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hello good afternoon everyone we'll get started here in a few minutes uh welcome to the digital navigators webinar i'm
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excited to share out some findings recommendations and best practices from a little over a year of
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digital navigator program delivery excited to be here with you all
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seeing some familiar faces here hello
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all right we'll give folks a few more minutes i still see a lot of people um filtering in so maybe we'll get started
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um officially in a minute or so it's as a matter of uh
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housekeeping um please mute yourself this isn't webinars this is just a more regular open meeting so i will be um
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i'll have a slide deck ready uh prepared to share out some findings and recommendations from a year of
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digital navigators but we wanted this to not be a webinar more of a regular meeting because i want i am looking
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forward to having an informed um and immersive discussion with you all that being said i've done my best to try
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to address get ahead of your questions that you may have uh in the presentation
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so we'll see where we land
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okay let's go ahead and get started um welcome everyone good afternoon i think it's afternoon for everyone on the call
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welcome to the digital navigator's findings and recommendations presentation
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with ndia we thought it was significant to deliver a webinar based based on digital
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navigators at this time for a few reasons the big thing is that our
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project that we were working very closely with the salt lake city public library has just completed and from that
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project a digital navigator's toolkit has uh arisen so we're really excited to share
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out like what we learned over the past year and how best to support
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other digital navigators programs across the country the other reason that this time of the
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year is significant is that we are just about one year over a year of delivering digital navigators
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ndia first supported uh rural risk and the salt lake city public library in september of last year um which seems
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like it was just yesterday to be completely honest so we're one year into this program i think it's
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time for us to talk about how the program's been going specifically i'll be referring uh quite
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frequently to the findings and recommendations from the salt lake city public library project because we had such a heavy role in
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forming that project and they went and again they were just such great partners um throughout our time
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i do have a presentation lined up um for anyone who is coming in a little bit later i have
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framed this presentation based on the common questions that myself and my
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colleagues get when we're talking about digital navigators so i've tried to do my best to get ahead of any questions that you may have coming into this
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that being said i have left plenty of time towards the tail end of our meeting to have um an
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open an open question and answer because i want to give you all some space to to ask for any clarifying questions
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or um to bring something up that maybe i i may have missed so welcome i'm going to
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go into screen chair here uh very shortly just as a gentle reminder given that this is a general meeting and not a
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webinar please mute yourself we'll have time for questions at the end throughout the course of uh today's uh
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webinar if any questions do come up please use the chat right like mike i have a few co-workers on with me today
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who will be monitoring the chat they'll be picking questions um and lining stuff up for me to answer
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so let's use that heavy chat function nothing said welcome let's dig into it
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hopefully my computer doesn't crash
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yeah i see my co-worker christie just put the link to the toolkit in the chat thank you christy
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um a lot of what i'm going to be presenting on today is informed
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by that by the findings and recommendations from that toolkit that being said digital navigators is
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designed to be a flexible program that can take a different shape and a different scenario
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a different uh sort of municipality whether it's like an urban area suburban or rural area so it's designed to adapt
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to different types of localities and situations so when appropriate i'll be mentioning some
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other types of digital navigators programs that either ndia is directly supporting or that we're just very in
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very close contact with um to highlight some other examples of how the program is taking shape
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across the country so let's start with a round of welcomes uh you put uh please use the chat um i
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want to know a little bit more about you as well and i'll just ask for
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folks to list out your name organization and your role in the chat
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um as a matter of more housekeeping please mute throughout the course of today's
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presentation again the framing of this webinar is based on the toolkit and the work that
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we've done with sites directly on the ground a little bit of an intro to me
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hello my name is paula balboa i've been with the ndia for a little over a year now my role is a program and data
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manager here with our excellent staff of uh digital inclusion
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unicorns as we call ourselves my background is in public library education first at the cleveland public
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library where i was in their adult education department for five years most recently i was at the new york
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public library in their technology training program department so i'm all about adult education
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specifically in public libraries which is what i bring to the molding and
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delivery of how i talk about digital navigators with folks who may come from
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outside of the public library world i just want to do some agenda setting
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for today we're in the welcome part of today's webinar so i'll be talking about
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um six different sections that map to how we talk about them in the toolkit right
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so i want to talk first about uh an intro to ndia which will be coming up a background on how digital navigators
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came to be and then i'm going to talk about a few of the more granular pieces of the digital navigator program
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delivery process that goes from device procurement uh thinking about who to hire and who to partner with um
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and then the number four here project management is a sec is a section that we get a lot of a lot of questions on so
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i'm gonna take care and spend an extra amount of time there
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and then marketing and outreach the evaluation piece and then of course trading so what goes into the training days i
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know that just from having these conversations that's that's another piece uh the training section that folks
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have a lot of questions about so i'm leaving that towards the end so we can go into a q a from there
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so let's get into who we are i see plenty of familiar faces
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familiar names um on today's webinar which is awesome but i can't account for everyone so i
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think it bears repeating that i want to introduce who ndia is and the sort of work that we do in this space and how we
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came to begin doing it so we began officially in 2015 as a 501c3 uh meaning that as an organization
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we're officially six years old but the work of digital equity and the work
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of digital inclusion has existed long before 2015 right we weren't the first ones to put this on the map
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whether people were calling their work digital equity or digital inclusion to describe how they were working with
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community members to get them access to resources online that's the work of digital inclusion ndia just serves to talk with
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our network of affiliates to sort of centralize that conversation in one place and act as a central node to share
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some best practices for how to continue the good work of digital inclusion
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digital navigators as a program was born out of the model that we like to work
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within at ndia which is that we like to talk with our network of affiliates i
