Digital Harmony

Digital Harmony - A Digital Divide program of the Go Beyond Foundation

Digital Harmony Today

Digital Harmony is a program purposed to extend the learning experience beyond the classroom into the home through computer-based curriculum. The goal of Digital Harmony is to address the gap of the “Digital Divide” by providing homes with a computer, curriculum, Internet access, training, mentoring and support to children in economically and educationally challenged communities or where other barriers of access to technology may exist. A key goal is to change the outcome of the educational experience of children in failing schools or where a student is failing in a passing school. Hopefully, by enhancing the educational experience in the middle school years, and then providing a continuing path to high school graduation and possible higher education, the prospects for success of these young people can dramatically change.

In the Digital Harmony program students receive a computer for the home with installed curriculum and application software that is the same software as they are working with at their school or that provides other enhanced learning opportunities. Internet access is provided to students and families that cannot afford it. Student are required to sign in and work on school curriculum and their activity from the home computer is monitored. Failure to do so generally results in the forfeiting of the home computer and the provided Internet access. The participating school monitors the student’s “balance” between their school and at-home work on the curriculum being used. On-going technical support is provided from Florida State University College of Communications and Information (CCI) Help Desk, a call-in help desk that also performs the computer maintenance/repair services as part of the educational experience of the students at the college on an IT degree track.

Traditionally the computers used in the Digital Harmony project have been new systems donated and or purchased from Dell, HP, Ashtin or other manufacturers. While new computers will continue to be a part of the program Go Beyond Foundation as part of the BTOP initiative and our partnership with Florida State University CCI and Project SPARTA is introducing recycled/refurbished computer systems to the Digital Harmony program. This is being done for several reasons:

  • Increase the number of computer systems available for the program demand. As the economy declined the demand for participation increased.
  • Provide a "green" technology component to the project.
  • Allow students to have a hands-on experience in refurbishing the computer. Refurbishing the computer that they will take home is a key element in the Digital Harmony component for the 50 Large, 100 Success Academy and Foundation special programs.

The History of Digital Harmony

Digital Harmony began in the fall of 2007 as three year pilot program. Initially it was a collaborative program of City Commissioner Andrew Gillum with the City of Tallahassee, Leon County School System, Comcast Cable, Dell Computers(first year), and Hewlett Packard (second year), TalTech Alliance, Go Beyond Foundation and many other community partners. In 2008 Digital Harmony became a Go Beyond Foundation program. The pilot project focused on incoming sixth graders at the Nims Middle School in Leon County. Nims was chosen because it was an “F” ranked school and had approximately 100 children in the sixth grade (for the initial year of the project) and expected enrollment to increase approximately 50% for the second year of implementation. In the pilot program each new 6th grade student was  given a computer with installed curriculum and application software. Comcast provided broadband Internet access to the homes. The School provided the curriculum and additional instructional resources as well as program monitoring and follow-up. TalTech Alliance partners with the FSU CCI and others provided technical support. Nims school held orientation classes for parents and students on basic computer and curriculum use, security and parental guidance. The original pilot was completed after three successful years at the end of the 2009-2010 school year.