BCAUSEICAN Continues to Bridge the Digital Divide during Covid
Updated: Nov 26, 2020
BCAUSEICAN started the year providing our BCAUSEICANCODE coding classes in-person for ages 6-12 at the Shaw Community Center as part of After School programming. The classes and students were progressing well and then the Covid-19 pandemic came and interrupted all in-person classes. We quickly determined and executed a strategy to migrate our coding curriculum online to support distance learning. The idea was to prepare ourselves for distance learning programming for the Summer. The challenge would not only be to educate our staff, but the supporting staff and students. BCAUSEICAN was able to meet the challenge and conducted a Summer Virtual Coding Camp for the Shaw Community Center for ages 6-13 and a Summer Virtual Coding Camp for the Hillside-Works Scholar Connections organization for ages 14-18. The students quickly adopted not only to the course content, but the proper computer etiquette to participate in online classes. We also noticed that it was imperative we extend training to parents to help assist the students in the distance learning classroom experience. What at one-time looked as insurmountable odds, were accomplished by the commitment, expertise and dedication of everyone involved to make the Summer Camp experiences a success.
BCAUSEICAN is expanding the BCAUSEICANCODE classes this Fall to the Judge Sylvania Woods
Elementary School in Glenarden, MD. These classes are scheduled to start in early November. In the interim, looking at the experiences from the summer, BCAUSEICAN offered and conducted multi-lingual Google Classroom Training for Parents on the weekends to assist the parents in supporting their students. This has been a huge success and exhibits our commitments to the communities we serve. We will also continue the BCAUSEICANCODE classes for the Shaw Community Center later in the Fall.
Like many non-profits, we operate under the assumption that our common good would allow us to deliver our services as we have done in the past, but due to Covid-19 and the year 2020 has taught us that our services are so critically important to fill the digital divide, that unlike other IT related companies, which receive startup funds, speculation dollars and further investment, a non-profit like BCAUSEICAN, who is charged with fulfilling a social service in the manner in which we do has left us at a deficit. While we are hopeful and aspirational in our goals and objectives because of the commitment that our founders made when they created BCAUSEICAN to reduce the socio-economic disparities in the communities we serve, the current environment where we live, where the risk of our children in a physical and mental sense are at stake, we have moved beyond the paradigm of wish we could, but we must help our children. The pillars of our society are weakened, but because of our commitment, expertise and dedication, we know we can create a long term opportunity to bring sustainable programming into the communities, schools and homes we serve. Help us help our children. We know “BCAUSEICAN, You Can, We Can”!
What they are saying about BCAUSEICAN
The Director of the Shaw Center wrote:
Mr. Ron, What and where would we be technically without you! Thank you so much. You have been hands on and epic in making sure the entire model run smoothly with no malfunctions. BCAUSEICAN rocks and we are grateful to have you on our team and partner. Coding is the future and thanks to you.
The Operations Manager at the Hillside-Works Scholars Connection wrote:
Hi Ron, It has been great partnering with you all this summer. We are looking forward to continuing our engagement through the school year.
Judge Sylvania Woods Principal Barber-Wehrman Twitter Posted
https://twitter.com/judgewoodspgcps/status/1304810660375781377?s=21
A parent of one of our students wrote:
Ian has truly enjoyed learning coding in the Computer Coding Class this summer with Mr. Ron and loves to practice Scratch.