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when i describe my job to my friends or my family i like to describe my job as talking to talking with people who are
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ten times smarter than me and taking diligent notes and then sharing out with other people like okay this person says
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this this person says this this might work for you right that's what ndia's role is
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everything that we do we do in lockstep with our network of affiliates
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including coming up with definitions to frame and guide our work as uh digital
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equity workers and digital equity advocates so two definitions here um digital equity digital inclusion
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i just like to think of the one on the left digital equity as the goal
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we want and we want our affiliate and we want the community members that our affiliates work with to get to this
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framework of digital equity meaning we want them to be able to participate
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fully in society democracy and the economy what does that mean in a more practical sense
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i like to think of 2020 for instance 2020 was a census year
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it was also a presidential election year when everything had to go online very suddenly last march the question that we
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asked ourselves in the digital inclusion community and that many of you may have been asking yourselves at that time was
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what happens when everything goes online who is in danger or who is at risk of not being
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counted in a census or not being able to register or re-register to vote
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we saw this happen or we're seeing the effects of that now for instance the american community survey one-year
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survey is not being released this year because they didn't gather enough or enough useful data from that which has
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uh big effects so because we because programs like
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yours and digital navigators exist they seek to get people to a framework of digital equity we know that not everyone
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is there so that's why this work exists so that's when we talk about digital inclusion this other phrase i like to
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think about digital inclusion as the how how do we get people to this framework of digital equity
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it's through these activities it's through these this these activities necessary for full
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participation to further break this down
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we and the digital inclusion world i like to talk about we like furniture i'm sitting on a chair i had to buy a chair
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when i had to start working from home so we like to use this analogy of the three legs of the stool
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the combination of affordable broadband appropriate devices and digital literacy training
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affordable broadband is this question of availability versus affordability
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meaning that in a city like where i live in brooklyn just because that just because there are wires in the ground
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there's physical infrastructure there for a household or an apartment to get the internet
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the more important question is who isn't adopting the internet who doesn't have a home subscription
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we can boil that down to usually an issue of cost which is why as
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which is where a program like comcast internet essentials uh like sort of tries to bridge that gap
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the second leg of the stool appropriate devices um we know from american community survey data that uh seven
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percent of households nationally rely on a mobile cellular connection to access to the
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internet to access the internet that's an incomplete data point however
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but what we can extrapolate from that is that there's millions of people in the country who
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access the internet through a cell phone that's their main device to uh to do to
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send email to connect with family and friends etc thinking about the more practical senses
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of um participating fully in society democracy and the economy
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fully filling out a government form for instance on a cell phone or
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something as simple as sharing an attachment to an email on a cell phone is
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pretty prohibitive it's not really cell phones are really built for that the question then is what's the
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appropriate device for the type of activity that someone wants to do that wants to use
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the last leg of the stool here is digital literacy trainings and this is really where primarily where my
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background comes in it's that human component of digital inclusion
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so for a program it may be great to get someone connected with a refurbished laptop for instance maybe even better to
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get them set up with comcast internet essentials if that's the service provider that's available in your area
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but the question is what happens if that person doesn't know how to use that device or how to access
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services that are available online that's that digital literacy training piece and that really builds into
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why and how digital navigators came to be so last spring
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when covid hit ndia convened a working group of primarily practitioners who were running
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digital inclusion programs and we asked them now that everything has gone remote
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what's working and what's not working this is how ndia does everything that we do right we're always asking folks like
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what is working and what's not working can we share it can we share it out and we have the benefit of having uh being a
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trusted source with all of our affiliates is that usually they say yes yeah please we want other people to know this
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so one outcome of those conversations was a revision of a guide called the digital inclusion
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startup manual which was upgrade revised to include best practices for digital literacy
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training uh over a video conference called zoom
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at the time when code first hit i was still working for the new york public library and i
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specifically remember that in our department we were having those conversations live we were testing out
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zoom we were testing out google me but because we're a library and we had to work with community members and patrons
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we always have to remember like okay if someone needs to attend a computer class
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we can assume a level of digital skilling there so we have to pick the software that has the lowest barrier to
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entry for us what we decided then at the nypl was that zoom and the
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email that you have to make to register to get an account and to register for a call like this those are enough barriers
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to entry for at least our patrons at the time so we said no to zoom
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so in the revision of the startup manual we included guidance and best practices for each for instance each of the video
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conferencing softwares and what works what are the pros and cons and that was a huge huge revision that
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was very much guided by our community but then we started we wanted to continue the conversation because there
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was still a gap in digital inclusion programming like yes you can deliver those trainings but we wanted to
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remember that digital inclusion is a holistic process those three legs of the stool are always
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working together to make sure that we can get folks to this framework of digital equity
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the working group was realizing that especially in the pandemic those holistic services needed to continue so
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how do we build one up how do we replicate the sort of services that for instance a public library or or a public
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computer center provides what are they what about those other elements of digital inclusion devices
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and uh affordable broadband so we began to get to work uh in this
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case i'll just talk about this one case here we began to get to work with the salt lake city public library on
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applying for a grant from the institute of museum and library services we're also working at the time with
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another organization called ruralisc to deliver another pilot version of digital
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navigators which for that project the primary audience was economic development uh
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based organizations uh organizations based in rural areas
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i'll talk about the salt lake city grant because that's a lot of what informs the toolkit we submitted the proposal last summer
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the proposal was accepted which meant that over this over last fall there was a series of meetings
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between program leadership at ndia and at the salt lake city public library to determine the project plan what would
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hiring look like what does device procurement look like we delivered the training in late
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november co-delivered by ndia and the salt lake city public library the elements of that training was again
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guided by our digital navigators working so we had a lot of conversations with people who were who were framing
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what we should be delivering in this training and also how to do it
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for the salt lake city public library project direct service began in december of last year
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and direct service ended in mid-july so seven and a half months
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of direct service for that for that project
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i'm a big fan of reusing slides here but um so just to really drive from
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the point digital navigators is a is a program designed to stack these three legs of
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the stool into one role into one staff member or maybe several staff members spread across a series of organizations
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depending on how a program looks it's an adaptation of traditional
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in-person digital inclusion programming designed to provide that one-to-one dedicated support via phone or zoom or
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google meet it's always based on the community's preference take this from the library world we're
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always trying to meet people where they are based on their own comfort and skill level
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a public computer center is a great place to host a digital navigators program
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because they do offer those social services already so again i'm not going to deliver the point but like a public library it made sense for this digital
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navigator program to pilot in a place like the salt lake city public library because they already they already had staff that were used to
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doing those sort of like one-off interactions with a with a library page from that when they would come in through the doors with a particular
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question digital navigators really embody the support services
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that staff at for instance a public library or a social service organization already offer so last year we began at
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ndia we began to work with um with different types of organizations who were a bit newer to the digital
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inclusion space for instance like a refugee resettlement agency
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we began to put the connect the dots and realize that
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someone like or an agency like a refugee resettlement place organization had already been doing
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that social service digital inclusion work with their clients because they just weren't calling it that
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so when covet hit ndia we were welcoming in a lot of new types of organizations into our uh into
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our world right making our tent a little bit bigger but we were also learning a lot from
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them so as these social service organizations
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began to join the fray that really informed the type of program that we built
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one of the most common common questions that myself and my colleagues get about digital navigators is that there's this
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there's a there's an assumption that a digital navigator is like a it's like a highly tech savvy uh young millennial
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right um my my co-worker of mine uh described it as described digital
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navigators as not quite a apple genius and more of like a social
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worker digital navigators is a program where certainly the
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digital navigator themself has technology skills but they're not the apple genius they're not the guy at the
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apple genius bar that you make an appointment with who's going to be standoffish we want our digital navigators to be trustworthy guides
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who more often than not come from the communities that they serve because they do often come from the
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communities that they serve that makes them well positioned i would say the best position to understand and address the
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technology related concerns other fellow community members they they come these are their neighbors right this is like
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they've been helping their parents uh do this um for years
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so that's our background on digital navigators let's get into the specific
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pieces of uh digital navigator program delivery um again these are all
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this next series of slides are mapped to sections of the toolkit which my co-worker put in the
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chat at the top of the at the top of the webinar today
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so after so the first step usually in a digital navigator's program after uh you know
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securing funding and uh identifying uh needs um locally is to
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get the work underway it's securing those devices so that they so that they can be um
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disseminated to community members who need them most so on this screen here i just want to
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highlight three of the national computer refurbishers that we have worked with um
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or rather connected programs with um to get um to get devices to their community
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members this certainly however and i want to make sure i say this this isn't an exhaustive list of all of the computer
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refurbishers in the country right these are just uh these are these are some examples of some partners that we've
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worked with closely each of these
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each of these computer refurbishers we have selected or we've chosen to highlight because they all offer like
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the same basic suite what we've learned over the course of the past year and working with um
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especially federally grant funded digital navigators programs is that the
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funder wants to see uh different types of computer different types of contracts and the subcontracts
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involved in the program so we do our best to make sure that um a site has a introduction introductory
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conversation with not one but multiple computer refurbishers because they have expressed that they need to show
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that they've done the work and been done like a network scam that's one of the roles that ndia plays to get them
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connected with different national refurbishers humanity computer reach npcs for people
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they all offer a basic suite of one year of tech support a year of hardware warranty and most
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importantly they all offer a form of basic help desk support
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meaning that when a laptop or a desktop or a tablet is shipped out to a
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community member's home if in if in that moment a community member needs help for instance figuring
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out which port to plug in a usb or how to get how to get the desktop set up like that does
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that those hardware pieces each of these organizations have
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dedicated staff who are ready to answer those calls so it does remove a bit of that
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more technical support removing that responsibility from a digital navigator we think of digital
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navigators more as referral guides um just some specifics about each of
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these refurbishers uh pcs for people has seven offices across the country one thing that's unique about them is that
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their pricing models for um desktops and laptops is based on what they call a good better and best pricing
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model so they are very happy to
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usually with an ndia facilitated facilitated conversation talk with a site and figure out which
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type of device is best suited for the types of activities that their community members are going to be doing
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all three of these refurbishers have some sort of visual aid like an infographic that they ship in the box
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with um with with the device when it goes out and they all
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have uh licenses for windows 10 for fellow for for 501 c3 organizations
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the other organization highlighted on this slide after
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the alliance for technology refurbishing and reuse which is a which is a part of our
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long-term friend digitunity has a useful map which i'm going to put in the chat
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here which highlights computer refurbishers locally across the
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country so just to clarify here humanity computer
