DeAnza College/CIS2/Community service learning projects

Projects - previous semesters

This is the list of the organizations we are supporting this semester. If you select one of these as your community service learning project, prepare a proposal for your project, and you can begin work immediately.

Other organizations and projects can be considered, but you must write a proposal AND get approval from the instructor BEFORE working on the project.

== Community Empowerment Media projects==

The Community Empowerment Collective (CEC) is a web-based not-for-profit association working to produce, translate, and make available free training material for strengthening communities to combat poverty. The CEC training starts with the idea that capacity is developed when the community is stimulated to develop itself, and emphasises “How-to” rather than theory about the empowerment methodology.

Community Empowerment For the Media project, produce one or more video clips, perhaps 4 to 5 minutes long, of training material, using the same topics and issues as now included on our static web pages. Many people are more oral/aural than written language communicators. The clips would be aimed at community workers in such societies. http://www.scn.org/cmp/


 * read and experiment with the WikiEducator collaborative video - narration, images http://wikieducator.org/Special:KalturaCollaborativeVideoInfo

http://www.scn.org/cmp/modules/emp-ce.htm
 * create a video of a portion of the Community Empowerment introduction.


 * This "script is about 3600 words long so it would take about 30 minutes to read out load. Select a chunk of text that addresses a topic, prepare a summary of approximately 500 words.


 * record your narration, add pictures.


 * if you speak one of the other languages listed, you can produce your video in that language, based on the script provided.

== Tar Heel Reader ==


 * Tar Heel Reader - online books

Books for beginning readers of all ages

http://tarheelreader.org/

The Tar Heels Reader provides a collection of free, easy-to-read, and accessible books on a wide range of topics. Each book can be speech enabled and accessed using multiple interfaces.

For this project, you will write your own books using pictures from the huge collection at Flickr or pictures you upload.
 * Read several of the books so you get the idea of how these work
 * Read the instructions to writing books. There are several different types of books - enrichment, transitional and conventional
 * Register
 * Create books about subjects of interest to you that are appropriate for college-age English Language Learners. Topics that are needed - math and science, working, studying, travel

== Project Gutenberg ==


 * Project Gutenberg - participating in converting books to digital format

http://www.gutenberg.org

There are over 25,000 free books in the Project Gutenberg Online Book Catalog. The Project Gutenberg collection was produced by tens of thousands of volunteers. You can help. Distributed Proofreaders provides a web-based method to ease the conversion of Public Domain books into e-books. By dividing the workload into individual pages, many volunteers can work on a book at the same time, which significantly speeds up the creation process.

During proofreading, volunteers are presented with a scanned page image and the corresponding OCR text on a single web page. This allows the text to be easily compared to the image, proofread, and sent back to the site. A second volunteer is then presented with the first volunteer's work and the same page image, verifies and corrects the work as necessary, and submits it back to the site. The book then similarly progresses through two formatting rounds using the same web interface.

Once all the pages have completed these steps, a post-processor carefully assembles them into an e-book, optionally makes it available to interested parties for 'smooth reading', and submits it to the Project Gutenberg archive.


 * Register with the site as a volunteer.
 * Read the introductory email you receive and the Beginning Proofreader's FAQ.
 * Confirm your registration, sign in, choose a project, and try proofreading a page or two!

== Local Community Service project==

A Local Community Service Learning Project is also an option. If you currently volunteer at an organization, you can propose a community service learning project for that organization. This is more than volunteering. Your project must related to the CIS2 course topics, and follow the guidelines for community service learning. Let's talk about it before you proceed.


 * Email your Project summary and service learning analysis (see outline) to the instructor AND to your coordinator/ supervisor at the community organization for comment


 * Have the coordinator / supervisor at the community organization add comments and forward the entire email (your original email and their comments) to the instructor.

== Lingro dictionary translation ==

http://lingro.com/

Lingro is a project that aims to create an online environment that will allow anyone, in reading a foreign language website, a quick and easy means to translate words they don't understand. Simple in concept, yet profound in implication, Lingro uses open dictionaries and user-submitted CC BY-SA licensed, definitions to expand its ever-growing database.

For this community service learning project option, you will contribute translations to continue expanding the dictionaries. The Lingro dictionary builder helps contributors easily add translations and definitions. Once you have chosen a language pair you're fluent in, the builder shows you a list of words missing from that particular dictionary, ordered by how common they are in the language (the word "the" would be near the top, while "onomatopoeia" is further down). You can also see sentences showing the words used in context to help recall the meanings.

