4-H Youth Technology Team
Group I

The issue that we are addressing is promoting the use of technology in youth.

This needs to be done to help give 4-H youth a voice as well as a way to keep in contact with their consulting groups to continue achieving and making goals throughout the year instead of ending at Conference.

We plan to do this by serving as a technology resource to 4-H youth throughout the country.

• We will maintain a website that is not only a fun place to meet with other 4-Hers but a very informative page in which they can get ideas for projects, learn what other 4-Hers are doing across the country, learn how to be involved in exchange programs, and find out how they can have a technology teams in their own states.
• We would also like to add a search engine to our page to allow visitors to easily find the information they are looking for. Also this would be a better way for them to quickly navigate our page.
• In the future as the technology increases we would like to have the equipment to put Real Audio and Video on our website. We feel this would make for a more dynamic web page as well as a better way for other 4-Hers to experience National Conference and/or Congress
• We will provide many different chat rooms to accommodate different meetings for the consulting groups, but also 4-H clubs, committees, leaders, etc. These chat rooms will be hosted and safe for youth, so that they may work along with adults
• In the future we would like to elect one member of the National 4-H Technology Team to work with the USDA and the NAE4HA to create and maintain the interstate Exchange database. The Exchange database is a NAE4HA project. The USDA has agreed to create a database so opportunities can be posted on-line and the database can be kept current. ·
• We would also like to elect one member to work with the NAE4HA and a youth group such as the youth directions council to facilitate responses to non- tech questions or comments on the site feedback form.
• To improve the National 4-H Center we would like to see a cyber cafe set up in either the rec room or the main lounge in J.C. Penney. This would allow guests to read their email and surf the web. We would also recommend modem access to email from the guestrooms
• To facilitate training we recommend the development of a small computer-training lab. We would like this lab to begin with 6 to 10 desktop computers located in a place with extra space so that we could easily expand by adding more systems. The lab should also include a printer, copier, scanner, and software to support desktop publishing and webpage design. Internet access is a must for these facilities.
• We plan to have a pre conference chat and several post conference chats either in the general chat room or in their consulting groups. To do this we will need to give delegates advance notice either by email or printed in the delegate handbook. We will need to have a facilitator there and we will need to post advance instructions on how to get to the chat site. This could also be posted either by email or the handbook
• In order to serve youth better next year we would like to divide our team into a training team and a Web site team. We feel this would give us more time to work with the youth as well as make a better web page. This would make the quality of these activities much greater.
• We would like to have a sign up for Internet training at conference depending on their computer level. This way we would not be reteaching information youth already know and allow them to get the most learning from their training experience.
• Next year we would like to perform our training sessions at a time other than the consulting group time. We feel this would help us go to more of our assigned consulting group meetings and have a better feel for the information that we are putting up on our page for other youth to see.
• We would also like to have a web page like the conference page for National Congress. We would not have to send all of the technology team to this congress but a little more than half of them would be helpful.

The Tech Team would like to thank you for your time and listening to our suggestions. We hope you will take the time to seriously think about everything we have said or suggested. We believe that these ideas will make not only our program stronger but also 4-H and Youth as a whole.