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reach and pcs for people these are national refurbishers that will ship anywhere in the u.s but the alliance for
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technology for refurbishing and reuse is a collection of
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smaller local computer refurbishers who who will work locally so just wanted to highlight those i put
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the link to their map in the chat here
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another note on device procurement just some things to consider that leg of the stool like appropriate
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devices we really want to make sure that your program is getting your community
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members set up with the most useful device for them right so
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in our conversations with uh computer refurbishers one of the things that we've noticed is that
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given that they usually have their own digital inclusion programming they will usually recommend that if a program is
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working primarily with seniors for instance to get them connected with desktops
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because then there is experience a desktop as a machine as a device is more familiar to to uh
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to an older adult so it's just an interesting um topic to
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to to bring up that being said another thing to consider if
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working with a desktop or if delivering desktops is that there are more moving parts in setting up a desktop there's
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more wires there's a monitor there's the keyboard there's the actual computer so there is more
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potential barriers or pain points for someone when they first
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but like i mentioned each of these each of the aforementioned computer refurbishers do have that dedicated tech
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support line another software piece to consider is that again this comes back to the idea
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of familiarity windows operating systems seems to be
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the gold standard it continues to be the standard for uh community members
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library patrons when they get set up with a with a laptop or desktop for the first time
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so all of these refurbishers do offer an op to offer an option to get that windows license on their computers
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one day before they're shipped out just one more note here
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if you have a program or if you are considering creating a program that takes into
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consideration working with populations with special needs um such as let's say like the visually
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impaired for instance that's a con that's something that each of these refurbishers that software is
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something that they're all happy to to pre-load or to image on their machines before they send them out
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it's just a matter of being clear with them to before they get shipped out
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okay so let's so next step in the process usually when working when in the digital navigator
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program delivery is that after getting those initial meetings set up with computer refurbishers securing those
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devices is thinking about who to hire so
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like we do i'm just pulling up a link here like we do everything at ndia we
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create all of our materials um based on the feedback and collective expertise of our working group so last year when we
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were getting ready to start delivering or supporting digital navigators programs we came up with what we call the
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baseline job description the job description which i just put in
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the chat is uh purposefully vague right it's an editable pdf which we want
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an organization to sort of see themselves in and address and fill in the gaps for any
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um unique perspectives or specificities that your organization may have
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it's a template so we think of it as a template again it was it was co-developed by our working group it's
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now publicly available on our digital navigator working page the job description really serves as
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like a touch point for individuals and organizations to shape their understanding of who and what and who
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and what a digital navigator is and while also listing out those required key skills and competencies
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like i mentioned before what we're really trying to express in the job description is that it's less of an apple genius bar and more of a social
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worker we do try we do we were intentional about mapping the um
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the components of the job description to those three likes of the stool broadband devices and digital literacy training
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so while a digital navigator should have a pretty comfortable familiarity with
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let's say researching or really really googling something um if they're unsure of the answer
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what we're really really asking for is do they have those soft touch skills like patience and empathy are they able
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to sit down with someone who may come from a completely different cultural background than them
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or a demographic background with them and walk them through whatever technology issue
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that they may have we really try to
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again prioritize empathy also contra cultural sensitivity and most important
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of all i would think is strong interpersonal skills that's because a digital navigator is
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expected to have these repeated interactions over the course of program delivery we want that community member
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to feel comfortable calling on that digital navigator thinking okay maybe last week
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you helped me get set up with with an email for instance but now can you help me fill out this job application
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right that digital navigator is that person in a community member's life
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as far as who to look for when hiring a digital navigator or when considering good fuel navigators
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um you know trust is really the most important thing it's i mentioned towards
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the top digital navigators usually come from the communities that they serve they're they're the best equipped to unders to already understand those
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technology needs and trust is really that truly important skill necessary for
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a digital navigator and their program to be as successful as they can be that's why you're commonly seeing
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digital navigators programs couched in trusted community-based organizations like a public library for instance like
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a refugee resettlement agency a social service agency that already has that close contact
33:31
with their population as far as and i'll highlight the salt
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lake city public library example here for their for that particular program
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they were able to hire on a total of six digital navigators
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those digital navigators lived in a variety of different places over the course of their program so three of
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those digital navigators were already existing library staff one of them worked in the
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public computer lab at the main library of downtown one of them was an assistant librarian at a branch
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the the three other digital navigators that were that the library hired on
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lived in partner community based organizations so they identified locally which
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organizations work in areas of the city that we think have the highest priority for
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addressing the digital divide and how can we work with them and do they already do this work
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locally so they chose to work with a refugee resettlement agency they also worked chose to work with a
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local community college and they also worked with a community based organization that primarily uh
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worked in uh job placement with the lib with the latino community
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another example of you know this sort of intentional partnership that i want to uplift is that we're currently working
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with another digital navigator program that's hosted by the city of san diego so in
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this case the city of san diego is the main convener the municipality themselves but they are choosing
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which organizations uh who to work with based again on do they already sort of
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do this work does it make sense for a digital navigator to live there so while the city of san diego is
35:20
convening the program they're they're choosing to work with the local parks and rec department because they have a
35:26
computer literacy a digital literacy training program already set up they too are working with the local
35:32
community college and of course they're working with the san diego public library this library
35:39
