Welcome to the Generation YES Express
February 2006 - 8,306 subscribers
The best part of my job is visiting schools and meeting teachers and students. A few weeks ago, Adam Fletcher and I did a marathon workshop run -- ten half-day TechYES workshops in five days in nine California Central Valley cities. We met 48 teachers from 48 middle schools who brought over 150 students to these workshops. These students will form the core of a larger peer mentor group who will facilitate grass-roots technology literacy among their peers, over 10,000 strong. With the backdrop of Martin Luther King Day, I couldn't help thinking that the dream we had in the 1970s of technology creating equal opportunities and better learning will be in the hands of these kids. Keep hope alive!
Forward -
Dennis Harper
What's New at Generation YES
We've Moved!
We are happy to announce that after many months of planning and packing, we have a new office space. Our new building gives us more space, more parking, and best of all, amazing views of the parkland surrounding Olympia, Washington. Our student interns especially like their new blue hideaway. Our new address is:
2584 RW Johnson Blvd. SW
Olympia, WA 98512
(888) 941-4369
If you are ever in Olympia, do drop in and see us. https://www.genyes.com/news/moved
Texas Region 20 to Offer GenYES
Generation YES and Education Service Center, Region 20 in San Antonio, Texas (ESC-20) have announced a partnership to offer low-cost local training and support for the GenYES model of professional development in all Region 20 schools and districts. Funded by the EETT grant (known as Target in Texas), staff at the service center have worked for the past three years to learn how to support GenYES in their own schools. We are proud partners with them as we make this momentous transition!
https://www.esc20.net/
48 California Schools Selected for MCI California Technology Literacy Project
48 middle schools in the California Central Valley with underserved populations were selected to participate in the MCI California Technology Literacy Project (www.geny.org/mci). This project will provide technology literacy certification to more than 10,000 seventh-grade students in California's Central Valley. Materials and workshops prepared teachers and eight-graders peer mentors who will help the seventh-graders complete two projects and evaluate whether these projects meet national technology standards.
TechYES - A 21st Century Solution for Tech Literacy
TechYES is now included in the "Assess21" database of the 21st Century Skills Partnership. This repository is designed to serve as a central hub for policy makers, educators, researchers, and others seeking background information on current assessments of 21st century skills. https://www.21stcenturyskills.org/assess21/
Educational Leadership Article - Students Teaching Teachersy
ASCD's excellent magazine, Educational Leadership, has an article in the December 2005 issue about the use of the GenYES model in many different schools. Written by Hsueh-Hua Chaung from National Chiayi University, Taiwan and Ann Thompson from Iowa State University, they say that GenYES students have, "...become a force for change as they share leadership roles and accomplishments with teachers and school administrators." We couldn't agree more! You can read it online at: https://www.genyes.com/media/news/articles/edleadership_genyes.pdf
Student Showcase
GenYES Student Starts Consulting Company
A fifth-grade GenYES student from Illinois consults throughout the Chicago area on a variety of technology topics. Nine-year old Sam Kaplan is known for his dynamic presentation style. Read all about this GenYES whiz kid at https://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2006/01/sam_rubin_has_h.html
Texas GenYES Students Present in TCEA Booth
At the Texas Education Computer Association (TCEA) conference last week, exhibitors showed the latest in educational technology to teachers and district technology coordinators from all over Texas.
But at our booth, fifth-grade GenYES students from Henry B. Gonzalez Elementary School were on hand to show how THEY are the latest thing in improving education through technology. Visitors were impressed by these students' ability, poise and knowledge of how technology can be used to help teachers teach and students learn. Check out the photo diary here. https://www.genyes.com/news/tcea06
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
Sitting on the dais of the Anne Arundel school board in her vaguely Gothic attire, Turkish evil eye earrings and beaded choker, Pallas Snider looks like some sort of Ivy League mystic. But at the moment, she just may be the most influential person on the county's Board of Education. Anne Arundel is the only county in the nation with a school board that extends full voting rights to a student, and Pallas is the swing vote these days... (read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010201803.html)
Chicago GenYES Class Supports Whole-school Technology Use
GenYES teacher Lucy Gray and her class created a web page highlighting projects students have created for their partner-teachers. Podcasts, webpages and more help teachers in many subject areas and grade levels. Students also learn to use resources such as Atomic Learning and UnitedStreaming, so that every teacher gets a personal introduction to these powerful technology components.
https://homepage.mac.com/lucygray1/Classes/page3/page3.html
News You Can Use
MySpace = Evil. Is It That Simple?
Have you been reading much about MySpace lately? Many mainstream media stories focus on the potential danger and dark side of MySpace and schools are forced to react to these lurid tales. Have you wondered why the focus is so negative? Is there another side? Senior researcher at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco, CA and Sociology Instructor at UCSC Mike Males provides a different view of MySpace in the February issue of Youth Today. https://home.earthlink.net/~mmales/yt-myspa.htm
The Few and The Tiny - Find Stardust@home
In January 2004, the Stardust spacecraft flew through comet Wild2 and captured thousands of incredibly tiny interstellar dust impacts. Now back on Earth, finding these first ever collected building blocks of the universe will be extremely difficult. The job is roughly equivalent to searching for 45 ants in an entire football field, one 2-inch square at a time! That's where you (or maybe your students?) come in. After training, you will be able to view these samples through a virtual microscope and report your findings to the world. More information and registration here: https://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
Tech Tips Plus
Free Photocasting
FilmLoop is a free photo broadcasting ("photocasting") network. Instead of showing photos on a Web page, or including them as email attachments, FilmLoop presents photos in a "Loop" on your desktop, like a stock ticker that automatically updates. Share your Loop with your students, their parents or the whole school and they can add their photos too. www.filmloop.com
Generation YES Offers My Skillsource Training
Generation YES has partnered with Enterprise Training Solutions to offer online training in Microsoft Office, Flash, Photoshop and other applications, web development, desktop publishing and more. These training courses offer teachers and students an easy and convenient way to learn applications or prepare for A+ and other certifications.
https://www.enterprisetraining.com/genyes/index.htm
That's All For This Issue of the Generation YES Express
We hope you've enjoyed this email newsletter. If you have stories to share or news clips about technology in education, student empowerment, or funding for technology, please send them our way and you might see them in the next issue! https://www.genyes.org/about/contact
