The Robot Round-Up

Curriculum:
At the core of our program is challenging and exciting curricula that is grade-appropriate and meets educational standards. In fact, our innovative curricula is what distinguishes us as an organization, and we plan to develop new units that will sit alongside our “Mars Rover” and “Robot Zoo” units. This will include a data-logging unit appropriate for high school classes that can be used in conjunction with our robotics kits. We are developing an Alice curriculum that trains students in computer programming while educating them in subjects like history and English, thereby incorporating a cuttingedge interdisciplinary element into our programs. We will be bundling and selling our curriculum to interested educators, and will offer grants to defray curriculum costs for a number of partner sites.

Teacher Recruitment:
When we hear stories about primary school teachers using podcasts to help students practice for spelling tests, or local public schools raising money for afterschool robotics clubs, we know that there is a strong pool of innovative teachers ready to incorporate our programs into their classrooms. Already, we've had many TL supporters suggest teachers that would be ideal partners for Technically Learning, and in order to accommodate the most dedicated teachers and neediest schools, we will be accepting applications in March for new partner sites for the 2010-2011 school year. We will be offering a limited number of grants for robotics kits and programming materials,based in part on support we receive from donors. The more donations we receive, the more partner sites we can accept for the next school year - so please consider donating today. Additionally, if you know exceptional teachers who would like free curriculum, supplies, support and training, please email us at info@technicallylearning.org with teachers' names and school information; we will contact them with grant application materials in the spring. Remember, we have curriculum that can be used in both humanities and science classrooms!

Community Outreach and Visibility:
We'd like to continue to offer community members the opportunity to participate in our organization, so beginning in January, we will offer regular community-based events. These will include informational sessions for prospective volunteers, clock hour trainings for educators interested in robotics programs, and curriculum development meetings. We're even planning fundraising social events for new and continuing TL supporters, from trivia nights to neighborhood pub crawls. Each of these events will allow supporters to meet us - and each other! - and participate more fully in defining the direction our organization will take. We will also continue to support events like last summer's Robot Olympics.

Development:
Our grant-writing team will be hard at work in the spring, and we will also be devising opportunities for corporate sponsorship; if your company would like to support TL, we can discuss options - everything from in-kind donations to named grants for partner sites will be considered. Our local fundraising events will include both the social events described above and participation in state and corporate annual giving campaigns. We will also continue to work with Sound Youth and will likely develop a second AmeriCorps VISTA position for site supervision.