Comments on: Oregon’s K-12 tech education sucks: A geek call to action

By: How important was your K-12 education in your brave new world techie job of today? « Silicon Florist

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:25:09 +0000

[...] to assessing the strength of our community as a tech hub, both now and in the future. And yes, I’ve ranted on the topic of K-12 education [...]

By: » Oregon technology startups and education: Being part of the solution - Silicon Florist

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:10:40 +0000

[...] few weeks back, I wrote a rant about the abysmal state of Oregon’s tech education in which I encouraged anyone in tech—but especially those folks at startups—to consider [...]

By: Jeff the Great

Jeff the Great — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:37:11 +0000

What if we were to team up with an organization that is all ready working to enhance education?

I just came across Junior Achievement: http://portland.ja.org/

We could go to them, or someone like them, and say “we want to start a technology advancement program through your organization and we all ready have x number of volumnteers lined up and I am sure x number of those would also donate money”

If I were a non-prof and you came to me with a plan and the people, I’d jump on the chance to include it in my organization.

By: Aaron Johnson

Aaron Johnson — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:13:01 +0000

Not that you need any more inspiration, but if you haven’t seen this TED video yet, it’s *amazing* and is a cool vision for education and mentoring:

http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2008/03/20/dave_eggers_ted.html

I’ve helped out with community technology centers in Boston and in Southern California, I’d love to join the Google group when you get it set up.

Cheers,

By: » Silicon Florist internship challenge - Silicon Florist

» Silicon Florist internship challenge - Silicon Florist — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:09:46 +0000

[...] week ago, I went off on a little rant about the sorry state of Oregon’s technology and education mix. And how I hoped that all of us startup types could use our creativity to figure out how to fix the [...]

By: Mark Conway

Mark Conway — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:37:09 +0000

A follow-on to my previous post.
Rick Wahlstrom is the CIO at NWRESD. Contact page for the department is here:
http://www.nwresd.k12.or.us/technology/directory.html

By: Mark Conway

Mark Conway — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:25:32 +0000

Some folks you might want to consider coordinating with are the Technology Coordinators in each of the school districts you are interested in working with. During my couple of years as a Technology Coordinator for Clatskanie School District we had some very innovative and useful programs run through the Northest Regional Educational Service District in Hillsboro (NWRESD). Contact the ESD for districts in your region and you’ll likely get a welcome reception and good resources for helping out in the schools.
What would really help is to get the STRUT program resurrected. STRUT is Student Recycling Used Technology and was an innovative program sponsored by the NWRESD. They basically paid for a warehouse the size of a CostCo and staff on East Airport Way in Portland as a place that received donated computers and peripherals from corporations and individuals and sent them out to schools all over the state at no cost. Students at the schools were taught to configure the equipment and create labs and individual PC’s that could be used in each of the 140 schools/districts that were members. This was basically FreeGeek for schools on a state-wide basis. It was cancelled in 2002 during the state budget crunch (annual budget was approx $350K). This program delivered $15 in benefit for every dollar spent. I ran IT for an entire rural school district for two years on basically a zero budget because this program existed.
Another very useful program that I took advantage of was the Cisco Academy program. One of the biggest difficulties in technology education is the lack of a standardized curriculum. I was asked in 2000 to teach technology (IT) classes to high school students. I didn’t have any curriculum to turn to but found the Cisco program where for the cost of a $1500 license fee I could bring in a complete Cisco CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) program with all materials and a completely internet-delivered series of courses leading to the Cisco CCNA certification. There was a minimum lab equipment list of routers and switches that we were able to collect (through STRUT) at no cost- normally this equipment costs $10K at a discount through Cisco to equip one school for the program.
There is a group that works on training technology teachers in Oregon that is sponsored by Intel and the NWRESD. Contact the NWRESD for info on this. Also, Don Domes at Hillsboro High School is a good contact for getting connected to the right folks in the NWRESD. Hope this helps.
Mark

By: Jason Gallic

Jason Gallic — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 01:01:27 +0000

This post received comment from Derek Brandow of the YB Group. I am another of the partners with that group.

We are building the environments for learning to which some here have alluded. They are experience-based, and their primary focus is on developing the skills necessary to find success in an ever-flattening world. That’s not suggesting that core competencies aren’t important. But it’s acknowledging that there are equally important components that aren’t being developed by our current education model.

The fact is, what we’re talking about incorporates technology, yes, but so much more. It’s not about simply getting more kids in front of more computers. It’s about empowering them to take advantage of those technologies, as well as unlimited access to data. And then inviting them to think in an innovation-centric way.

There is much work to do and The YB Group is ready to help in any way that it can.

Jason Gallic
jason.gallic@theybgroup.com

By: Rick Turoczy

Rick Turoczy — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:07:52 +0000

@Jeff I agree. Completely. This is not a single-handed kind of task. I’ll work on getting this stuff moving. And then step out of the way to let smarter minds prevail.

By: Jeff the Great

Jeff the Great — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:23:16 +0000

@Rick

Why not put together a board so you don’t have to go at this alone? You all ready single handedly take on a lot for the Silicon Forest so let’s all pitch in to take some of the burden off of you.