The Regional Alliance for Information Networking
RAIN Network
Public Internet Brocasting™
Camp Internet
& the Rural Community Network 2000
a community &
neighborhood level technology literacy & telemedicine deployment project
using the Internet and GIS as the primary Project Visualization &
Management tools. Studies in a 9 rural community matrix Technology Literacy and
Telemedicine program still in process.
Introduction
The RAIN Network was
founded as a non-profit community Internet service in 1991 and is headquartered
in Santa Barbara, California. RAIN
represents an example of a self-sustaining,
Public Internet Broadcasting Network serving a population base of
approximately 1.4 million, reaching households, medical clinics, classrooms,
libraries, non-profit agencies, government office and small businesses in Santa
Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo County with regional (local) connectivity
via the Network’s regional backbone.
Average monthly use of the RAIN web site is 2.5 million.
Through funding
support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service RAIN
has established a 9 rural community matrix as part of a distance learning and
telemedicine program.
Each community in the
program receives hardware, bandwidth connectivity and training for a medical
clinic, public library and school.
Within the
telemedicine program emphasis is on three areas of content development and
deployment: doctor-to-doctor training,
doctor-community communication and community wellness.
The distance learning
component is designed around Camp Internet. Awarded a Smithsonian Institution
Technology Innovation Award in 1999, Camp Internet, now in it’s 7th
year, represents a year round learning community.
Each of the K-12 curriculum enhancement programs are being
developed in conjunction with a multi-agency consortium of scientists and
historians. Use of GIS and the
important role of researchers and scientists as “Trail-Guides” who work with
students during the year, have made the Camp Internet internationally watched
as a model for local application.
Camp Internet
provides a consistent, supportive
learning community that focuses clusters of classrooms on highly motivating
themes of Exploration. The thematic
tracts weave together technology, science, social studies, history, reading
skills and math.
These clusters of
classrooms are similar too and often part of the clusters of families that make
up the “Neighborhoods” which are the heart of our Rural Communities Network
program.
We have also begun
the use of a highly innovative “Internet Bus” which holds 6 computers (Pc / Mac
mix), a large screen in the back for
group lessons and a lending library of books and cd-roms. The RAIN Rural Community Network Internet
Bus visits small rural communities weekly giving residents a way to go online
via the bus’s satellite Internet link.
Residents establish accounts they use each week and return for regular
Technology Literacy training sessions held on the bus.
Community Technology
Advisory Councils (CTAC’s) have been established in each of the 9 rural
communities. CTAC’s are composed of a
minimum of one local teacher, doctor, banker, community volunteer, small
business (chamber of commerce) representative and one staff person from the
appropriate County Supervisors office.
The CTAC’s represent
a collective group of over 90 committed individuals involved in the structure
and application of Internet technology in their community.
Each of the 9 rural
communities have a Youth Technology Corps (YTCs). The YTC’s are an organic
part of the local CTAC. Composed primarily
of High School students and some Community College students, the YTC’s provide
trainers, web designers and mentors for younger students working with online
projects.
Most importantly, the
Youth Technology Corps represent a means to effectively integrate young people
as part of each communities larger CTAC.
Consider the
implication of a coordinated global effort that involved this “community” level
of input. It is our hope that the
framework and methodologies being established by RAIN Network will be of value
to many communities.
To help in the
understanding and study of the project each of the 9 communities in our Rural
Community Matrix are being built into our main GIS database. Through the use of GIS as our primary
Project Management tool we’ve seen a new level of local understanding and, at the same time, provided a dynamic, live way for community
residents to give input and see that input show up in the GIS community map.
Over the next few
years the Asian and European
communities will embrace the Internet as a core technology for economic,
education and cultural growth. It is
important that we seek frameworks and model applications which will permit the effective and useful introduction of
the many new technologies represented
by the Internet. In areas such as
Community Wellness and K-12 education it is essential that we establish models
which work.
The “Community
Technology” model being presented through the RAIN Rural Community Network
project is based on “neighborhood” level development. One of the primary components of all the community projects RAIN
Network has been responsible for has been the use of “Neighborhood Technology
Master Families”. Modeled on an older
American practice of having “Master Gardner’s” in small communities who taught
other people how to garden, the Neighborhood Technology Master Family” has
proven to establish an essential and effective neighborhood “level buy” in to
the introduction of a new technology literacy or telemedicine programs.
