Waveplace Blog

Nice blog post about Waveplace on a Polish blog.

Read it in translated English or original Polish.

(by Adam Todd, from newsletter) Imagine for a moment a small school in a small town on the outskirts of one of the smallest cities in the poorest country in Central America. Imagine a school without electricity or running water, windows without screens or glass, roofs littered with holes and areas that have collapsed, tables and chairs that are virtually falling apart. With all of this in mind, we couldn't have thought of a better place to run the first Waveplace pilot in Central America. Only an XO would be versatile enough to adapt to these conditions and allow children...

(by Mary Scotti, from newsletter) Wendy Garcia of Nicaragua was awarded the first Seymour Award bestowed by the Waveplace Foundation and we are proud. Her family is rightly proud. Buenos Aires school and Campo Alegria are proud. Her classmates are too. Wendy joined our pilot a few days into it and spent time catching up. Her first day she had figured out how to spin out stars and patterns of such intricacy with the pen tool that they mesmerized her peers. Geovany praised her abilities. "She is so smart! She just gets it." The principle nodded his recognition. Demonstrating to...

(by Christa Crehan, from newsletter) What a privilege it has been to be involved in this Waveplace extravaganza! I just finished watching the Waveplace Awards video. What an amazing accomplishment for all of the children. Watching them combine computer programming and storytelling to create their final storybooks was the best gift from this experience. All children have something important to give and it is up to the adults around them to guide them and show them they can accomplish anything they want. Maria (winner of Best Artwork) and Eric (winner of Best Scripting) began the program with trepidation. What they...

The president-elect's new website asks everyone to "tell us your vision for the country." Here's what I submitted: Transform everything by teaching our children to be creative problem solvers, not through a broken education system that teaches compliance and deficiency, but through a new spirit of guided discovery with mentors devoted to kindling the spark within each child, so they may feel their own promise. This is truly the lever that will change everything, given a chance. When children learn to question, when they're taught confidence to solve problems with creativity, their lives become stories of opportunity and discovery....

Just posted the one-hour Waveplace Awards video, which includes the winners and all twelve children reading their storybooks. http://waveplace.com/awards/ You can either watch the full hour from that page, or choose chapter-by-chapter from the list below the video box. Once watching a chapter, click "next" to view the next chapter. If you just want to know the winners, click the "Award Presentations" chapter. Thanks once again to the many who participated....

Thanks to everyone for the gift of your time to make tonight's Waveplace Awards a reality. I'm sure you're all wondering how it went ... and who won! For those watching at home, the live event may have seemed a bit haphazard, with long waits between acts. My apologies and great thanks for your patience. I was running "the booth" by myself. It was quite a task coordinating everything and communicating with four very distant places at the same time. While "whatever can go wrong will", in retrospect quite a lot more went right than not. The dances by the...

(by Timothy Falconer, from newsletter) As I write this, Hurricane Omar is about to make landfall on the US Virgin Islands. From my talks with our friends, it's fair to say that everyone's scared. Guy Benjamin School has been closed all week. Ferry and mail service have been stopped. Mary Burks has moved her live-in boat to Hurricane Hole. Jan Kinder has been boarding up buildings since 6 AM. Everyone's braced for impact. Looking at the satellite images tonight, I'm reminded of our first Waveplace proposal, which starts: "Each summer and fall in the Caribbean, locals watch the weather with...

(by Mary Scotti, from newsletter) Each day the children in Nicaragua waited excitedly in the schoolyard. Others on their bicycles anticipated the first glimpse of my taxi as it rounded the bend toward Buenos Aires. Waving and calling out greetings, they would ride along the puttering cab towards the school. Boys gathered round, anxious to be the ones to unload the computers. A mad dash for the door ensued as the children jockeyed to be the first in the classroom. The mentors were usually engaged in playful banter with the children. During the entire pilot, this excitement never waned. The...

(by Donna McAvoy, Immokalee teacher, from newsletter) Last summer I had the opportunity to volunteer with the Waveplace Program in Immokalee. I was so impressed with the experience on many levels, most especially with the passion of organizers, trainers, investors, teachers, volunteers, and students. It soon became apparent to all of us that something very special was going on. On the last day of the program, I was sitting next to a smiling gentleman who whispered, "God is pleased." As a result, I was inspired to implement the Waveplace course with my 5th and 6th grade technology students during the...