All the new user contributions are licensed under the CC BY-SA license and the GNU FDL to ensure that the content created on Lingro will be free forever. Anyone building on the work Lingro contributors have done will be able to freely share it with the community in the same way. This freedom is central to the creation of a commons of knowledge and allowing people to collaborate across cultures.

You must be fluent in both languages for this project.

== The California History Center ==

http://www.wikieducator.org/California_History_Center

The California History Center (CHC) is an active focal point for California history studies. Emphasizing living history, the CHC provides students with a unique opportunity to "encounter the historic site, document, or experienced individual, and personally interpret and recreate a period in history."

There are several projects. You can pick one. For each, you will be researching the topic for an upcoming event or exhibition, and adding to the online resource collection. As you find articles and media on the internet, you will add a link and a description of the resource to the projects web page.

http://www.wikieducator.org/Help:Editing
 * 1) Create a WikiEducator account - click on the 'create account' link at the top right of this page.
 * 2) Review the introduction information about editing and writing in a wiki

Pick your topic from the list. Find resources and update the appropriate CHC project's page. You will only be working on one of these topics.

http://www.wikieducator.org/California_History_Center/Day_of_Remembrance
 * Day of Remembrance - creating a reference source of links to various sites featuring information, documents, photos, and video clips on the World War II internment of Japanese Americans and its relevance to current issues regarding the safe guarding of the US Constitution.

http://www.wikieducator.org/California_History_Center/Community_Gardens
 * Community Gardens - we currently have an exhibit up on an early demonstration organic garden and farm built during the 1970s in Saratoga (torn down in the 1980s). This has launched us into trying to link up with efforts on campus and off to promote gardening and sustainable agriculture.

http://www.wikieducator.org/California_History_Center/Chinese_Immigration
 * Chinese Immigration - in preparation for an exhibit next year, we are collecting resources about Chinese Americans in the US and their efforts to fight for inclusion in US society. We are focusing on issues pertaining to the Santa Clara Valley.


 * Russian connection - Russian Connection

== Community Empowerment ==


 * Community Empowerment - volunteer opportunities - translator, illustrator, computer formatting, community mobilizer


 * Community Empowerment - strengthening communities through training and support of community mobilizers to reduce poverty, increase self-reliance and develop leadership from within community. http://www.scn.org/cmp

Community Empowerment Collective creates, develops, produces and distributes training material and guidance aimed at community mobilisers, their trainers and their coordinators (managers) to promote the self reliance, development and strengthening of low income communities, with a focus on least developed countries, and in other low income areas.

The Community Empowerment training materials are available on the web. They are being translated into many languages already - notably English, German, Spanish, French, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Italian. The training resource library is constantly expanding with translations being added. Current translation initiatives include African and Asian languages. Additional translation volunteers with proficiency and fluency in any language are always welcome to help expand access to the Community Empowerment through localization.

Volunteers can participate in other ways, too. Illustrators, are especially invited to submit original black and white line drawing that depict community activities.

The Community Empowerment Collective is registered as a "Society" (Non Profit Organization) with the Province of British Columbia, Canada. Its budget is zero.

Community Empowerment Volunteers - community service learning opportunities


 * Illustrator - see Illustrator guidelines for details
 * PowerPoint summaries producer - see Computing overview
 * Translator - see specific instructions for CIS below

CIS2 Translators
 * Contact Community Empowerment volunteer coordinator ?? register as a UNOV indicating your language translation
 * Download and install Cat's Cradle - it is free. This program allows you to translate the content text without disturbing the HTML for the page.
 * Check out Cat's Cradle using some of your own text
 * The language coordinator will assign at test page for you to translate and will help you become familiar with the process.
 * Then work with the coordinator to translate assigned pages.
 * Maintain a log of your time and the pages you translate. This will help the Community Empowerment volunteer coordinator provide feedback and assist your instructor in evaluating this community service learning project option.

Cat's Cradle

http://www.tucows.com/preview/306058

CatsCradle is a software program that helps you to translate from web page to web page. It is not a mechanical translator. It puts the text of a web page into a box, and you type its translation into another box. It then looks after all the tags with controls and commands so the result is the same web page but in your language of choice. CC 3.5 allows you to translate into languages with non Latin characters, and those that write from right to left.

Mac users - Cat's Cradle

http://mac.softpedia.com/progDownload/CatsCradle-Download-6716.html