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Technology Team shows 4-H firmly focused on future
Texas Texas 4-H traces its roots back 100 years to the first boys' corn club in Jack County. Now Texas 4-H'ers are more likely to be into Apples and Blackberries--also Macs, PCs, digital cameras and all kinds of other electronic gadgets and equipment . Just ask Eugene Holub of Rockdale, Mason Frye of Glen Rose and Kathryn Marburger of Lexington. They are three of the 18 members of the Texas 4-H Technology Team. A lot of teamwork--heavy on the 'work,' the members said--goes into the project but so does a lot of fun. "We do a lot for not just 4-H but for the community," Holub said. "We teach the young and the old (about) new ideas and new programs and all these newly incorporated techniques that come from technology--this rapidly developing technology. We teach them how to use that in their everyday lives and so it makes things easier on them. We benefit the people by teaching them a little bit of what we know." That takes time and effort, Marburger said. "There's a lot of work in it," she said. "You have to pull your weight (and) make sure you meet deadlines, but while you're working you have a lot of fun. It's more than a team, it's a whole group of friends, so while you're working you have fun too." Frye agreed that the work is hard but rewarding. "But you're also involved on the front line of a new thing that's being incorporated into 4-H and you get to say that you were one of the first to start it," he said. The team was organized about three years ago, said Dee Lee Smith, Texas Cooperative Extension agent in Van Zandt County. Smith, who has a master's degree in educational technology, said she was so taken with the concept of the team that she immediately volunteered to be a member of its adult leadership team. To become a member of the technology team, a 4-H'er must be between the ages of 14 and 18, and fill out an application to join, said Dr. Toby Lepley, Extension 4-H and youth development specialist and one of the team's advisors. "Team members are required to participate in monthly AIM chats," he said, "attend a majority of the face-to-face meetings held three times a year and provide leadership on various events." Those events include Texas 4-H Roundup and Texas 4-H Congress. In addition, each member--alone or with a team--is required to develop a technology-based "Workshop in a Box" each year, Lepley said. These workshops help teach such subjects as Web page development, digital photography, use of Excel and computer building for county agents and 4-H members and adult leaders. Team members also "teach workshops and sessions at 4-H and Extension activities such as 4-H Ambassadors training, Ideas E-camp workshops and Spring Fling senior camp at the 4-H Conference Center," he said. Lepley credits Kevin D. Wentzel, technical marketing manager in Hewlett-Packard's Consumer Notebooks Global Business Unit, as providing the inspiration for the Texas team. Along with one other adult and three young people, Wentzel said, he helped establish the California 4-H Computer Corps in 1998. Wentzel worked with the California team until he moved Texas in 2003, he said. The Texas team "was developed using the conceptual structure that the California Computer Corps was developed on, hence the importance and influence of Kevin to Texas," Lepley said. "I wanted the team to have a strong flavor of youth-adult partnership," Wentzel said. "This means that the adults are not just advisors or 'leaders,' but that roles of the youth, the adults and the staff include doing the work, planning and making decisions. All should feel that they have a voice in team discussions." Holub, Marburger and Frye also credit another trio of adults for encouraging them to join: their mothers. "I've always been interested in computers and technology, and I'm really big into 4-H," Holub said. "My mom found this application (for the technology team), and it's a new project area--first couple of years it's been happening--and it's a way for me to use all my experience and all my knowledge of technology and incorporate it into 4-H." Frye's introduction to the team was similar. "I took a few (technology) classes my freshman year in high school and I like computers," he said, "and my mom brought home an application for the technology team so I figured it would be fun and filled it out, and that's how I got started." Marburger had some experience working with software before her mother told her about the team. Now she is planning her future around technology. "I start Texas A&M (University) in the fall," Marburger said. "I'm going for an accelerated (five-year) master's degree in international marketing." Technology is going to be part of everybody's future, she said, including 4-H's. "Right now technology is soaring like crazy," Marburger said. "They're coming out with new things every year, if not sooner. I think that at some point 4-H will have a whole group just based on technology--not only the team but other projects in 4-H that are just technology based like robotics or GIS--because in the future we're going to need them." For more information about the 4-H technology team, visit tx4-h.tamu.edu/technology. Date: 7/19/07
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