Boston school is national winner of Verizon technology award

The Boston Digital Bridge Foundation’s Technology Goes Home @ School Program at the Lilla G. Frederick Middle School in Boston, Massachusetts, has been selected as the national winner of the Second Annual Verizon Tech Savvy Awards. The program will receive a $25,000 award to continue and expand.

Through the Technology Goes Home program, Boston public school teachers provide computer and technology training to students and their parents after school or on weekends. Since it began in 1999, more than 3,500 families in Boston have completed the 25 hours of training. The Frederick Middle School, in collaboration with the Digital Bridge Foundation will have trained over 200 families this year. In addition to the national winner, four other programs were recognized as regional winners and each will receive a $5,000 grant.

The regional winners are:
•Computers for Youth Foundation’s Take IT Home Program, in New York, NewYork, which bolsters parent and caregiver new media skills through training workshops.
•National Institute on Media and the Family’s Through-u-Families Become MediaWise, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which provides resources and education to parents and caregivers about the impact of current media trends on children’s health, behavior, pre-literacy skills and school readiness.
•Pima Community College Foundation’s Family Technical Education Curriculum, in Tucson, Arizona, which teaches basic technology skills.
•Santa Barbara Partners in Education’s Computers for Families program in Santa Barbara, Calif., which increases tech familiarity by introducing computers with Internet access to fourth-grade students and their families in 30 schools.

Details of the programs will be added to the Thinkfinity Literacy Network to serve as an educational resource, highlighting best practices and approaches for technology literacy for people of all ages.