Building the Digital Equity Ecosystem, One Digital Navigator or Tech Solution at a Time
What is the Learning Circle?
The DI Learning Circle is a monthly convening of digital skills trainers and digital navigators to come together to create a space of networking and collaboration, providing an opportunity to present about their current programs, solicit feedback on their curriculum, and build spaces of collective learning and brainstorming how best to fill the digital skills needed in the KC metro area.
Who presented this quarter?
January meeting: Goals for 2025
In January, the digital skills instructors and practitioners discussed what they wanted to see for the Learning Circle for 2025.
Takeaways from the January meeting:
- The goal of the Learning Circle is to bring digital skills instructors together to avoid fragmentation, silos and overlaps in this space.
- The group appreciates a less formal meeting where more organic relationship-building and connections can occur.
- Goals for 2025 meetings: Rotating system of presenters and host sites for each monthly meeting. Curious about where the Learning Circle is traveling to in 2025? Browse the schedule of events here.
February Meeting: Hosted by Carol’s Corner
In February, Carol Meyers with KC Digital Drive took on the first of the “hosted” Learning Circle gatherings, talking about her work at the LAMP Campus at 1801 Linwood Blvd. Attendees met at Carol’s Corner (her classroom) with highlights of the discussion including:
What does it mean to be a digital navigator?
- Premise: KC Digital Drive is looking to start a “Digital Ambassadors” program and wants to learn more about what the KC ecosystem deems to be the purpose and value of digital navigators for partner organizations.
- A digital navigator helps an individual “navigate” the internet and get where they need to be. This is something that an individual outside of the trainer can provide to increase capacity in and outside of the classroom.
- Digital navigators would be very helpful in healthcare spaces to provide materials for clients and meet them where they are.
- Digital navigators need to have good interpersonal skills, be flexible with not knowing the answer and do their best to help their clients with their needs.
What’s the difference between a digital literacy trainer and a digital navigator?
- Digital navigation is a stepping stone for digital literacy, and digital skill building is “building blocks” to learning that needs support from both digital navigators and trainers. If an organization doesn’t have capacity to help people get connected online, the navigator would fill that gap.
- Digital navigators provide 1:1 support, while digital skills trainers are more in a classroom setting teaching specific subjects. Both roles can be filled by an individual.
What are the best assessment/teaching tools you currently use?
- Multiple organizations use Northstar, which can be a useful tool but is not all-encompassing.
- Morphic.org is a free resource to use on laptops as an assistive tool (magnifier, reader, screen snip, etc.).
- GCFLearnFree has tons of tutorials, including QuickBooks.
March Meeting: Engaging with Code for KC
For March, team members Britt Shanklin and Leslie Scott from KC Digital Drive presented on “Brainstorming Capacity Building Tech Solutions for NPOs.” discussing an upcoming opportunity for nonprofit partners to inform projects that will be developed at a hackathon in August.
Code for KC is a civic hacking group that has been meeting weekly on Mondays since 2012 and is engaging with KC Developer’s Conference to find a few organizations to “fill their gaps” using a technical solution. KCDD wanted to gauge the Learning Circle group to see if any of the organizations could think of any “pain points” in their organization that could be addressed by a tech solution (app, website, portal, etc.).
For more information, check out the Code for KC blog post here and submit your organization’s problem here ASAP or by May 12, 2025 to be considered for the hackathon.
Some ideas that were talked about in the meeting:
- digiSTORY KC: How can individuals promote themselves to local businesses on a hyper-local scale who want summer apprenticeships? Past solutions to this problem (Handshake, LinkedIn) don’t focus on the local level, and this would potentially provide space to build out their portfolio right on the site.
- Catholic Charities: How can a refugee- and immigrant-serving organization compile all their curriculum in multiple languages and easily share and use the tools for their classes? What tech solution could be built out that is a user-friendly platform to grow their digital skills, particularly with a language and literacy barrier as well?
- Other idea: Updating an organization’s website. This could be a potential project as long as the organization owning the site builds out the content they need on it beforehand.
How to join the Learning Circle
If you are a digital skills trainer or digital navigator and you’re interested in joining this monthly meetup, please email Leah Henriksen at lhenriksen @ kcdigitaldrive dot org, and she will put you on the list. The meeting is typically hybrid, so in-person or virtual participation is available. We hope to see you!
Upcoming Meetings:
- May 6th @ 3-4pm: Presentation by i.c.stars Kansas City
- June 3rd @ 3-4pm: Hosted by Literacy KC
- July 1st @ 3-4pm: Presentation by Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas