Building Community Strengths in Montana

Building Community Strengths in Montana is designed to provide limited resource youth and adults with technology skills to bridge the digital divide and life skills needed to be workforce ready, enrich family life, and become contributing community members.

For the full program please visit: http://www.montana.edu/wwwhd/ncp_grant/project.htm

Many thanks to Kirk Astroth for passing these along:

Kirk A. Astroth

Extension 4-H Specialist

Montana State University

4-H Center for Youth Development

210 Taylor Hall

Bozeman, MT 59717

[email protected]

406-994-5691 (phone)

406-994-5417 (fax)

406-581-KIDS (mobile)

Montana 4-H Website: http://www.montana.edu/4h

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(This is an older story but I thought it was worthy of reprint- Russ)

"Thinkpads" Reduce Isolation
of Reservation Life
by Annette Trinity-Stevens

BOZEMAN–J.B. King arrives home by 9 P.M. after a 47-mile bus ride between Colstrip High School and his home in Busby on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation.

He eats a quick dinner, plays briefly with his twin 13-month-old sisters, then disappears into cyberspace until midnight.

His mother said she doesn’t mind this computer addiction.

"It’s been a real big boost for him," said Ann King, an art instructor at the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Schools. "He doesn’t feel so isolated."

J.B. is one of 37 American Indian high school students in Montana using "Thinkpads" to overcome the social and academic isolation of reservation life. The students are part of the MINDS program sponsored by Montana State University-Bozeman and IBM.

"I’d like to think that we’ve finally tapped into a competitive distraction for rural, geographically isolated high school students," said Dave Young, director of the American Indian Research Opportunities (AIRO) Program at MSU-Bozeman.

Young oversees a summer program that brings American Indian high school students from Montana’s seven reservations to the Bozeman campus for six weeks of classes and hands-on work in laboratories. The program is funded by the National Institutes of Health.

"The questions those high school kids ask astound me," said Young. "They are on par with those of college students."

But after the students go home their enthusiasm for academics may wane and the group dynamics fall apart, Young said. Two years ago he hatched the idea of sending laptop computers home with the students so they could keep in touch electronically with each other and with the scientists they worked with during the summer. He approached IBM with the idea, and the computer giant agreed to supply the hardware at greatly reduced rates.

The students sign a "Use-to-Own" agreement with MSU-Bozeman, promising to log onto a telecommunications network called AIRONET three times a week. They must stay in touch electronically with faculty mentors, answer problems posted each week by a different scientist, and teach their families and other students how to use telecommunications. If they meet those terms, the computers become theirs when they graduate from high school.

Dion Tang and his Laptop Dion Tang

"When they brought this to me I was amazed," recalled Dion Tang, a Northern Cheyenne senior at Colstrip High School. "On the reservation you don’t see that many computers."

Tang uses his Thinkpad to tap into the MSU-Bozeman library for school assignments and to log onto the AIRONET. He also uses e-mail to keep in touch with Barney Whiteman (Crow), who lives 70 miles away in Hardin, and John Favel (Chippewa) on the Rocky Boy Reservation in northcentral Montana.

Tom Bohanan (Choctaw), a senior at Chinook High School, said he didn’t believe he really would get his Thinkpad until the day it showed up.

"I got to get out of chemistry class [to meet with the installer] and everyone said ‘Whoa!’ "

He knows of only one other person in his school with access to a laptop.

Carla Payne, as Assiniboine student who lives in the northeast corner of the state, keeps in touch with MSU-Bozeman biologist Dwight Phillips, with whom she’s worked for two summers. The laptop, she said, has helped her improve her grades. Payne’s vo-ag teacher at Wolf Point High School was so impressed with the Thinkpad he ordered five of them for his classroom.

Dave Young at MSU-Bozeman has no doubt the students are using their computers. He budgeted $1,000 a month for the 800 dial-in number. In August the bill was $5,000.

"I wouldn’t go so far as to say they will go to college just because of the Thinkpads," said Sara Young, a Crow tribal member who manages the MSU-Bozeman office of the All Nations AMP Project.

She’s delivered computers to students while commuting from her home in Lame Deer to Bozeman.

"The computer, along with the responsibility to get onto the AIRONET regularly, keeps them interested in science careers because of the continual reinforcement," she said.

They’re good tools for schoolwork, and the students are broadening their understanding of technology because of the laptops, she added.

"And I think that’s a lot."

http://www.montana.edu/wwwpb/misc/thinkpad.html