has already already kind of do this work so just as an example of you know spreading the
35:45
spreading the load for for such a program what we're finding most commonly is that a
35:50
digital navigators program lives with one main host organization
35:56
and then because they know their community's best they choose they decide on which partnerships make the most
36:01
sense uh and then just two more programs that i want to highlight that that i think are
36:08
just super interesting and and potential useful models to follow
36:13
the city of philadelphia as well as an organization called digital charlotte in charlotte north carolina
36:20
their digital navigators programs work with the city's local 311 information
36:26
line right so it's i mean i i didn't like when i heard that for the first time
36:31
last fall i was like oh of course that makes total sense um but they they worked behind the scenes to get um
36:38
the staff at the local 311 information line to understand what digital
36:43
navigators is they themselves the staff were not the digital navigators but if someone had a question
36:49
that mapped the three legs of the stool broadband devices or digital literacy training and then the 311 staff would
36:55
say i'm going to get you in contact with this program for instance at digital charlotte and they're going to connect
37:01
you with a digital navigator and then the digital navigator takes it from there which i which i think is a just such a
37:08
useful and fascinating way to get a program off the ground
37:14
okay uh project management so this is uh more of like the day-to-day um workflow
37:20
of digital navigators this piece i will just i want to give a
37:25
huge shout out to my colleague justin strange at the salt lake city public library who
37:32
heroically did this project management piece of the toolkit um he wrote it all
37:37
he was this is all him so all credit goes to justin at the salt lake city public
37:42
library you really mapped out the client flows
37:48
or rather the what what the what the sort of like logic model looks like for a digital navigator
37:56
and where to send people if when they if and when they call in for a project of
38:02
any size really it's it's important to have a strong coordination between the participating organizations so the
38:07
partners that you decided to work with um and their digital navigators and also to use a flexible management style
38:14
which i think of justin he was always available to the six digital navigators in the salt lake city public library
38:20
program because he had made himself available over email so they could sync
38:25
asynchronously but also that program had a regular meeting cadence of uh
38:34
once a week on mondays to get all the digital navigators in one place
38:40
ndia would join those calls and sort of listen in uh chime in whenever we had uh something useful to
38:46
to share out from other digital navigators programs but that was really um
38:51
the the the hard work there was really done locally by justin and his colleague shauna edson who was the program
38:59
so director far as where to start in project management
39:05
if working with partners which is the model that we recommend you first want to determine organizational responsibility
39:11
so again in the salt lake city public library project the library owned that project and with each of the three community
39:18
partners that they worked with the digital navigator was a cross-trained staff who already
39:23
worked in a similar role in that organization and they did answer to a supervisor
39:30
internally for the first month or so uh after trainings uh that supervisor was on
39:37
calls uh usually with their camera off just to sort of listen in and find out how the program was going but after that
39:42
first month the supervisor started to take a step back and it was eventually only the digital navigators themselves
39:48
along with us the program leadership to to guide them we think that it's most useful to have a
39:55
regular meeting cadence of in some cases weekly in some cases bi-weekly calls
40:01
with all of the digital navigators because it's it's a community of practice we want all of them to be able
40:06
to learn from each other frequently um one digital navigator would say like hey you know like when
40:12
the emergency broadband benefit was being rolled out you would say like has anyone had any issues getting on the website
40:19
like has it been crashing for anyone like not technically additional navigator questions but like for them to hear from their five colleagues that yes
40:26
uh they've been having issues which eventually turn into a conversation of this is how i walk someone through that
40:32
form that's useful for all of them to hear from each other as they learn together
40:37
and really build the program um themselves
40:42
a few questions to think about um when after determining um
40:47
organizational responsibility across the board is just some questions to consider is how will how will a client or
40:54
community member hear about the program so we'll get into that marketing and outreach piece here in a little bit
41:01
what does the whole process look from a client's point of view so we want to be clear that the digital
41:06
navigator knows that they are describing a program where they are going to be that that they are going to be that
41:13
person they're going to be their person if they need them to be uh to be able to call on
41:20
finally i don't know if you guys can hear this motorcycle in my background but um also consider the uh barriers that
41:27
may get in the way of helping people so the question is really like how do you connect with a disconnected or or
41:34
with the unconnected rather so how do you reach people who how do you reach people for a digital program
41:39
who may not have that digital access it's like sort of chicken or the egg
41:46
and then lastly what criteria will determine the type of help that a person might receive
41:52
so this question is really asking how far does a digital navigator program or does a digital navigator go in teaching
42:00
or actively educating their client and this is this question came up on a call that i was on earlier today
42:07
the someone was curious they were asking is this digital literacy training like is is this a microsoft word class for
42:13
instance is this an email class and the goal of a digital navigator or
42:19
the role of a digital navigator rather is that they act more as a referral point so they know they have an understanding
42:25
of the resources that exist locally we help to get them connected with um
42:31
some digital literacy resources that already exist uh for free um and sort and walk them through how to use those
42:37
resources but a digital navigator is not a teacher necessarily they they
42:44
teach right like they are teaching but they're this isn't teaching
42:51
just want to share for a quick quick second um some examples of
42:58
some client flows that again my uh colleague justin
43:04
created uh for their digital for the digital navigator program in salt lake city so he calls this the the digital
43:10
navigator service walkthrough and it's it's really it's like a it's a if this then that right so
43:17
someone comes in and they are everyone is first going to fill out the intake form which is available on our site
43:24
next we're determining what are they actually asking right like what is their technology issue is it a
43:31
question about uh home broadband is it a question about getting a device or is it a question about digital scaling
43:37
this document is laid out for a digital navigator to guide them that if
43:43
someone is asking about a particular question then jump to another section
43:49
i'm not going to go through this entire form now and it may look like word word soup on your screen
43:54
but i just want to mention that this file as well as the next two files that i'm just going to sort of highlight
44:00
really quickly are available for free on the last page of the digital navigator's toolkit and the
44:06
appendix so just want to give you an idea of like the sort of resources that are available already
44:12
um yeah justin also made this salt lake city uh public library digital navigator client flow
44:19
so he knew that there were going to be three because he had been an employee at the library for so long he knew that
44:24
there were going to be three different buckets of uh questions that um digital navigators that may field
44:32
so there's first bucket is express service in a public computer center with most interactions taking
44:39
i would say even like five to ten minutes these are questions where it's just like i forgot the password to my email
44:44
and maybe someone doesn't need any help after that so library staff is there to sort of
44:50
guide someone through that scenario and that's what we call express service they also had a tech help line which was
44:56
the basis for their remote delivery they had helped by phone or video
45:02
conferencing they also have these referral resources that ndia helped them
45:08
identify for local low-income internet and also devices
45:14
most of these questions were then [Music] forwarded on to the digital navigators
45:19
themselves and that's where they can the digital navigator can meet virtually or in person with a
45:25
community member they know what their issue what the technology related issue is and then they can sit down with them
45:31
with a community member for as long as they need to get them um satisfied and set up
45:43
okay so i'll go back here again each of those um i went through that pretty fast but
45:48
each of those files um are in the appendix of the toolkit
45:59
okay so as far as the software needs um for a digital navigator program um like
46:05
where does that where does all this stuff live um the project management software that the
46:11
salt lake city public library decided to use is a website called monday.com
46:17
that they selected for any folks who use project management software
46:23
i think that the more common in my opinion the more common one is asana they have asana and monday.com have very
46:30
similar interfaces they're places where a project manager can assign out tasks
46:36
to people and ping collaborators and make sure that that deliverables are reaching and
46:42
completed the added benefit about monday.com for this for the salt lake city project was
46:49
that it was a place where they could also host the intake forms so all the intake forms could be hosted
46:55
on monday.com all of the data collected would be um kept in one place
47:01
the way and i'm just again speaking for justin here the way justin used monday.com was that he was he had it
47:06
open every day like this that was his main uh mode for keeping track how the program is going
47:13
so for instance if there was a if someone if a digital navigator had done an intake form but they hadn't assigned
47:20
out that a community member hadn't been assigned to a digital navigator yet justin would be looking at monday.com
47:27
and assigning a uh an intake with an appropriate digital navigator
47:33
not all of the digital navigators for that project were bilingual so for instance if someone expressed that they
47:39
that they prefer to speak in spanish then justin would say like okay this is a good this is a good match for javi and he would and he would match from there
47:49
coming up soon okay so marketing and outreach how do you reach the disconnected um
47:55
again for the salt lake city example they focused on three they focused on three neighborhoods in
48:01
salt lake city because it was covid because covid uh was still pretty
48:07
fresh at that point they identified neighborhoods that a were hardest hit by covid so kovid are rather
48:14
neighborhoods that had the highest rates of covid which as we learned it wasn't surprising were also neighborhoods that
