In dozens of locations, several times a year, citizens get together to make their local parks and schools better, or to better understand the public safety situation in their beat. We’d like to meet the people who are active in these processes, and also people who would like to participate but are not managing to get involved. Maybe there are ways that software can help these groups gather and distribute information, to learn from their peer councils around the city, and to involve citizens who aren’t able to physically attend the meetings.”
Since that meeting, we’ve continued to help gather and maintain info on Advisory Councils. Here’s a mega-spreadsheet. Many people have contributed to this— please add any info you know!
That result of that discussion was the formation of the Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail – an all-volunteer organization formed to advocate on behalf of the local community around the Bloomingdale Trail Project. Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail then partnered with The Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit, to help bring together a coalition of groups to make the 606 a reality.
As part of our Youth Led Tech Program, we’re teaching youth digital skills. We’ve open sourced our curriculum in a series of blog posts. This particular lesson plan was adapted by Christopher Whitaker from the “Brief History of The Internet” from the Internet Society.
Introduction to How the Web Works
This module will teach students the basics of how the web works including the concept of ‘The Cloud”, the World Wide Web, DNS/Web Addresses, and how content appears in the browser.
Part One: The History of the Internet
Let’s say you wrote a really cool song on your computer. Without the internet the song would just stay on your laptop. To share it, you’d have to have somebody come over and look at your laptop – or you’d have to download it onto a floppy disk (What they had before USBs) and physically carry it over.
This is how computers used to work. And it was a bit of a problem for scientists trying to work collaboratively. Instead of shipping documents from universities on the east coast to the west coast, it would be a lot easier if one computer could just pick up a phone and call the other.
Which is exactly what they did.
In 1965, a professor at MIT used a phone line to call up a computer at UCLA and send information back and forth. This was the first (very small) network. The government saw value with this and funded an experiment called ARPAnet. Computers from across the country were added to the network becoming a ‘web’ of computers.
But, this network had a problem. It began to grow large enough to where one computer couldn’t find another specific computer. Imagine that you’re wanting to visit a friends house for the first time, but there are no street numbers. You’d get lost pretty easily.
To solve this, Vincent Cerf and Robert Kahn created the TCP/IP protocol. TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. It had four ground rules:
Each distinct network would have to stand on its own and no internal changes could be required to any such network to connect it to the Internet.
Communications would be on a best effort basis. If a packet (information) didn’t make it to the final destination, it would shortly be sent again from the source.
Black boxes would be used to connect the networks; these would later be called gateways and routers. There would be no information retained by the gateways about the individual flows of packets passing through them, thereby keeping them simple and avoiding complicated adaptation and recovery from various failure modes.
There would be no global control at the operations level.
The protocol also had a system for giving each device connected to the network an address called an IP Address.
Activity
Everyone take out their phones or laptop. Google “What’s my IP address”
Now, notice that if you’re not on the wifi your address is different from the one on your computer. Every internet connection has it’s own address. Every website also has an address too.
Now, go into the address bar and enter 173.252.110.27
See, it really works – that’s Facebook’s address on the Internet
DNS
The problem with the IP address is that nobody can remember all the numbers needed to get everywhere on the web.
So, they developed services called “Domain Name Servers” that give addresses like 173.252.110.27 names like “Facebook.com”
DNS servers act like Google Maps for your computer. It works like this:
You tell your browser that you want to go to “mikvachallenge.org”
Your computer calls up a DNS server to ask for directions to mikvachallenge.org
The DNS servers looks through all the addresses in all of the internet and find: 67.202.93.0
The DNS tells your browser where to find the site. Your browser then points itself to 67.202.93.0
The other problem with the early network is that those computers had to be on and connected all the time to work. It also became hard for a lot of people to try to access the same file on a single machine all at the same time.
Could you imagine 500 people trying to call you at once? Doesn’t work that well.
The people who were building the Internet needed a way to serve the information to a lot of people at once. The answer became dedicated computers that would ‘serve’ people information called servers.
YouTube has hundreds of server room that hold thousands of cat videos. When you point your browser to the funny video of your choice, the server ‘serves’ your video to your web browser.
Not everyone has to have a server room to host their websites. Expunge.io uses a service called “Amazon Web Services” to borrow their server. (Yes, you really can order everything from Amazon.”
Note: this is part of a series of posts in our Connect Chicago program where we describe in detail digital skills learning environments throughout the city.
