April 2013 Newsletter Vol 5: Issue 10 - World Wide Workshop April 2013 Newsletter

Dear Partners and Friends, April brought exciting recognition to the Workshop, putting us

in touch with decision-makers and innovators from all over the country at NSBA and SIIA,

and from around the world at the Skoll World Forum. Globaloria students were also given

the chance to meet expert STEM innovators at the HP and Google campuses. We warmly

welcome a new funder in California, the Leo M. Shortino Foundation, and a new advisory

board member, award-winning media theorist Douglas Rushkoff. We are delighted with the

new friends of the Workshop, and we thank those of you who have been with us for many years for your

continued support. Cheers, Idit

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In This Month's Issue:

1. Dr. Douglas Rushkoff Visits the World Wide Workshop

2. Skoll World Forum Features Idit as Global Social Entrepreneur

3. National School Boards Association Names Workshop “Technology Innovator”

4. SIIA Selects Globaloria for Innovation Incubator

5. Leo M. Shortino Foundation Awards Grant to Workshop

6. NCWIT Selects a Globaloria Aspirations Award Winner to Run Local Computing Camp

7. San Jose Students Get Inspired for STEM Careers at HP and Google

8. Idit Participates in Reconnecting McDowell Partners Meeting

1. Dr. Douglas Rushkoff Visits the World Wide Workshop

On April 25, award-winning media theorist Douglas Rushkoff, author of 12 books, visited

the Workshop to share with the team his latest book, Present Shock. We discussed his

key concepts--narrative collapse, digiphrenia, overwinding, fractalnoia, and apocalypto--

and how to take these into consideration as we design technology-infused education for

youth to support the development of their self-expression, self-agency, and human-to-

human interaction; how certain computational tools can elicit the merits of quality

concentration in learning, rather than speedy, superficial, fragmented knowledge; and the role of game

design for developing connections, narrative and community. In his book Program or Be Programmed

(2011), Rushkoff advocates for kids and youth to learn to develop agency with technology through

computer programming, and in this he is aligned with the Workshop manifesto that "coding and

computational creativity is the new literacy." We are honored to announce that Douglas Rushkoff has

joined our advisory board to inspire our team and the youth we serve.

2. Skoll World Forum Features Idit as Global Social Entrepreneur

World Wide Workshop founder and president Dr. Idit Harel Caperton was a featured

panelist at Skoll World Forum 2013, a conference to advance social entrepreneurship

around global problems. Idit's panel, entitled Blended Learning: The Proof and the

Promise featured Khan Academy founder Salman Khan, Ideo education lead Sandy

Speicher, eAdvance CEO Stacey Brewer, and Stanford University d.School professor Debra Dunn, as

moderator, discussing how technology can improve education quality and access globally.

Idit and fellow panelists discuss blended learning at Skoll World Forum

3. National School Boards Association Names Workshop "Technology Innovator"

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) featured the Workshop as a Technology

Innovation in the 2013 Showcase at its annual conference, held in San Diego on April 13-

15. “I was honored to introduce Globaloria to thousands of school board members and

superintendents who attended from across the United States and Canada to learn about

the ways in which innovative programs, like ours, are changing education,” said Amber

Oliver, VP of Partnerships and Operations.

4. SIIA Selects Globaloria for Innovation Incubator

The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) named Globaloria an

Education Technology Pioneer to be featured at the annual SIIA Ed Tech Industry

Summit, May 5-7 in San Francisco. Stay tuned for our update about this meeting in our

May newsletter.

5. Leo M. Shortino Foundation Awards Grant to Workshop

The Leo M. Shortino Foundation awarded a grant to the Workshop to expand the

deployment of Globaloria in San Jose/Silicon Valley. The Shortino Foundation’s grant

helps close STEM and digital literacy gaps and address barriers to educational

achievement for at-risk and low-income youth in the region.

6. NCWIT Selects a Globaloria Aspirations Award Winner to Run Local Computing Camp

Laura Plascencio of East Austin College Prep (EAPrep), a ninth-grade Globaloria

Student, was one of only 24 young women nationwide to receive a grant from the

Aspire IT Middle School Outreach Program Pilot Fund to lead a computing camp for

middle school girls this summer. Aspire IT will employ a "near-peer" approach to

provide young women with a positive, sustained experience of learning and creating computing alongside

their peers. Plascencio was the runner-up for the Central Texas NCWIT Award for Aspirations in

Computing in 2012, which awarded her this grant.

7. San Jose Students Get Inspired for STEM Careers at HP and Google

On April 25, Hewlett Packard (HP) hosted more than 60 Christopher School 7th and 8

th graders at their

Palo Alto headquarters. It meant a lot to the young students to hear the history HP in Silicon Valley and

its products, learn how a strong technology company functions, and ask a panel of HP representatives

questions about working at HP.

Christopher School students during a field trip at the HP offices in Palo Alto.

On April 26, more than 30 Santa Teresa High School students took a STEM Innovation Field Trip

to Google headquarters in Mountain View. Besides receiving an inspiring (and entertaining) presentation

on Computer Science, computer scientists, and the importance of STEM education, students toured

and enjoyed the energetic, playful atmosphere of the Google campus. The exciting trip was topped off

with lunch at the Google Cafe and a visit to the Store for Google goodies!

Santa Teresa High School students outside Google headquarters in Mountain View.

8. Idit Participates in Reconnecting McDowell Partners Meeting

On April 22, Dr. Idit Harel Caperton presented the achievements of Globaloria

in West Virginia at the Reconnecting McDowell Partners’ Meeting in

Charleston, WV. The Workshop is an official partner of Reconnecting

McDowell, a comprehensive, long-term initiative to make educational improvement in McDowell County,

as the route to a brighter economic future for the community. This academic year, Globaloria is reaching

1000 students and teachers in 32 schools in West Virginia, of which more than 100 students and

teachers are in four McDowell County schools.