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December, 2011 – Technically Learning is pleased to announce that we have been awarded two new grants totaling $17,264 to support our new sites opening in four Highline School District schools in January 2012:

• $12,264 from the Gesner-Johnson Foundation to purchase 40 LEGO® Mindstorm Robotics kits to outfit the four new Highline schools. The Gesner-Johnson Foundation funds equipment and capital projects in Seattle that make a significant and lasting impact on the community.
• $5,000 from Charis Fund to support the launch of the new sites. Charis Fund is a family foundation with a history of supporting education-focused projects in Western Washington that benefit low-income students.

Thanks to the Gesner-Johnson Foundation and Charis Fund for selecting Technically Learning as a grantee! This support will help us provide exciting new STEM education opportunities to over 950 Highline students (grades 5-8) in 2012.

You all helped so much by donating at the end of the year. Your support has allowed us to purchase 60 brand new LEGO kits and 35 new laptops! If you meant to donate, but forgot you can still make an impact, just browse to the Donate Page and select the level of your gift.

These kits and laptops will make their way to Seattle schools, classrooms and student's hands very soon. I wanted to share my excitement as soon as they arrived!

Eric was one of the original Founders of Technically Learning. It's very interesting to see his background and reasoning for Founding Technically Learning.

I have a BS in physics and a PhD in astronomy. I spend my days (and often my nights!) studying small stars. I love what I do, and I get excited about all kinds of science and technology. I was lucky enough to qualify for a great enrichment program in my public elementary school that took me out of regular classes once a week to do hands-on learning activities and problem-solving exercises. As far as I was concerned, it was fun. Only in looking back do I realize how important it was to my education and to teaching me to think. At the time, I was mostly concerned with playing sports with the neighborhood kids in my small rural hometown. I recognized in middle school that I liked science and math, but didn’t have particularly exciting science or math classes through high school.

Things changed when I got to college, with excellent science and math courses that made going to class interesting, challenging, and exciting. At the same time, I started to learn more about the world. I traveled, met people from different cultures, races, religions, and backgrounds. Buy my physics classes were 95% male, and 95% white (myself included). After starting to see how diverse the world is, and how important that diversity is to learning, that just didn’t sit well. I participated in a program to help middle school students from low-income public schools with science fair projects. It was a start, and it felt important, but even then I realized that particular model wasn’t sustainable. But I put the idea of it in my back pocket.

My desire for social justice and for service led me to join the Peace Corps after college, and I headed to Guyana in South America for two years to be a science teacher at a low-performing secondary school. My school didn’t have much... read more.

Join us at the Microsoft Campus on Wednesday, October 26th from 12pm-1pm in 86/2819! Technically Learning's staff and board members will share how you can sustainably improve the quality of STEM education in Seattle-area public schools.

You'll even get a chance to experience some of the technologies we help teachers integrate into their existing curriculum by competing against your colleagues in a LEGO™ Robotics Tug-of-War! Snacks will, of course, be provided. Please note that this event is only for Microsoft employees and their guests.

Continuing our board member interviews, Adriel has summed up why he finds serving on the Technically Learning board inspiring.

When I look back at my childhood I have some very strong memories. Singing at the National Cathedral in DC, playing basketball as much as possible, watching my mother cook most nights, travelling to England, and either falling asleep, usually skipping, but most certainly - hating math and science class. I no longer do any type of music performance, but have a deep love and appreciation for it, I’m still about as good at basketball as I was in Jr high (not good) but still love the game, I developed a passion for cooking and even worked in the restaurant industry, I lived in England for several years and consider it a 2nd home, and strangely enough developed a love of science and the way it shapes the technological wonders humans can create. I am still not a fan of calculus or putting proofs together, but use math and statistics regularly in my day job. The point of it all is that things experienced early in our childhood can have a profound impact down the road.

When I was introduced to the concept of what TL was doing I immediately thought to myself, if only I had this type of applied practical learning rather than the esoteric theoretical - or as I like to call it - blackboard learning, I might have had a very different life’s journey. Don’t get me wrong I love where I have ended up and continue to go, but experiences and events we can touch and feel are much different than those we do not see an immediate practical application for.

Here’s the best part of my soliloquy – my father is a nuclear engineer, my uncle a materials engineer, my other uncle a computer science engineer, my cousin an aeronautical engineer – I come from a family of math and science nerds – I have the proper genetic makeup, but sadly never the motivation because STEM never made sense as to how or why anyone woul... read more.

I've asked each person on the board, starting with our newest members, to write a short paragraph about why they chose to join the board of Technically Learning and what they find inspiring about the organization. I'm excited to announce the first to respond was Beth Boatright.

In her words:

TL is run by an exceptionally intelligent and relentlessly devoted team; this much is obvious. What makes this organization unique, if you ask me, is not just the intellectual horsepower of the group (as co-creators of the LEGO and Alice technology), but the group's dedication to providing high quality STEM learning experiences for traditionally underserved students in this field - particularly girls and students from low-income families.

About 30 years ago, I had a terrific science teacher who provided us with plenty of hands-on learning opportunities, like dissecting owl pellets and reconstructing the bones to discover the content of its last meal. But this was at a private girls school, and as much as I wish all students had enlightening science classes, they do not. I want to do what I can in this world to make school interesting for kids, to tap into children's natural passion to discover the world around them.

--Beth Boatright