Association House of Chicago serves a multi-cultural community by providing comprehensive, collaborative and effective programs in English and Spanish. We promote health and wellness and create opportunities for educational and economic advancement.
The Smart Chicago Youth-Led Tech program is run from the large cafeteria of Association House. It’s a huge area set off from the rest of the building, which gives us lots of bust-out room for creativity and learning.
There is lots of space to store food, which makes it easier to manage breakfast and lunch five times a week.
The chairs and tables are easy to move. Lots of instruction occurs in presentation and discussion format. We have our own projector.
At this week’s Chi Hack Night, Dr. Dan Cooper from Adler University and Cathy Deng from DataMade presented Chicago’s Million Dollar Blocks – a site that shows how much Illinois spends on incarceration at the block level.
This project was developed by Dr. Daniel Cooper and Dr. Ryan Lugalia-Hollon, who had been working to map out the cost of incarceration by zipcode. They worked with DataMade to create a visualization to showcase the costs of incarceration in Chicago and how it impacts particular neighborhoods.
The map the team created was based on data obtained by the Chicago Justice Project from the Cook County Circuit Court (as shown in our Convicted in Cook Project). That dataset shows all convictions in Cook County from 2005-2009 and includes data for what the offense was, the length of the sentence, and the offender’s residential address. The team then based each block’s dollar amounts from sentence lengths. The cost assumption is they used is that on average the Illinois Department of Corrections spends approximately $22,000 per year for each inmate.
Design Considerations
When DataMade built the site, they had a number of design considerations which Cathy Deng explained during the presentations.
1) Value clarity and simplicity
One of the things that the team had to consider is that while it was possible to add much more detail to the site, it would have made things overly complicated. They opted to keep the site simple and focus on the story that the team was working to tell.
2) Design for people who skim
Deng also spoke about the issue of people not having all the time in the world to read every single word on a site. Part of the user experience design was to assume that people would skim through the site. Deng used subheadings and text callouts to make certain points stick out in order to get the most important information across.
3) Make sure it works on mobile
Almost half of the traffic on Chicago’s Million Dollar Blocks comes in through mobile devices. A large part of Deng’s work was making the site look good on mobile devices.
4) Design in the open
DataMade had opened sourced their code on their GitHub site so that other developers can learn from their work. The data that fuels the site was first opened up by the Chicago Justice Project in the context of our the groundbreaking project they did with Smart Chicago: Convicted in Cook. CJP Executive Director Tracy Siska worked hard to obtain that data and this second project helps crystalize the issues we work on in our Justice area of work. Helping encourage more work around liberated data is one reason why we exist.
5) Call to Action
The last point that Deng made was that projects should include a call to action – particularly when the projects are hitting on important social issues.
Note: this is part of a series of posts in our Connect Chicago program where we describe in detail digital skills learning environments throughout the city.
The mission of Chicago Youth Centers (CYC) is to empower children and teens to recognize and experience their possibility and promise. Chicago Youth Centers (CYC) is proud to be part of this community. Named after one of its largest supporters, the Polk Bros. Foundation, CYC – ABC Polk Bros. Youth Center was one of the original three centers to form CYC in 1956. Well-trained youth-development specialists give individual support to nearly 400 children and teens each year to help them reach their potential, academically, socially and professionally. The center also runs a food pantry on the first Saturday of each month in partnership with New St. John Missionary Baptist Church. CYC gives members the tools, support and guidance they need to reach their full potential through the following age-specific programs: Early Childhood Education, School-Age Child Development, Teen Leadership Development, and Summer Fun.
The Early Childhood program is of special interest to those of us at Smart Chicago, since we created and run the Chicago Early Learning portal.
CYC ABC Early Childhood mission is to invest in youth in underserved communities in Chicago to help them discover and realize their full potential. Our program specialty is in the area of science. Children enrolled in our program will participate in a Green Living Recycling Project to protect the environment. Children will utilize their school readiness skills in all areas inclusive of math, science and literacy as they embark on creating and implementing a recycling station in their classroom community. Children will learn about how packaging waste, including glass, aluminum, plastics, metals and paperboard contribute significantly to annual waste totals, along with yard trimmings. Children will learn recycling involves taking materials that would normally be discarded as waste and giving them a new life. Children will use their problem solving skills to create their own toys and inventions through recycling. Family Engagement in the program supports the involvement of parents and community partnerships toward achieving the school readiness outcomes.
The Smart Chicago Youth-Led Tech program is run from a basement office that is cool and inviting when the hot summer sun is shining bright.
