August 2013 Newsletter Vol 6: Issue 2 World Wide Workshop Newsletter

Dear Partners and Friends, The end of summer is always exciting for us at the Workshop, as we welcome thousands of new learners to our Globaloria Platform toInvent+Build+Share! This year, we welcome back schools and clubs in California, Texas, New York City, and West Virginia, and we launch in Wyoming. Edtech is proving to be a hot topic this back-to-school month. Innovative education is being used to address the digital divide, economic development, and to increase civic engagement and creativity among the next generation. EdSurge published a new guide to games in school, and leaders around the nation and the world are calling for improvements to computer science and engineering education. We hope you will take a moment to vote for us to appear at SXSWedu next year, where we will discuss these topics and more. But please hurry, voting closes September 6th! Cheers, Idit follow Idit on Twitter | follow Globaloria on Twitter | forward to a friend

In This Month's Issue: 1. Welcome Wyoming! 2. Sustaining Expansion in California 3. Empowering Seasoned and Trailblazing Students in Texas 4. Growing Globaloria in New York City 5. West Virginia Governor Awards Grant to Statewide Globaloria Deployment 6. Is Silicon Valley Beginning to Invest in Disrupting Education? 7. EdSurges New Guide to Games in School 8. Help Us Get to SXSW in 2014 by September 6! 9. Globaloria Advisory Board Chair Talks CS Education at SheCodes Conference 1. Welcome Wyoming! This fall, Globaloria will launch in a new state: Wyoming. In partnership with the Sheridan County School District #1, Globaloria will be brought to all 6th and 7th grade students in the district as a pathway to STEM skills and for college and career readiness. Reaching 240 students in this inaugural year, Globaloria in Sheridan County will be the lighthouse implementation for neighboring counties to lead into innovation. 2. Sustaining Expansion in California The Workshop is proud that 2013-14 will be a second consecutive year of 100% retention of Globaloria sites in California. Additionally, we are happy to welcome two new schools to the network: Sylvandale

Middle School and Blanca Alvarado Middle School. With 1700 youth participating in Globaloria across San Jose/Silicon Valley this coming year, California is our largest network in the nation. Workshop partner the Silicon Valley Education Foundation helped us to launch this years program by hosting the network leaders for the Leadership Academy, which inspires and engages district and school administrators, the very people who have helped Globaloria expand so dramatically in California.

Globaloria students at Christopher Middle School, a pilot site for Globaloria in CA. (Credit: Mary McHenry Photography)

3. Empowering Seasoned and Trailblazing Students in Texas The 2013-14 school year is underway in Austin, Texas, where hundreds of students are participating in Globaloria. At East Austin College Prep, students take part in Globaloria in every grade as part of the core curriculum, which means this year many 9th graders are mastering game design in their fifth year of Globaloria! Over in Manor Independent School District, students at Manor High School are beta testing a new Globaloria curriculum: 3-D Game Design. We are looking forward to seeing the games that our seasoned and trailblazing Austin students create!

EAPrep teacher Mandy Laurence assists a Globaloria student with his work.

4. Growing Globaloria in New York City The Workshop is pleased to announce the expansion of Globaloria within our headquarters hometown: New York City. Growing our partnership with the Young Women's Leadership Network (YWLN), which began last year at The Young Women's Leadership School of Astoria in Queens, NY, Globaloria will expand this year to The Young Womens Leadership School of the Bronx. YWLN students will engage in Globaloria as a cross-curricular STEM learning platform integrated into core classes and will continue to demonstrate the capacity of young women to be leaders in computer science. This year, Globaloria also launches at the Bronx Writing Academy, where all 7th grade students will participate in Globaloria as part of their comprehensive STEM, digital and 21st century learning. This expansion represents a tripling in program sites and quadrupling in program participants from last years New York City network. Globaloria in New York City is supported by a number of partners, including the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. On August 22nd, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards team hosted new and returning educators and leaders from Globaloria New York City at the Scholastic offices in Manhattan, where they wrapped up four days of in-person training and learned how their students could be the next national Art & Writing Award winner!

