On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 6:47 AM, Mark Senn <[email protected]> wrote: >> I appreciate any constructive comments. > > Get non-profit status. Send the (last I knew) $400 on getting > non-profit status or work with a school or other non-profit entity to > get non-profit status. If you're non-profit I'll donate $20.
Thanks for the offer--stand by a solicitation! I have considered that, and will probably do it soon. I know several retired teachers and a former school board member (and POW and USAFA classmate) who would make excellent and influential board members. > Many colleges and universities do outreach type stuff---maybe you can > leverage their existing infrastructure for your project. Seems to be a dry well here, but I'm sure I've misused my divining rod. > You'll almost certainly need non-profit status to be considered > for any grants. Good point. > Get a name for your idea, a logo (you can change it later to a better > one), a web site, and business cards (for when you talk to people in > person). Some time ago I snagged two domain names that appear suitable for an umbrella organization for several local computer-related community projects: + an annual, one-day Computer Tech (AKA "Expo"), we just finished the 10th year with over 500 attendees + this proposed Perl 6 project The domain names (and associated non-profit names) are: 1. <nwfcsf.org> => Northwest Florida Computer Science Foundation 2; <nwfcef.org> => Northwest Florida Computer Education Foundation Number 2 gets the vote of the founder of Computer Tech, and I agree. Opinions, please > I've been trying to do stuff like this with local schools for the past > 15--20 years without doing the above. The best result I have had so far > is one teacher who reportedly used Mathematica for teaching at West > Lafayette High School in West Lafayette, Indiana. That lasted one > semester. I was able to get free Mathematica licenses for them from > Wolfram Research. Sounds like our efforts so far. > In Indiana, teachers generally see anything that doesn't "teach to to > test" (their performance is judged by the performance of their students > on standardized tests among other things) as time that could be better > spent on other things. I'm sure that applies here, too. > I graduated a semester early from high school because learning information > just to puke it back out was so mind numbing. I think we agree that > getting kids involved in what you propose would help them do better > on standardized tests. Roger! > I didn't keep a dairy or journal of how I spent time and notes on the > oral responses people gave me. You may want to do that so you can > write better articles about the experience than I'm able to. Good idea. >> all successful students will receive an appropriate certificate of >> accomplishment (ideally from the Perl Foundation, and signed by Larry >> Wall) > > Students may prefer something from a college or university if they plan > to continue after high school. Maybe we can do both--we do have a local state college with an associated high school. > You may want to google "educational badges" and see how much hassle that > would be. Kids might be more interested in putting a badge on their > Facebook page and having something that colleges and universities would > recognize that a piece of paper. Also a good idea. One thing I didn't mention but will be certainly included in my proposal literature are the opportunities in coding for competition and rewards that Google offers every year (Google Code in for middle and high school and Summer of Code for college students). Hopefully the Perl 6 crew will apply to be projects for one or both programs. I can also hand out the Perl 6 stickers you so generously gave me! Thanks for a thoughtful, helpful reply, Mark. Best regards, -Tom