In work we have
conducted in urban settings, working with local Housing Authority agencies, the
Neighborhood Technology Master Families have
been the sole factor that has allowed families in the Projects to give
us entry and then to actually take part in the technology literacy
training. If a good friend who is the
Neighbor has committed for an entire year to be a Master Tech Family, then it must have some value.
To engage the young
people, especially high school and slightly older, we established Youth
Technology Corps groups to work with the Neighborhood Families. The Youth became the teachers, giving
classes at the Neighborhood Master Tech Family home once a week or coming
online daily to help as a mentor or tutor with other kids in their
neighborhood. The Youth Tech Corps also
became our most important source of translators as we worked to make each of
the web sites for the communities bi-lingual.
Community Technology
Advisory Councils have been a logical outgrowth of the Neighborhood Master
Technology Family program. As several
neighbors get together and they all have good ideas on how to apply this new
Internet technology to their community then they need a way to communicate
their ideas as a group. So, we established
the Community Technology Advisory Councils as a primary component in a series
of distance learning and telemedicine projects RAIN is conducting through USDA
Rural Utilities Service funding.
From the earliest
days of our work with “Community
Networks” (around 1985) we have been challenged by the need to establish an
effective, working methodology for linking the “multi-agency” phenomena which
is a Community Network. Getting
business, government, schools, churches, libraries, service organizations and
media to coordinate their Information through a regional Public Internet
Broadcasting system has proven to be as challenging as any scientific
multi-agency data exchange project we have worked on.
Use of GIS and
advanced database systems has been one key to successful multi-agency
“Community” level content development and distribution. Easily studied in our Telemedicine projects,
where the development of ‘local content’ for health, wellness and
education, we see ways in which a rural
community or an urban Neighborhood, can establish communication and get
information to and out from essential
local resources such as medical clinics, libraries, schools, local government
centers and local business councils.
We see the following
as the effective new tools we have begun to apply in our Community Network
activities over the past two years:
1) Community Technology Advisory Council’s (CTAC’s)
2) Youth Technology Corps (YTC’s)
3) Neighborhood Technology Master Families
4) Integration of GIS as both a visualization & a community
input tool
5) RAIN’s “Internet Bus” providing a mobile unit to get
connectivity to neighborhoods currently seriously underserver – either because
of rurality or because of urban problems.
6) Integration of telemedicine programs to create both
Doctor-to-Community and Community Wellness Programs
7) Integration of resources from broad spectrum of agencies and corporations (in the past year
RAIN has integrated work with the US Department of Education, Department of
Defense, Department of Commerce, USDA Rural Utilities Service, National Parks,
State Parks, the Univeristy of California and many others). Development of Multi-Agency data-exchange
standards which integrate the “community” in a serious way are essential as the
Internet expands in influence and availability.
‘Technology that Works for
People’ - World Wide – that is what the RAIN Network is
all about.
The following is a brief review of RAIN’s current education,
telemedicine and e-commerce programs.
RAIN
NETWORK PROFILE 2000
RAIN
Regional Alliance for Information Networking
Public
Internet Broadcasting - Technology that Works for People
Organization Profile 2000-2002
RAIN is a
non-profit 501c3 educational program of Visible Light, Inc., an educational
communications corporation based in Santa Barbara, California. Founded in 1991
RAIN was one of the first public Internet access programs in the world. In
keeping with its pioneer spirit and vision, RAIN is now forging Public Internet
Broadcasting. Over 32 million visitors
come to the RAIN web site each year, a testament of the need for, and value of,
Public Internet Broadcasting.
Since 1993, RAIN
has worked on Federally and State funded projects for the USDA, US Dept. of
Education/California Education Dept., Dept. of Commerce/NOAA, National Science
Foundation, and Defense Department in the fields of Distance Learning,
Telemedicine, Electronic Commerce, and Family Strengthening. Current growths
include adding GIS community development services.
In recent months
RAIN’s Camp Internet program won a Smithsonian
Innovation Network Medal of Honor, and became an AOL Rural Community Capacity Builder.
RAIN’s Public
Internet Broadcasting service is an excellent distance learning medium suitable
for formal and informal education, health education, and economic development
project support. Using state-of-the-art video and audio streaming, RAIN's
programs link learners in the United States and around the world to expert
scientists, historians, doctors, educators, business owners, and entrepreneurs
who serve as online mentors and role models for learners of all ages.
