CAP - Community Access Program

June 2005

News!etter

Archives

» Party Prep at L’Anse au Loup CAP Site

» User Appreciation in Grey River

» Tech Corner - CAPStats Program

» Scholarship Winner Chooses CAP Site

» CAP-YI Success Stories

» Spotlight On... Gander

May / June 2005
48278 / 46531 users
151+ / 154+ Training Sessions
142 / 128 Sites Reporting

What animal appears on the Canadian Quarter? How many time zones are there in Canada? These are just a couple of the trivial questions that appearred in the Canada Day Trivia Contest that was held in L’Anse au Loup as part of their 2005 Canada Day Celebrations. Pauline O’Dell, a member of the organizing committee, surfed the internet at the L’Anse au Loup Public Library/CAP Site to find trivia, coloring pages, Canada flags, maple leaves, etc as they planned games and activities for all ages. Residents of this community celebrated Canada Day with an ecumenical service, a bike parade for kids, a bonfire and wiener roast and, of course, fireworks. But Canada Day is not the only celebration that Pauline had planned for this month. The committee will also be at the CAP Site preparing for L’Anse au Loup Day, which will be held on July 30. There’s lots to do when planning community events; thankfully the computers, printers and Internet access available at the local CAP Site make the job so much easier! (By the way, the caribou is on the quarter and there are 6 time zones across Canada).

Megan working in West St. Modeste

The Partners in Learning CAP site has a worker for the summer thanks to the TD Bank and the hard work of one of the community’s local youth. Megan Pike, a grade 12 graduate from Our Lady of Labrador School, was the winner of one of twenty TD Canada Trust Scholarships for Community Leadership that was awarded in 2004-05. These scholarships, valued at up to $60,000, are awarded to local youth who demonstrate outstanding community leadership. While Megan studies to be a nurse, her tuition, living expenses and summer employment will be provided by the TD Canada Trust Scholarship. Because there isn’t a TD branch in her community, Megan will complete her summer internship at the Partners in Learning CAP Site. Congratulations Megan!

Every couple of months in Grey River, the CAP committee at All Saints All Grade School holds a user appreciation night. It starts out with coffee, tea and snacks that have been provided by the volunteers and staff of the CAP site. The volunteers are there early to welcome both regular and new patrons. Should there be any recent promotional items sent from the CAP Office, they will have a drawing for these from the people in attendance. Later on that evening they will show a movie at the gym using one of the CAP computers with a DVD player and the school’s projector. “It is a great tool for building a user base as well as promoting the sense of family within the CAP (site) that we try to demonstrate to our users and community,” says CAP Chairperson and Principal, Wilson Warren. “It is a fabulous thing that seems to get respected by the community and community leaders.”

Leyla Killic of Labrador City

Letter of Thanks - Youth Intern, Leyla Killic of the Labrador City Public Library has been providing training to the public on various topics, including Introduction to the Internet and Introduction to E-mail. CAP site user, Mary Harrison, was so pleased with the training that she wrote a letter of appreciation. She writes: "You taught me many things, clarified others, and gave me the confidence to pick up where I left off 8 years ago. I will continue!" Keep up the good work, Leyla!

Making the Local News - Wondering how to promote your CAP site? Laurie Snook, Youth Intern at the Harbour Breton CAP Site, has found that getting a plug in the local newspaper is a great way to start. On July 5, 2005, the CAP Site was highlighted in The Coaster , a weekly newspaper that has a circulation of over 8500 and reaches approximately 3000 households, 250 business and 150 not-for-profit organizations on the south coast of Newfoundland. The article, written by Stacy Whittle, told readers of the services available to the public, the hours of operation and contact information for the site. Now that's getting the word out!

Holly Smith of Rushoon

End of the Year Newsletter - The CAP site in Rushoon is new to the program but they are taking on unique projects to help promote the many services they offer. Holly Smith began working at the CAP site, located in Christ the King School, as Youth Intern in early June. Her first project was to collect stories and pictures to create an "End of the Year Newsletter". Over one hundred copies were printed and distributed to students, staff and members of the surrounding communities…with the CAP logo stamped right on the back cover! What a wonderful way to promote the CAP site and to show off the many talents of our interns!

What is CAPStats, you ask? CAPStats is the new statistical program that is being developed to obtain user statistics directly from the CAP site patrons themselves. It will eliminate the need for CAP sites to maintain mounds of paperwork as they prepare to submit their monthly reports! Once the program is installed, a pop-up will appear that will prompt the user to enter their gender, age group, their reason(s) for using the CAP site at that time and to indicate whether they are a resident of Newfoundland and Labrador or not. Entering this information will only take a few seconds. The only way to begin or continue their CAP session is to fill out the form. One hour after it has been completed, it will re-appear for the next patron to complete. The program is Internet-based. As such, the program has been designed so that it will not appear if the Internet connection is down at the local site or if our CAP Server is down. For CAP sites that double as school labs, we have installed a feature that will allow them to disable the program during school hours. We are currently in the final testing phase of the program. CAP site administrators will find this program very useful as they will no longer have to track these stats manually once the program is installed on the machines in their CAP site. We hope to begin rolling out this product province-wide within the next few weeks. Look for instructions in your email in the near future!


	The Gander Public Library CAP site is located in the main section of the library and has eight computers, printing services, a digital camera, scanner and a wide range of adaptive technology including JAWS for Windows, Zoom Text Xtra 7.0, and Dragon Naturally Speaking. Gander's CAP site has been operating since 1996 and over this time the site has seen a huge increase in both the number of patrons and the amount of training being requested. This site is a very active and innovative one with many individuals and community groups availing of the services that are offered including computer training. One community group that uses the CAP site on a regular basis is approximately 12-15 developmentally challenged individuals. By making use of the adaptive software that has been made available, they are able to access the World Wide Web, check email and work on special projects that they could not do otherwise.


	Gander Public Library & CAP Site