This is an exciting announcement! We’ve been working with a terrific group of folks on an initiative called START - Service & Technology Academic Resource Team. All the members of the team are working to combine service learning and student-led support for technology in schools.
Led by the Corporation for National Service (CNS) with financial support from Microsoft, groups such as Generation YES, MOUSE, CREATE, SWAT, and others have been working together for a couple of months. Our mission is to figure out how to create more visibility nationwide for student service learning in technology
START today announced that six schools will form a core team to experiment and determine what this will mean (press release.) GenYES school Winston Churchill Middle School from the San Juan School District in California joins Tupelo Middle School (Tupelo, MS), Lower Eastside PS 515 (New York), East Garner MS (Garner, NC), Parkway West HS (Philadelphia), and Forest Park HS (Woodbridge, VA).
The announcement today in Washington DC featured a talk by Karen Cator, the new director of educational technology for the US Department of Education. She then led a student panel in a discussion about how powerful the intersection of technology and service learning can be. GenYES teacher Jeff Darrow, from Winston Churchill MS flew out from California to participate and we are extremely proud that Jeff and his students are representing us in this effort. His district, San Juan, has several GenYES schools, all doing wonderful work and so Jeff was not only representing his school, but his district and all the GenYES schools across the country.
There are videos from the schools showing their programs in a START Vimeo group. Here’s the video from Winston Churchill, our GenYES school.
Churchill S.T.A.R.T Video from Jeff Darrow on Vimeo.
Sylvia
Great stuff, Sylvia. If you want to do any kind of a webinar or panel discussion (with students!) about this, let me know. Would love to help in that way.
Steve, I’ll take you up on that!
Awesome job Mr. Darrow!
To any Churchill parents out there watching this, especially if your child is considering taking a class with Mr. Darrow - ENCOURAGE them to take the class - this is a great opportunity for them to get a start on something new that will be a great life lesson!