48:21
had uh low rates of home internet adoption and uh low rates of home
48:26
computer use or maybe high reliance on a mobile only connection so right like those that sort of
48:33
crossover we found was pretty common so how did they reach those uh those say like disconnected resonance
48:41
one of the ways that they did that was b was by being intentional in who they decided to partner with
48:47
each of their partners the refugee resettlement agency the latino focused
48:53
workforce development community based organization and the community college they were all based in
48:59
those target area code so they were very intentional there
49:05
two of the digital navigators were also placed in branches that were serving those neighborhoods so they like that
49:11
was that's they were really laser pointed on delivering this pilot program in a
49:17
specific part of the city where they identified populations in most need
49:24
that being said uh you know beyond working with a partner who already has a presence there it can be challenging to
49:31
raise that awareness of services to people who just don't have access or technology or maybe who just don't
49:36
choose to participate in digital spaces so they got really
49:42
creative they got really analog in their methods for reaching uh people in these neighborhoods they
49:48
made yard signs um they made bookmarks they made door-to-door hangers pamphlets that they
49:54
pamphlets that they distributed and places like grocery stores places of worship
50:01
and significantly they also um a few times throughout the course of the past year they also
50:08
had a volunteer foot campaign in those neighborhoods and i remember when me and my co-worker
50:14
were meeting with them that following monday and when we were asking how the foot campaign went they were glowing about it they were like we're out in the
50:20
neighborhood people can actually see us and they learned that the community had
50:26
been seeing those signs but there was still that lack of trust right so it was significant for a community
50:32
member to see the actual digital navigator walking around the neighborhood and to be able to put a
50:38
face to this to a yard sign to sort of like complete that cycle and say like this is who we are and we and we want to
50:45
help you everything that you're reading in the newspaper or in your grocery store like all that is real
50:50
here i am physically and part of that program beyond that
50:55
analog uh more paper based outreach they did uh you know they did have a big
51:01
social media blast uh throughout the course of the year so for instance from the library's facebook and twitter
51:06
accounts they were still um talking about the program in those spaces and we didn't want to completely write
51:13
that off because we knew that if so many households were reliant on a smartphone to use the internet that
51:20
didn't preclude them from using the internet like they they know how to use the internet they're going to see these ads um so they're already on there
51:27
so we really wanted to reach them there finally the biggest uh way that
51:34
outreach or the most effective way that outreach uh for this program uh reached
51:40
books was through word of mouth so individuals in the
51:45
in these communities they had strong social networks again like these these are neighbors and this is the benefit of
51:52
placing a digital navigator in a lab in a specific library branch in a target like a target neighborhood or working
51:59
with a partner who already serves that population the library also
52:06
uh got the word out with other community-based organizations across the city so while the digital
52:12
navigator wasn't exactly placed there the library still had strong relationships with local food banks
52:18
counseling services the local school district and also the local transit authority
52:30
so as far as evaluation goes um for digital navigators a lot of our a lot of
52:36
the data that's collected from those four intake forms uh the question becomes what do we do with that
52:43
we are really trying to measure in these survey forms how effective a
52:48
program could be if we were giving if we were promising people the if we were presenting the
52:55
promise of device ownership um as a result of participating in this
53:02
program we wanted to really fill that gap um
53:08
that like a device or hotspot lending program is great right like we
53:15
still want to get people access to services that they need but what happens um with a community member when they
53:21
have a device that they actually own or when they get help signing up for uh
53:26
for reliable home internet that's not just a that's not just a wi-fi hotspot so over the course of seven months of
53:33
direct service with the salt lake city library project they had set out initially in the
53:38
proposal to say that they were going to service 450 unique individuals over the course of uh
53:45
seven months and of course they were targeting two neighborhoods but by the end of direct service uh they
53:51
were very happy to report that instead of that 450 marker that they had pinned down for themselves they had actually
53:57
served 585 individuals over the course of that direct service across all 54 zip
54:03
codes that make up salt lake city um including some in orem utah and even one in
54:09
colorado so the word really really got out about this program
54:15
and just to highlight uh the significance of being intentional about working with community partners
54:21
one third of all digital navigator interactions came from just two of those target zip codes
54:27
so a third of all of those interactions were coming in those neighborhoods that they were targeting
54:35
about the the outreach and word of mouth like how people heard about it um 53
54:41
percent of respondents said that they heard about the program from word of mouth
54:47
while 27 of those respondents said that they heard about the program from a worker at
54:52
a partner organization like the public library or one of the or one of the participating organizations
55:00
to me these figures really demonstrate like that successful implementation of direct outreach to intended neighborhoods
55:06
for the salt lake city program um 76 of all interactions were about getting a device
55:12
so we tried to bucket out uh the types of technology questions to the three legs of the stool
55:18
whereas 14 of interactions were about digital skills 10 were about uh connectivity
55:24
all of which is to say is that this is one example of how digital navigators was delivered in one specific place for
55:32
instance salt lake city is a google fiber city so they most residents already have like a pretty good uh home
55:38
internet and reliable home internet connection so these buckets of technology issue are
55:45
going you you should assume are going to look different um in in every uh digital
55:50
navigator program okay so this is the last piece and then
55:56
we're opening opening up for questions we have until i i'm on the east coast so we have until 4 30 for q a um if you
56:03
need to drop off then that's completely fine this is being recorded and we'll be posting it um so just recognizing that
56:10
we're close to the top of the hour but for anyone who wants to stay on and have that q a um well we have 30 minutes i
56:16
just want to talk really quickly about the training and what goes into that training the training as we ndia designed it with
56:24
our community was that it would look like four days of training depending on um
56:31
cohort size that training is going to take 60 to 90 minutes per day
56:37
and that's really dependent on the size because of how interactive a lot of the training is
56:43
i'd like to get a lot of feedback we do a lot of breakout rooms to get people to talk
56:49
with each other and introduce themselves and really really building out their community
56:55
as far as the topics for each day uh day one really is orientation so it i am
57:00
running through those slides that you saw earlier today's webinar about digital equity and digital inclusion we want to make sure that and that and
57:07
that's really for the digital navigators but also for any supervisors who are on the call as well like i'm when i'm
57:12
delivering the training i'm thinking okay this is who needs to hear this and think about why why this work is
57:18
important day two uh the topic is not right understanding audience and using forms
57:24
so this is a heavily interactive day of the training in which um i have a user
57:29
experience background so i have a few made-up personas um of community members and types of
57:36
technology issues that they may have and presenting them with the cohort of digital navigators sending them to
57:42
breakout rooms and and having them discuss okay how would you help this person given what you know
57:47
locally given what given what you know about what's available locally how do you help this person who
57:53
let's say that says that they qualify for snap benefits and needs help with a computer and needs help getting a computer
58:00
day three is the data and research day and on that day we really want to emphasize the importance of
58:06
building local digital inclusion expertise so we know that that digital navigator
58:11
they're going to be working with people they also they're also going to have a pretty good scan on what's available so
58:17
we want to upskill them and further give them that confidence to find out
58:22
understand and learn how to access how to find access and use
58:27
publicly accessible data from a data source like the american community survey
58:33
along with walking people walking people through how to find and do some quick analysis of uh what what the digital
58:40
divide looks like locally we also show them a data visualization tool called internet as infrastructure which gives
58:47
them the ability to make stuff like bar graphs maps related to
58:53
data to highlight what the digital divide looks like in their local municipality
58:59
what i really like to dig into in that particular day is to show the relationship between
59:06
home internet adoption and household income in a given area just to just to
59:11
really make it clear like that okay that this is the relationship here availability versus adoption just
59:17
because the wires are there the question really is who isn't adopting and also
59:22
why so teaching that and really driving that home with a digital navigator and any
59:28
supervisors who are on the call that's that's the big crux of that day and then lastly day four is about
59:34
sharing skills and resources so this addresses like that digital literacy piece of digital
59:40
navigators like i said before like a digital navigator is teaching like that they are modeling um
59:48
for their for their client how to access resources online but they're not a teacher this isn't a digital literacy
59:54
class so the day four is uh me showing and modeling and demonstrating
1:00:00
how to use existing um resources that already exist that work in this world so for instance
1:00:07
something like goodwill community foundations learn free which is awesome
1:00:13
the public library association also has another sort of suite of curricula that they've
1:00:20
developed so it's really just introducing a digital navigator to here are some resources that if you in the
1:00:26
given moment don't have the expertise to answer a question that a community member may have like a
1:00:31
specific question about microsoft excel for example you can send them here
1:00:37
further some digital navigator programs that we've worked with that do have the
1:00:42
capacity to take on this role are using north star digital literacy
1:00:47
assessment to um to be that sort of evaluation and assessment tool
1:00:53
not only for digital navigators themselves but for the community members that they work with
