Developing a Plan for Education

[l...@clarovista.com]

[Josh]

EAST Coding -

http://www.codecademy.com/afterschool

On Monday, March 4, 2013 5:21:22 PM UTC-6, l...@clarovista.com wrote:

[Luke Coleman]

David and I plan on contacting EAST to see what steps need to be taken to get coding into the EAST initiative.  We also proposed a Facebook group or something similar that could be a collaboration space for students all working on coding projects. You would then have some "Pros" in the group to answer the tough questions or even skype the kids.  Moody and I will be heading this up.

[Mike Steely]

I'm working with EAST right now to sponsor 10 EAST Alumni at Startup Weekend.  If you know of anyone interested let me know.

[Shawn Goicoechea]

Hey Everyone,

Recently I've been talking with a few collaborators about getting a stop on the SparkFun Tour in Conway and Little Rock to provide a way to jump start the conversation and connection between tech sector folks and educators in a way that lets us just get right to doing something.

The tour stops with a classroom set of kits (based on Arduino) and a curriculum to match it. They come and put on a workshop for educators and leave the kits and curriculum in the community.  Each tour stop is $1500 if we are in the first 50 to purchase (there are still 15 spots left, but we hope to reserve sometime very soon).  Currently I am working with the Museum of Discovery who will host a stop in their Tinker Studio, and with AETN where we may do the Conway event (details to come).  Speaking with folks at these organizations and others like EAST has been encouraging and they've all been very receptive and interested in participating. The tour dates in our area would be October or November it looks like.

I would really love to see individuals from the start-up community participate in this by attending the workshop. If people think it's worthwhile we would like to facilitate workshops where members of our tech community volunteered to 'teach' or facilitate projects from the curriculum at the public library (Conway) or Tinker Studio (LR) to do hands on stuff and to get kids excited about technology early on. A volunteer or group (perhaps a few folks from your company?) would simply schedule a few hours on a Saturday afternoon when it fit their schedule, show up and dig right into the lesson. 

My questions:

Anyone interested in volunteering?  At this time I believe we have most of the funding covered, but am also always excited to hear from anyone who as a company or individual would like to donate funds to this and other related projects.  Do people like this idea as a way to start interacting with educators? Do you think this is a good means for startups to connect with students? 

Thanks for any/all feedback and interest - I'll do my best to post updates here and on @laluchaspace twitter... 

Great to see the discussion continuing.

Best,
Shawn

The SparkFun link, in case you didn't see it above: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tour   - a link which Jeannette shared with me at BarCamp, thanks!

[Mike Steely]

Hey Shawn,

This sounds great.  In looking at the site it mentions enough for 20 - 40 kids.  My thinking would be that if we can get EAST and other educators involved we might end up with more than that.  Do they provide any discounts on additional kits if we want to purchase for use that day or for later usage in classrooms?  That may be something that could get businesses interested in sponsorship of.  I'll be happy to get in contact with Jim Brock of the Dept of Education, he oversees the Dept of Career Education for the state and can get the word out quickly to educators.  If you'd like a meeting with him let me know.  Also, I'll get my 15 year old son there to volunteer for the day.  He already helps out for Tinkerfest and other Museum Camps.  I'd like to expose him to this type of teaching training.

Thanks,

Mike Steely

501-410-3394

mst...@connect-arkansas.org 

[Shawn Goicoechea]

Mike,

They do sell additional kits, and I believe educators get a 20% discount if they'll agree to giving SparkFun some simple feedback (easy - like an email, or a review on their site).  

I've reached out to Matt at EAST and hope to meet with him sometime soon to talk about connected with educators that way.  I hope there will be more educators interested than we have space for at the actual workshop so we can have a successful webcast to some classrooms (this is where those extra kits come in) and also so that some of the educators who attend can return to their schools and host their own workshop with other educators - for practice and to disseminate the info further. Hopefully we can get some educators excited enough to do that...

After we've have secured the spots and know location, time, etc I would appreciate your help making that connection with Jim Brock - thanks.

Thanks, as always, for your support Mike.

Shawn Goicoechea

La Lucha Space

sh...@laluchaspace.com

@laluchaspace or @locavorS on twitter.

[Alex Schwartz]

Mike,

I am an EAST alumnus, and I have a few friends who are also EAST alumni.  I can talk to them and see if they'd be interested in going to Startup Weekend, if EAST still wants to sponsor some alumni and you still want to know of anyone.  I'll respond here if you're interested in knowing.

Thanks,

Alex.