The 24 youth in our program gather around three tables and a bench. We have plenty of outlets and room for our daily breakfast and lunch deliveries. Each of the participants have their own brand-new laptop, which are secured each night in a cabinet we had delivered to the site. We try to be as self-sufficient as possible while using as few of the resources at the location as we can. The gym is a huge resource— the kids love it and they’re able to use it after their morning lesson and right before lunch.
There’s also a stage for performances.
Breakfast and lunch is delivered daily and any extra is shared with other programs in this busy facility.
There is a long, lush garden in the lot just to the east of the center, and some of the youth love to roam it over their breaks.
We like to have fun in the sun
Everyday is a gift because its a blessing to live
I love everyone and its crazy because a lot of kids are getting killed.
Its alot of talented people in englewood that they just have to prove their self.
Many don’t have a chance to reach their own goal.
Ancestors of ours are screaming from the grave cus physically were free but were still mental slaves.
Live a life of love.
Happy souls live.
freedom is a curse or a blessing.
we are happy to show our talents.
carpe diem.
life is a gift and everybody deserves a second chance.
you only live once
Together were trying to make it out this community but first we have to come together with unity.
so come together and do something good for the community.
you can’t change englewood you can only change the people in it.
live life to the fullest.
perfection is not attainable but if we chase perfection we can accomplish our goals and dreams.
this is a youth led tech program where everyone is welcome so don’t sit around make yourself welcome.#godsgift
If we are God’s gift, not to be taken.
we got to stay together we gotta stay golden we have to have trust before our trust is stolen.
This is smart chicago we stand as a family.
For all those who take life I hope their souls are forsaken.
We’re in the second week of delivering on our inaugural Youth-Led Tech, and one of the most rewarding parts of running this program is working with our instructors. We assembled a stellar group of people in a very short amount of time.
At Smart Chicago, one of our principles is open. To us, that means publishing open source code, but it also means publishing step-by-step instructions on how we do less technical but often more sophisticated tasks like hiring a high-quality, diverse workforce for tech instruction in a short amount of time.
We conducted 15 interviews on June 2, 2015 based on responses to this campaign. As three of us did the interviews— Kyla, Sonja, and I— we collected quantitative and qualitative information in another Wufoo form. We asked general, open-ended questions about why they were interested in the opportunity, and also checked their availability for the six-week course. We also gave each a rating in three areas: classroom management, tech knowledge, and teaching experience.
An additional nine people applied after this initial interview set. We arranged and conducted another 12 interviews with a number of these applicants, as well as people from the initial 36 who couldn’t make it on June 2. We communicated with these people by email rather than Mailchimp. We offered interviews to every applicant, and we interviewed everybody who responded to our offers.
We received 45 applications total. After background checks, consent forms, and consultant contracts, we hired this set of wonder-people:
Here’s an excerpt from our first newsletter for this summer program. If you’d like to get this to yer Inbox, sign up here.
Our first Youth-Led Tech program is off to a great start. This is our first weekly update made especially for the youth, parents, guardians, counselors, instructors, and everyone else who cares https://slack-files.com/files-tmb/T06U90JBB-F073DMAF7-ddc6f54633/slack_for_ios_upload_1024.pngabout the people in Youth-Led Tech. If you know someone who should be getting these emails, tell them to fill out this form.
You can determine eligibility by finding neighborhood names using this tool maintained by the Chicago Tribune. If you have questions, comments, or issues about an application that has been declined, please contact me directly at the information below.
What we’re learning
This week we’ve focused on lots of startup activities— forms, figuring out meals we all like, getting computers set up, doing team-building, and (yes) even starting to learn how to make websites. One of our principles at Smart Chicago is openness— we love to share exact details of what we do and how we do it. Here’s the complete curriculum for our first week: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five.
The instructors at each location go at their own pace, add their own flavor, and respond to youth input, so there may be differences between this curriculum and what the youth are learning so far in your location. Please download, share, and try this out at home— even if you can’t make it to our sessions this summer, we hope you can get value out of our work.
Last November we hosted an OpenGovChicago event on park district advisory councils. As OpenGovChicago founder Joe Germuska put it, this was part of our ongoing effort to “learn more about existing microdemocratic systems in Chicago”. More:
At this week’s Chi Hack Night, Dr. Dan Cooper from Adler University and Cathy Deng from DataMade presented Chicago’s Million Dollar Blocks – a site that shows how much Illinois spends on incarceration at the block level.
