How did we get $ 30k from Google RISE, how to further teach children how to program and how to become an affiliate in our team?

    Everything is very simple. Somehow, the partners sent us a link to the contest. Then we registered, described the application, passed an Hangout interview, and after checking for several months, a long-awaited letter of happiness came. It is also worth adding that at the time of writing we were teaching in 10 schools in Moscow, we had a freshly baked video from the lessons, the best moments of which were edited and designed by the lesnikova team . It is also worth adding that the letter arrived at 01:00 Moscow time, and a dense stream of joy prevented the whole team from falling asleep that day.





    In fact, not everything is so simple. We have done some work in terms of raising funds. They served on ReachForChange.org , which paid 3 years of salary to the founders of social projects, but did not pass with the note “lack of consistency”. We have completed a course of social entrepreneurship from the HSE and the Our Future Foundation , we are currently implementing some of the ideas from the course. We went to Yandex, Mail, 1C and not only where they received mainly emotional and methodological support.

    What is Google RISE?


    This is an annual award from the above company, which is awarded in each country. Russia is already a little involved, and before us the prize was received by the St. Petersburg guys who make the training robot kit ScratchDuino . The award is given to projects that promote Computer Sience.

    It is important to note that this is not only money. Google helps us organizationally, shares its partners. This year, RISE also received CodeClub , our UK ideological inspirer, who needs to learn from a ton of experience. And in May, we will travel to Boston for the annual summit of RISE recipients from around the world. At the same time, everything will happen in the Cambridge area, where the legendary MIT is located. This is not only the place where the first hackers appeared. But, what is important to us, is the place where Processing.org was born and where MIT MediaLab, the creators of Scratch, is located .

    We pledge to provide not only a detailed report, but the best practices for teaching children coding from the world mind.

    What do we plan to do using this money?


    This is part of the sponsorship agreement with Google about our obligations.

    • Increase in the number of children's educational institutions of project partners to 100.
    • Development of teaching aids for studying:
      1. visual programming on Scratch and Code.org for junior and high school;
      2. Processing (java, python, ruby) for high school;
      3. basics of web development for high school;
      4. foundations of robotics (Arduino, Littlebits, quadrocopters) for high school.
    • Conducting quarterly events for the exchange of experience of volunteer teachers in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
    • Conducting a children's conference on programming and creating games.
    • Conducting an All-Russian gamified programming contest with online and offline stages.
    • Creation of a site and a set of communication events in online media and social media to attract new volunteer teachers.

    A bit more

    First, we need to intelligently invest part of this money in creating a stable cash flow for operating expenses. How to do this is an open question; now we are entering the stage of experiments. I'd like to leave everything free for children, but someone has to pay in one form or another.

    Secondly, we need to systematize work with those who want to teach. To do this, we will hold quarterly meetings, the first of which will be held on March 21 at the Faculty of Physics and Information Technology of the Moscow State Pedagogical University at the sports one, which we will write about separately. We switched to ready-made Scratch tutorials (thanks, scratch_book) and Processing, so the question is only in the willing and their motivation. One of the questions that needs to be solved is how to increase the number of volunteers from 30 semi-passive now to 1000 active before the end of the year?

    Thirdly, expand the range of courses and raise the age. Before that, we mainly taught Scratch and Code.org, with a focus on elementary school. Here I want to create interesting programs that are breathtaking. Although of course you need to solve more pragmatic tasks. For example, do you know that in some schools the Lego kits purchased are still not unpacked for several years, because there are no programs that can teach them? It is in our power to fix this.

    Fourth, we want to hold a programming forum for children at the end of the year. Where children can communicate and share their developments, agree on new joint projects under the supervision of experienced adult developers. We want to make the pre-history for this forum an All-Russian programming contest. Unlike any CUP, the focus is an interesting storyline, intriguing tasks, interaction with the real world, and not a trivial solution to programming problems for speed.

    Open Partnership and Brainstorming


    We want to create an open people's non-profit company where the labor of all participants is fairly rewarded, and the participants themselves can influence the goals of the company and the means to achieve these goals, be its equal partners. It is obvious to us that the project needs different people. Thinking outside the box, for brainstorming and going beyond, strong managers who will help organize and scale the project, charged teachers, child psychologists and many others.

    Thinking about this, we came to the idea of ​​creating a direction of open and closed brainstorming, where we can solve all issues related to our development. Just now we plan to conduct the first such assault. In the nearest agenda - how best to use the RISE grant, how to more effectively achieve the goals set for the year, what organizational structure to build in the company.

    For those wishing to participate in this assault, please pre-record in comments or in PM and introduce yourself briefly, so that we can estimate the size of the space where everyone can get together in the second half of March.

    Children are waiting for us and interesting learning.




    With your participation, the conditions can be much better.

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