet has been designated as Tech Talk. The newsletter was mailed to 1979 individuals, including Ohio adult literacy practioners, all state literacy resource centers, Ohio congressemen and state legislators, Ohio State Board of Education, and DAEL staff. Midwest SLRCs were encouraged to reproduce the Tech Talk section for training or their own newsletters.
The Summer, 1996 issue of the OLRC newsletter was sent to the same individuals and included a 3-page Tech Talk which highlighted local projects from this grant and web site resources on the Internet for teachers and students.
A presentation was made on the LINCS system at the state association conference in May. Focus was on a panel of teachers from three of the local projects from the grant.
National presentations:
a) COABE (with NIFL and other Hubs) in May
b) ALT in August (Focused on local projects)
Regional presentations:
a) Midwest state directors at state directors meeting in March
b) State staffs from Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana at Quad State Meeting in July.
2. Midwest SLRC Activities
Missouri: Published articles in two of LIFT's publications, (LIFTlink goes to 2,400 adult educators and LIFTletter goes to 4,800 adult educators, policymakers, media people, early childhood educators, social service personnel, business leaders, and others.) Missouri State Library published an article describing the project. Demonstrated site and LINCS system to adult educators, policy makers, and personnel from related agencies.
Nebraska: Articles and information in the Nebraska Adult Literacy Digest, wrote and distributed a press release.
Kansas: Presentations at Summer Institute VII.
North Dakota: Spoken to most of the adult educators about the project.
Illinois: Released information to every program that receives Network News; demonstrated project to the Illinois Literacy Council.
Michigan: Reported Hub progress to the state director; published an article in the SLRC newsletter.
Minnesota: LINCS system featured in training with Westonka Adult Basic Education program.
Iowa: Presented at the 2nd Annual State Adult Basic Education Conference in July.
d. Training Provided:
1. Training was held by the Hub at Kent State University for 22 Midwest SLRC staff (see b-3 above).
2. Training for local projects: Seven Ohio programs on January 17, one Ohio program on February 7, and the two Minnesota programs on January 26 and March 8. A total of 20 adult educators received training.
3. The Hub allocated $ 825 for training to each state. States used this in various ways:
Six local practioners from two states received funding to attend the ALT conference.
Missouri is developing a training prototype to be used first with St. Louis educators.
Training was provided in Illinois and Michigan by Tim Ponder from the Hub.
Staff in Iowa attended trainining workshops to enhance skills in web page design and maintenance.
4. State Training:
Illinois: 3 regional hands-on trainings on Using the Internet in Curriculum Development for 40 educators in July.
Minnesota: Training on the use of the Internet and the LINCS system at the Westonka ABE program on May 4, 1996.
Michigan: Statewide literacy conference, Literacy Through Technology in September for 300 providers and teachers.
Wisconsin: Two training sessions on use of the Web.
Iowa: Hands-on exposure of resource materials at the Annual State Adult Basic Education Conference in July.
Kansas: Training for 60 educators at Summer Institute on use of the Internet and the LINCS system.
Ohio: Training for 20 educators in March, 5 members of the state staff in June, and 20 members of OLRC Steering Committee (representing adult education, human services, State Library, and employment services) in September.
e. Extend Usage to Local Programs:
Ten local programs (eight in Ohio and two in Minnesota) received grants for six-month projects. A total of $20,000 for personnel and travel costs plus $7,309 for modems, software, and equipment upgrades, and $6,759 for internet access and phone lines was given to the ten programs. In addition, six individuals from four of the programs received partial funding to attend and present at the ALT conference in August. Training was provided for personnel from each program (see above), a listserv was set up for the local program staff, and technical assistance was provided as needed. The ten local projects all obtained on-line access (eight for the first time, two received expanded access). Teachers in all ten programs learned to use the Internet and identified resources for use in classrooms. Students in nine of the programs were on-line, using e-mail for key pals and finding resources on the Internet. A summary report on these projects is attached.
f. Evaluations:
1. Each SLRC submitted reports in April and July on activities in the state.
2. All trainings conducted by the Hub had written evaluations completed by the participants and compiled.
3. Local technology projects submitted mid-grant and final reports.
4. Statistics on use of M-NET kept on server. M-NET home page was online by the first of January. The site had 3893 hits from 42 unique hosts in January, 5073 hits from 241 unique hosts in March, and 6816 hits from 270 unique hosts in July. Examples of state usage is Missouri who grew from nothing in January to 1585 hits from 98 unique hosts in July, and Illinois who grew from nothing in January to 1181 hits from 136 unique hosts in July.