1:01:00
so i will stop there i'm going to get a drink of water and
1:01:06
stop scare and stop sharing my screen here great thank you paulo and now we can
1:01:13
open up for questions as follow grab some water after sharing all that awesome information with you all i know
1:01:19
we had some questions regarding device refurbishers and those have been answered in the chat so any other
1:01:25
questions please let us know i'm going to repost the toolkit link and then the link to the ndia website which has all
1:01:32
of our digital navigator resources so you can see those for those who join late
1:02:25
well there's a couple of questions in the chat for you okay yeah i'm still uh scrolling through
1:02:38
so the first question was how can we get set up with the four day training so the four day training is available as part
1:02:44
of the services that we provide a fee for service that we provide but if you would like to contact us and hear more
1:02:51
information about details of what that training includes and the cost please email myself or
1:02:57
apollo and i will put my um
1:03:04
email in the chat here as well
1:03:13
okay uh adara show asks what's the timeline for implementing the position the new position into libraries that
1:03:18
currently have this position um it depends uh libraries is big municipal
1:03:23
entities in my experience have like a longer hiring process but for from what we've seen the salt
1:03:29
lake city public library they got their digital navigators cross-trained and ready for direct
1:03:35
service um in a month and a half and right now we're seeing a two-month timeline in with the city of
1:03:43
san diego who's working with the san diego public library yep
1:03:50
uh heather petro asks what does gcf stand for again i see we have cindy hogan on here uh
1:03:56
goodwill community foundation amazing resource i'll put the link to to learn free in
1:04:01
the chat here it's there
1:04:19
yeah this is a so there's the link in the chat just as a quick shout out to to learn free goodwill community foundation
1:04:26
um one thing that i like to highlight specifically about this portal is that there's a bunch of
1:04:32
um materials that are made available in a variety of different languages so going beyond
1:04:37
like in english or spanish there are resources available in russian korean um i think turkish is on there as well
1:04:45
which is just it's super awesome for um for communities who are working with a
1:04:50
bunch of different language speakers
1:04:59
so another question we received is are digital navigators usually full-time jobs
1:05:08
they are usually part-time jobs uh the way we're seeing them um and i think that that just comes down to an issue of
1:05:14
capacity um several of the programs that we're working with currently have their digital navigators
1:05:21
on it 20 hours a week
1:05:26
so i see that um sorry i was going to help you with the question but go ahead
1:05:32
i saw that grace asked a question a little bit higher up do you provide tools on how
1:05:38
people can be educated and find their local resources to help community members as navigators
1:05:44
um grace can i call on you to can you just i'm not sure i quite um understand the
1:05:50
question can you rephrase that yes i'm sorry um it's it's really about because we're
1:05:57
i'm looking to also provide this training to social services organizations and
1:06:04
sometimes what i find is that they don't know what other social services are around them
1:06:09
so i was hoping that during the navigator training they will be like maybe you want to look here or do you
1:06:16
know this organization or if there is anybody in your community that does this that would be a good asset but sometimes
1:06:23
uh they don't they just don't know it is they're not very much aware of what's
1:06:29
going on besides because their whole focus is is what's going on in front of them
1:06:35
yeah now thank you for that clarification grace that's a very good question um the short answer is yes it's
1:06:41
a part of the training um we we like to use the website everyone on
1:06:46
which uh allows a user to search by zip code to find out um tracking to the three legs of the
1:06:52
stool to find out available low-cost internet offers device refurbishers locally but also
1:06:58
places in that zip code or close to that zip code that offer some sort of digital
1:07:03
literacy training or skilling so more often more often than not it is a public
1:07:08
library branch but in some cases um a place like a refugee resettlement agency will pop up because they do have that
1:07:14
service so thank you that's a good question okay thank you i appreciate that
1:07:23
so paulo another question was have there been any obstacles these libraries have encountered
1:07:30
yes that's a that's a good question as well i think that what i hear commonly uh when working
1:07:38
with libraries that are delivering digital navigators is this scenario in which
1:07:43
the digital navigators themselves the and the program leadership they know about this program but getting other
1:07:50
internal staff who work at the reference desk for instance or someone who is on the public-facing
1:07:56
hotline they may not have a fully a full understanding of what
1:08:02
digital navigators is so getting like that internal
1:08:07
dissemination across a library big or small is
1:08:12
like is a common um issue that we've been hearing some some libraries have
1:08:19
one i did so one thing to add to that is the majority
1:08:24
of people who came to digital navigators for support in salt lake city the interactions took longer than 15 minutes
1:08:31
so the library had blocked 15 minute increments for questions and answers and service
1:08:37
exchange and it took about sometimes 30 minutes to answer those
1:08:42
questions and work with the client and our patrons so that's one area that we knew that had to be tweaked was that the
1:08:49
digital navigators had to be able to offer longer blocks of time to answer the patrons questions
1:08:59
yes and just to add on to that this data point is it's in the toolkit and i just honestly just forgot to
1:09:05
mention in today's presentation but uh one of the items that we're recording in
1:09:11
the in the survey forms in a digital navigators program is how long is your interaction taking
1:09:17
so so this is an item that a digital navigator fills out after working with a community member significantly 75
1:09:25
of all interactions for the salt lake city public library program were reported as taking at least 15 minutes
1:09:31
half of all of those interactions were over 30 minutes which to me when i hear that or when i
1:09:36
was finding that for the first time was really highlighting that need for like this dedicated one-to-one
1:09:42
um interaction that human views
1:09:49
so paulo another question or a comment that someone had made is that it's hard to figure out what all the resources are
1:09:55
in your local area so can you talk about some of the homework that the digital navigators do
1:10:01
and doing kind of asset mapping of the resources in their community to help refer clients to
1:10:07
sure um yeah so between days two and three of the
1:10:12
training ndia assigns out what we call homework to all of the digital navigators so after
1:10:20
i model how to use a website like everyone on to all the digital navigators during day
1:10:26
two we hand out virtually a blank worksheet asking the digital navigators to use that website
1:10:33
fill out what internet service providers are available um in a given in in your
1:10:38
zip code what device refurbishers are there and then where and then where are the
1:10:43
digital skills training locations when we reconvene on day three i ask
1:10:49
the digital navigators just take a take up the first five or ten minutes or so just to share out
1:10:54
what they found and to compare any findings that they they had in completing that homework
1:11:03
okay so i see a question from sean about
1:11:09
zoom and so i just want to clarify that that was that was just an example of where i was at the time uh at the new
1:11:16
york public library just as an example of the sort of internal conversations that we were having the interesting
1:11:21
thing for me was that when i joined ndia i learned oh my god everyone was having this conversation
1:11:26
so in the startup manual um there's a table that we created that lists out
1:11:32
each of the different video conferencing softwares as well as like a pro and con
1:11:38
for each video conferencing software um so in our in that case at the new york
1:11:45
public library they did they ended up using google meat which uh seemed to have the lowest
1:11:51
barrier to entry there but a digital navigator program is going to have a better understanding of the needs of
1:11:58
their local community so they may land on something different i know that for the salt lake city public library
1:12:05
they're using soup to do any video conferencing with their community members
1:12:15
okay and then alta made a comment that delaware starts with social service interns from the department of health
1:12:20
and social services and then hire some of them as navigators so thank you for sharing that
1:12:27
and then martha had a question for you paulo about even with support some residents are
1:12:33
unable to complete tasks such as completing forms because they may have low literacy skills or
1:12:39
cognitive issues so do we have suggestions of how the digital navigator should handle that
1:12:44
should the digital navigator complete the form on behalf of the patron how have we seen that work
1:12:51
yeah what i what i would recommend is that um that the digital navigator
1:12:58
models the behavior for the person that they're working with so let's say that someone wants to fill out a java
1:13:04
application online and if the digital navigator can assess that like this this person doesn't have the skills necessary
1:13:11
to do this right now then what the digital net the best thing that a digital navigator can do is just
1:13:16
sort of model and narrate how and why they're filling out pieces
1:13:22
of the form for me the goal of any sort of digital literacy program is
1:13:28
for the learner to be able to do it on their own eventually they may they may not they may not need the guide
1:13:35
with them but for a program like this when we can make an assumption that people do need
1:13:41
that sort of help i think that that's the benefit of having a digital navigator make time for those longer
1:13:47
interactions to be able to really sit down with someone um maybe 30 minutes or more right multiple times a week to be
1:13:54
able to get them to the resources that they need online
1:14:01
great and then tracy shared a resource with everybody their library created a basic
1:14:08
local sheet of resources but also likes the idea of digital navigators doing assets assets searching too and she
1:14:14
created or she listed a resource here for everybody so thank you and i do know that a lot of the libraries who are
1:14:21
running digital navigator programs are modifying and updating their resource guides around digital access and
1:14:27
inclusion as well so if anyone else is on the call from a library feel free to share it with others in the group chat
1:14:41
so paulo another question that came across is how long does it take to train
1:14:46
a digital navigator
1:14:51
yeah um i guess i am unclear on that question so that the training
1:14:57
itself is the standard training is that it takes place over the course of four days um 60
1:15:03
to 90 minutes each day and that training is
1:15:08
is orienting a digital navigator and any supervising staff with this is what the program is this is what digital
1:15:13
inclusion is this and then moving on to this is what the daily this is what this is what your
