Community Technology Centers: Road to Technology Learning for those off the beaten path
SoapBox Rants
By Pamela Bratcher-McMillan
President, Chair & CEO, of PETAL et al.
Do you enjoy computers at school or the library, but oftentimes find that they are all taken up when you get there? Did you know that there are federally funded Community Technology Centers all over the city of Chicago because your town wants its citizens to be computer savvy or literate at the least? Yes. They appear to be all over the city of Chicago and many of them include free WiFi and training, too. According to the website We Connect Chicago (http://weconnectchicago.org), there are more than 250 of them.
They are legally required to be open and available to the public at least 12 hours per week. They received grant funding to make these facilities and computers available to you. Just click on the link for locations (http://locations.weconnectchicago.org), type in your address, choose a radius by miles, and click on the search button and view the map or list. You can fine-tune your search by selecting the internet, Wi-Fi and/or Training checkbox. You can even narrow the location to types of facilities you prefer to visit like a library, city college or Community Technology Center. While many of the centers have regular hours, some want you to phone ahead. What’s up with that? You got the grant. Make the stuff available on a regular schedule to the public or pass the application on to someone else.
Anyway, being the “library hopper†that I am, the library is usually my facility of choice, but the colleges may not be a bad idea either. As you will note, some facilities have a whole lot more going on than the others or have later hours; so choose wisely. I do some serious camping out at the library and I don’t want to be interrupted because they are closing early; so I choose a library with late hours. You don’t have to stick to one facility. Move around. You might be missing something if you don’t.
If you’d like to know more about the federally funded Community Technology Centers, check out the Center for Effective Government’s (http://www.foreffectivegov.org/node/12) website.
Pamela Bratcher-McMillan is a technology Expert and President, Chair & CEO, of PETAL et al. She is also a weekly columnist for CopyLine Magazine