The PIB programs
broadcast by RAIN are designed to provide in-depth content and a live human
component that leverages online technology to take viewers to locations they
would otherwise not have access to - into the board room of a leading
technology developer, to conferences with ground breaking medical
practitioners, inside a museum collection vault to see rare artifacts, undersea
to swim with exotic fish, off to remote islands where time stands still, even
into prehistoric painted cave sites. These remote broadcasts - some live others
prerecorded - will open new communication and learning opportunities for RAIN's
viewers, and demonstrate optimal applications for the National Information
Infrastructure, global Internet, and World Wide Web technologies.
Projects currently in development
/ delivery are :
1)
RAIN has been awarded
three USDA Rural Utilities Service
Distance Learning and Telemedicine grants that will be introducing new online
multi-media educational and health environments into nine specific rural
communities in three California coastal counties, and then using those programs
as models for other rural and urban sites. The program features the Camp
Internet online learning expedition program delivered via the Internet to
classrooms, libraries and family rooms, and a public / practitioner Community
Wellness Telemedicine component. Sites are in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara,
and Ventura Counties, and each is building a Community Technology Council and
Youth Tech Corp to create a long-term sustainability.
2) RAIN has been awarded support to develop and deliver the
Camp Internet distance education program to 96 classrooms as a Technology Literacy Project
funded through US and Calif. Dept. of Education funding, with additional
classroom scholarships funded by the Federal Channel Islands National Marine
Sanctuary. This is a large 4 year project that features GIS and remote /
wireless components to facilitate educational broadcasting. Programs featured
are " Explore the California
Channel Islands and Backcountry “, and “Explore the Ancient Southwest, Ancient
Mediterranean and Egypt” are being developed in conjunction with a multi-agency
consortium of scientists and historians.
3) RAIN's Director, Timothy Tyndall, is an invited presenter
of research papers and poster sessions to the National Academy of Science, Dec
97 in Washington DC for the National
Research Council CODATA , at the International
Telecommunications Society Conference in Stockholm, June 98, at the International Internet Society
Conference in Geneva, July 98, at the
Dept. of Interior 5th Annual California Islands Symposium,
Santa Barbara, May 99, for the California
Dept. of Education, San Diego, Jan 99, at the National Rural Telecommunications Conference Aspen,Oct 97
and Oct 99, at the Canadian Library
Assoc. Get Smart Conference, Montreal, Mar 99, at the National
Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education Web Net,Oct
99, at the International Telecommunications
Society in Florence, Italy, March 2000 and at the International Internet Society Kyoto, Japan, July 2000
Past Accomplishments
1) RAIN assists developing countries in creating model
public access programs - the existing project is in Belize - it is BRAIN - the
Belizean Regional Alliance for Information Networking. RAIN has applied to
USAID for one in Ghana that will be GRAIN, with an emphasis on electronic
commerce for women's and regional products to promote self sufficiency. RAIN
has received support from the National
Science Foundation for work in developing countries, and presented a
paper to Universidad Estatal a Distancia in San Jose, Costa Rica in 1993.
2)
RAIN has been
selected as a regional education and technology development agency for the
opening of a new Electronic Commerce
Resource Center (ECRC) following a competitive briefing at the
Pentagon. The Center will assist regional small and medium sized manufactures
and disadvantaged small businesses in Southern California to participate in
government contracting using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to streamline,
lower the cost, and increase the efficiency of contracting with the government.
The program is sponsored by the Defense Logistics Agency.
3) RAIN was a technology partner in a USDA CYFAR Children Youth and Families at Risk project
called Neighborhood GreenNet in Santa Barbara, teaching low income youth and
families to use the Internet as a family strengthening and small business
development tool.
Infrastructure
In its own host
region of Santa Barbara, California, RAIN operates from a headquarters in the
downtown cultural district of Santa Barbara. The Center offers regular training
programs and free walk-in access to the public. RAIN has expanded its local
dial access services to reach more individuals and families interested in
participating in the new distance learning and telemedicine programs. A new 56k
/ v.90 digital dial up system is in place, aDSL has been added, and all new y2K
compliant equipment upgrades were accomplished in the fall of 1999. The major
focus of the Network 2000-2002 is delivering training and connectivity to
underserved rural and at-risk urban populations, to classrooms and libraries,
and to telemedicine sites.
To
learn more about RAIN and its Public Internet Broadcasting programs, please see
www.rain.org, or call 1-800-889-2823.
We
invite you to support Public Internet Broadcasting -
Technology that Works for People !
1129 State A6, Santa
Barbara, CA 93101, 1-800-889-2823, http://www.rain.org