Announcement: Technology Mini-Grants for Media Work with Chicago Youth

Roosevelt University’s Department of Communication is pleased to announce the creation of a McCormick Foundation-funded Chicago 2010 Youth Media Technology Fund. The goal of this experimental fund is to help educators and nonprofit youth programs gain access to the technology they need to further their journalistic work with young people. This initiative grows out of Roosevelt’s long-time commitment to Chicago-area scholastic journalism and the McCormick Foundation Journalism Program’s commitment to youth media and news literacy work both inside and outside of schools. Specifics of the fund are:

• Mini-grants will be for technology that furthers educators’ use of media for reporting (news gathering, interviewing, documentary, community exploration, etc) with young people in the city of Chicago. Grants can be for digital cameras, video cameras, audio equipment, software, computers and other items that further that work.
• Potential applicants are educators who incorporate media production in their classrooms or in their youth programs (say to produce audio podcasts on community issues or a video on the environment).
• Grant amounts will range from:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • $500 maximum for educators who incorporate media in their work at the middle school level (grades 5 to 8)
  • $1,000 maximum for educators who incorporate media in their work with youth in nonprofit programs
  • $2,000 maximum for educators who incorporate media in their work with youth in high schools
  
  
  
  
  
• Applications consist of three simple questions:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • Who are you and where do you work? (Your name, name and location of school along with grade level you teach, name of nonprofit where you work, your contact information)
  • How do you incorporate media in your work with youth? (Describe your work with youth and how it is furthered by incorporating media, a description or anecdote of any past journalistic work that you and your students have produced, plus a sentence about your philosophy around utilizing media in education)
  • What do you need to purchase and how will it help further your work with youth? (Describe your goals moving forward and very specifically what it is you hope to purchase to help make that possible, including equipment costs)
  
  
  
  
  
• The advisory committee will make a decision on awarding individual grants based on the stated need and compelling nature of the application. The advisory board may follow up with further questions.
• Upon notification from the Foundation, and before a grant is awarded, the school principal or nonprofit executive director must sign a form approving of this award.
• Technology purchased through this program will be for the use of the applicant but will become the property of the school or nonprofit where applicants work.

Please share this notice with anyone you think might be interested in this opportunity. Deadline for the first round of grant applications is Dec. 15, 2009. Please submit all proposals electronically. To inquire about the program or submit a proposal, contact Linda Jones at Roosevelt University at ljones@roosevelt.edu. 

If you know of teachers and/or nonprofit educators who should be aware of this opportunity please forward the attached PDF/Flyer   to them.

Note to Chicago Youth Voices Network members: Please do not submit an application at this time. For details, contact jliao@mccormickfoundation.org.