1:15:20
day is going to look like right like here's the workflow for working with clients and their technology issues
1:15:27
and then also that upskilling piece getting them to be able to find and use
1:15:33
data sources to to make decisions locally
1:15:38
so a week a week but a lot of a lot of learning also happens on the job and from their
1:15:44
community of practice which i think is the benefit of having those weekly or sometimes bi-weekly meetings
1:15:51
when all the digital navigators are present so that they can they really can learn from each other
1:16:02
thank you christian for your question so the question is how often do call topics go beyond the scope of what the dn is
1:16:09
supposed to help with and how do we hand that how is that handled when it's not something that is specifically really
1:16:15
related to digital literacy or access yeah
1:16:20
that's that's good i mean i think that so again like the primary role of a digital navigator is to be that referral
1:16:27
point for a community member so if if there's a question that's out of the scope of their knowledge or
1:16:34
understanding then that is when the homework that we assign out to them
1:16:40
giving them like assigning out that network scan of what is available locally helps build
1:16:45
that local resource guide for a digital navigator if they encounter a question that they
1:16:52
you know may not be equipped to answer so they can say like i may not know this but this organization or this person
1:16:58
can help you out let me connect you with let me connect with you with them
1:17:05
to add on to that christian for the salt lake city public library's digital navigator program the majority of
1:17:10
questions that came to the digital navigator was how do i get a computer how do i get access to the internet and
1:17:18
then once i have access how do i complete unemployment benefits set up a telehealth visit and do a job search so
1:17:25
i'd say those were the big ones would you agree paulo yep for sure
1:17:34
okay another question just came across if there are any digital navigator programs that use college students as
1:17:41
digital navigators and if so are they paid or do they receive a stipend
1:17:48
yeah um yeah yeah so the let's see the site the solid project um
1:17:54
san diego and digital charlotte are all examples of
1:18:00
programs that are hiring from the local community colleges locally
1:18:06
each of those positions are except for salt lake city each of those
1:18:12
positions are part-time and they are paid which is great right like we want to
1:18:18
pay our workers so happy to report that
1:18:29
right but you all have a lot of really great questions i think we'll take a couple of more
1:18:35
so this is your chance to put them in the chat
1:18:48
so paul this is for you about salt lake city since this is our most recent digital navigator model that has closed
1:18:56
what was what do you think the most surprising thing was that salt lake city learned
1:19:03
that's a good question um
1:19:09
yeah i think that the most surprising thing for our friends shauna and justin and also
1:19:15
for me when we were looking at when we were doing the evaluation at the end was seeing just how many of the total
1:19:22
interactions or how how many of the total interactions reported that they heard about the program through word of
1:19:28
mouth like we sort of knew that already um that that
1:19:34
these are these are folks with strong social networks um and it was just i think that that
1:19:39
personally that was very interesting to me and i remember talking with them about how surprised they were about it because over the course of that project
1:19:46
right like we had the program leadership there they got interviewed by the local
1:19:52
newspaper the local news station like these were tv these were media spots that we were all really really excited
1:19:58
about just saying like oh my gosh look at how look at like our faces are out there we're talking about this which is
1:20:04
not to say that those weren't useful but at the end of the program we could really say like how did people hear
1:20:10
about this most of those most most people were being referred to the program through friends and family
1:20:18
it all works um christy i want to bounce that question back off to you though what do you think i think uh i was just
1:20:24
trying to find salt lake city had done a really great salt lake city public library had done a really great video and i was trying to
1:20:31
find it really quickly where the people who received the digital navigator services
1:20:37
were sharing what they had learned and it was really heartwarming and if i cannot find it in a moment we will
1:20:42
include it and in an email to you all with the recording and the powerpoint deck because i think it was really
1:20:48
interesting was how everything we wanted to see happen with these digital navigators and the service
1:20:54
they were providing was actually received so the confidence of the patron slash clients was dramatically increased
1:21:01
he felt more connected to family and friends he just felt more empowered and it was a really great video and i'm
1:21:08
upset that i didn't call it up earlier but i am going to put in the chat for you we also work with the urban
1:21:13
libraries council um because this project was funded through imls and they did a lot of great work
1:21:21
interviewing some of the digital navigators in a blog series about their experience so i just want to put that in
1:21:27
here as well for you all to take a look yeah it's a question from diane in the
1:21:34
chat about stats on days of the week and times of day when most calls come in that is a great question uh the data
1:21:41
person in me wishes that i had thought to include that in the survey early on
1:21:47
but as far as time uh logging the interactions over time in
1:21:53
that dashboard that i just put in the chat we have a log of
1:21:58
um of calls over over the course of months so we didn't get so so granular uh to
1:22:05
look at days of the week although i think that that would have been an awesome piece of information to collect
1:22:12
that being said um one of the things that we are learning internally or that we're
1:22:17
trying to address internally is that we had a set of surveys those intake forms on our website that uh programs
1:22:25
have been using but now that i have been able to look at the evaluation and the data that we collected like now we're
1:22:31
thinking about like okay what are the better questions to ask for future digital navigator programs um how can we
1:22:37
collect better information and more meaningful data so that's a great point
1:22:44
thank you diane so one of the questions that i want to flag that just came up
1:22:50
was from nate about a community of practice and this is something that we are interested in doing as an
1:22:55
organization and definitely exploring we hear a lot from the people who are participating in the working group um
1:23:03
which we are kind of taking a small break right now as we reorganize as many
1:23:08
of you know we are hiring right now and one of the positions that is open is the person that we need to help with the
1:23:14
digital navigators program so if you know anybody feel free to send that link
1:23:19
to them we're really excited to get people passionate about digital inclusion we would love to have some more hands with this great work that
1:23:26
we're doing so i just posted for you all a youtube link to the video from the salt lake
1:23:32
city public library that was that long link
1:23:42
leslie gave some great feedback on using 4-h students and college students thank you
1:23:50
uh did we answer christian's question paulo have we seen consistent lessons learned across new projects that we can
1:23:56
share how many mistakes to avoid yeah i mean i think that we have the
1:24:02
honestly i'll just i'll just say that we have the benefit of having such a strong affiliate community who guided us in the
1:24:09
right direction from from day one so uh thankfully there's not too many like
1:24:14
egregious mistakes to report which you know gets it's the benefit of working with such an awesome uh community
1:24:20
however common trends that we are
1:24:26
seeing across digital navigators programs is that it's best to hire from within if possible so if you are
1:24:32
a community based organization that has someone on staff who does similar sort of like client intake work then that is
1:24:39
your digital navigator it's really going to set you back if you try to
1:24:44
you know hire from the community right or to hire externally rather because that's
1:24:49
you know job applications go out interviews more often than not the conversations that we have with
1:24:55
potential digital navigator sites is that they already have someone
1:25:02
in mind which which i think is useful
1:25:07
beyond that you know you can never under play the impact of working of being intentional
1:25:13
about working with community partners who already have a foot in the community that you're trying to work with
1:25:23
so and then this last question is from kate and kate if you email me i will give you some more information but
1:25:29
basically your question is are there any digital navigator programs working with homeless service organizations or
1:25:36
primarily those experiencing homelessness and i do believe there is one in seattle that we were working with
1:25:42
but they're not um contracted with us they're just taking the model and making tweaks to their community and i've
1:25:47
blanked on their name so if you email me i will get that to you and again it's christy digitalinclusion.org
1:25:56
great so paul i think that was the last question anything else to add thank you so very much for this robust
1:26:02
presentation of course i just want to add a plug for uh anyone who hasn't
1:26:09
joined our community um if you haven't already um the link is um
1:26:16
we'll take you to a page where you can sign up to become either an organization if you are if you want to sign up on
1:26:21
behalf of an organization which is the first teal box on that page
1:26:26
the second option is to sign up individually which is what we call as a friend
1:26:32
both of those options get are free and we'll get you access to our listserv
1:26:39
um i can say that at ndia like most of the communication between not only internally but between
1:26:45
us and our community and our community amongst itself happens on our listserv so
1:26:51
uh you know it's it's amazing to see someone uh if someone poses an interesting question to
1:26:56
the listserv like some of the questions that are here in the chat and more often than not someone else in our community will have
1:27:02
a response for them so having like that's that's the sort of role that ndia likes to play and how we can become you
1:27:09
know most most useful for people who want to find other people doing this work it's all free the listserv is awesome um what else you also get the
1:27:16
monthly newsletter where we try to uplift programs that are happening across our uh across our field
1:27:23
and yeah so plug for the plug to
1:27:31
if join think of another question as you you know go through the webinar just as you go out for the day i'll feel free to
1:27:38
email us we're happy to to respond and give you the answer that you're looking for
1:27:48
all right so i think we'll wrap there um thank you for everyone thank you everyone for um
1:27:55
uh for your amazing questions through throughout the course of uh today's webinar you know it's really helpful for
1:28:01
us to learn about uh what the what you as the community still is interested in hearing about um and
1:28:07
yeah we look forward to being in connection with you all soon in some capacity have a great afternoon
1:28:13
and talk soon everyone