5. West Virginia Governor Awards Grant to Statewide Globaloria Deployment Globaloria in WV is embarking on its seventh year. Since 2007, Globaloria has partnered with the WV Governor, Schools, RESAs, WVDE and local and national foundations, and is on the path to reaching 5000 youth and educators across the state. On August 5th, students and teachers gathered at the WV Center for Professional Development with leaders from the WV Department of Education and Board of Education to celebrate the 5th Annual Globey Awards Ceremony. Students received recognition for educational video game design, withDangers from Space! by Hurricane High School senior Jacob, earning the grand prize. Watch Idit deliver opening remarks for the event by Skypeembodying the blended virtual-physical model on which Globaloria is built! At the Globey Awards Ceremony, Educator Inspiration Awards were presented to Stacy Ward of Taylor County Technical Center, for Best New Educator in West Virginia, and Denise Stalnaker of Randolph Technical Center, for national Best Returning Educator. Outstanding superintendents and principals throughout Globalorias West Virginia network were also recognized with Leadership Inspiration Awards this month, as part of a national awards program sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association Foundation.

Student finalists and winners and Educator Inspiration Awards recipients pose with Dr. William White of WVBOE and Dr. Monica Beane of WVDOE at the WV Globey Awards Ceremony.

The West Virginia Office of the Governor awarded this month a grant to support Globaloria deployment throughout the state in the 2013-14 school year, by providing matching funds to WV schools and RESAs. Governor Tomblin has been a longtime supporter of the innovative digital learning Globaloria brings to the schools of West Virginia, and we look forward to reaching 12 counties across West Virginia

in the coming year with the help of this grant. 6. Is Silicon Valley Beginning to Invest in Disrupting Education? Idit published a blog on Huffington Post Impact, Is Silicon Valley Beginning to Invest in Disrupting Education?, which explains how big tech companies partnering with independent innovators can be a force multiplier in disruptive education. Her blog calls for more corporations to invest in pioneering education initiatives as a path to repairing the digital divide plaguing not only Silicon Valley, but the nation and the world. Knight Foundation Blog Features Globaloria in Silicon Valley: World Wide Workshop Communications Manager Kara Burritt wrote a guest blog for our Globaloria funder, the Knight Foundation, Silicon Valley Kids Use Tech to Create and Learn, spotlighting Globaloria summer camps that were held at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley this summer and examines how learning to create with technology through Globaloria empowers youth to become digitally-literate citizens. Idit Named Fellow of Disruptor Foundation: Idit was recently named a Disruptor Foundation Fellow, a community of accomplished and promising innovators who apply trans-disciplinary approaches in their work and daily lives to further the study and application of disruptive innovation. Co-founded by Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen and Criag Hatkoff in 2009, the Disruptor Foundation mission is to raise awareness of and encourage the advancement of disruptive innovation theory and its application in societally-critical domains. Other Fellows include: Alec Ross, former Senior Advisor for Innovation at U.S. State Department; Tiffany Shlain, Filmmaker and Founder of The Webby Awards; Rachel Sterne Haot, Chief Digital Officer, New York City; Jason Silva, Futurist and Filmmaker; Rus Yusupov, Co-Founder of Vine; and Brian Sirgutz of Huffington Post Social Impact, among others. Idit will contribute to this thought leadership her experience of and theories on the power of disruptive innovation in education.

Disruptor Foundation logo.

For more information on Clayton Christensens original theory of disruptive innovation, please visit:www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts.

7. EdSurges New Guide to Games in School EdSurge released a new EdSurge Guide: Playing Games in Schools. The comprehensive resource was edited by Tony Wan of EdSurge, and authors published in the guide include friends of the Workshop, Michael Levine of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and James Paul Gee of Arizona State University. Also published in the guide is a Guest Article by Idit: Video Games: The Shoebox Diorama of the Future, which explores how learning to make a video game cultivates more than just programming skills by empowering students as authors with capacities in story-telling, perspective-taking and knowledge representation. Idit concludes that creating a video game is a deeply epistemological learning experience. 8. Help Us Get to SXSW in 2014 by September 6! We are excited to announce that the World Wide Workshop is again being considered as a presenter for SXSW 2014 in Austin. But we need your vote to get there! This year we organized a power panel, When Does EdTech Just Become Education?, with provocative edtech thought leaders: Jaime Casap (@jcasap), Audrey Watters (@audreywatters), Tony Wan (@tonywan), and Idit (@idit). Vote online for our SXSWedu panel, and help us get to SXSWedu! We are also organizing a SXSWinteractive session featuring Idit on Creating Engaged Learners through Makerspaces. Please vote online and help us get to SXSW! But hurry voting closes September 6! 9. Globaloria Advisory Board Chair Talks CS Education at SheCodes Conference On August 9, Jennifer Argello, Chair of the Globaloria in Silicon Valley Advisory Board, presented at SheCodes, a conference to connect and empower Bay Areas technical professional women.Her presentation, The Little Girl Geek Wants to Play, described the lack of computer science education opportunities for K-12 girls in the United States, and how professional women can work with youth to make up for these shortcomings and improve their own careers and well-being.

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