User:Recruitment Revolution

Introduction to Project Success Links: 3 Projects For Change 2010

Our mission is to inspire and educate elementary school children and their mentors to emulate positive “choices” that lead to career success.

This will be accomplished through project-oriented learning and achievement.

Recruitment Revolution’s professional development program “Project Success Links: Projects for Change” will employ highly interactive projects which are process-based and demonstrate the links between the pursuit of ongoing educational excellence and the subsequent increased potential for career success. We want to encourage and empower children and mentors to value their choices by continuously enhancing their thought process / reasoning ability, self-discipline and exposure to new learning opportunities.

Life is "Project-based" Experience

Ex•pe•ri•ence (ĭk-spîr'ē-əns) Pronunciation Key n. 1. The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow. 2. a. Active participation in events or activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge or skill: a lesson taught by experience; a carpenter with experience in roof repair. b. The knowledge or skill so derived. c. An event or a series of events participated in or lived through. d. The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group. 3. a. An event or a series of events participated in or lived through. b. The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group.

"experience." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 28 Feb. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/experience>.

Project Success Links: Program Overview

The project will utilize a tiered approach that incorporates elementary, middle school, high school and professional level mentors. We believe this youth oriented approach to professional development and career architecture also translates to teens and professionals, allowing all to set goals and emulate the success they desire.

Project Success Links: Projects for Change will provide a safe learning space for classes of 15 children and their mentors whom will meet biweekly over a 12 weeks span to conduct positive projects which will help the community.

The program will utilize XO Laptops to establish a knowledge base of business projects which emphasize and highlight key skills and competencies that relate to various career fields and business disciplines.

The Community projects (which emulate business projects) will introduce, educate and promote children to understand more about their talents and skills relate to future job and career success.

Additionally, the children learn they can empower themselves to make certain choices and participate in efforts to positively impact their communities.

Through this process of emulation, which we call “Playing the Award Winning Role”, they can analyze and begin to develop a methodology and system of adapting their own skills to replicate and achieve the results or business success they aspire to in the future.

Examples of the knowledge bade would be marketing campaigns (ex. Reading Program), financial models (ex. Lemonade Stand business model), general ledgers (ex. Tracking/Assessing Individual Lemonade Stand operations and performance), sales presentations (ex. Book Reports, School Plays), production/commercials (ex. Short Film, PSA, Talk show), music (ex. Soundtracks), research projects (Census, Marketing demographics), Engineering diagrams (Lemonade Stand construction and transport), Art (Graphics, Paintings, website design), etc.

The knowledge base, training and targeted mentorship, will all work in concert like a blueprint of success, promoting both self-analysis and better decision making.

This concept is very similar to the Open Source model for applications/system development, in which a framework (or source code / style of script) is shared specifically to get others to analyze, provide feedback and eventually contribute towards making the framework or product better.

In the same way, this program will teach children the principles of self-motivation, collaboration and continuous improvement. We want them to feel empowered to strive for excellence, by continuously conducting honest self-assessments, seeking out information from others and being accountable for the decisions they make on the path towards achieving their goals.

XO Laptops would provide the platform to present these business projects and tie them to individual skills and decisions which would serve to empower the masses to redefine business success and create a blueprint that can be followed to emulate the career success.

Project Success Links: 3 Projects for Change

Project Success Links: 3 Projects for Change in the Community

Water Conservation Project – Eaton Canyon, Pasadena, CA Project will equip team of students, ages 6-12 with XO’s so they can research, plan and document their findings with the purpose of developing a campaign to promote water conservation in the San Gabriel Valley. With Eaton Canyon as the focus, the students will learn how to identify a need in their community (water conservation) and address it, by demonstrating social consciousness, planning skills, hard work, adaptability and follow-through. In addition, the students will be exposed to and learn to fully utilize the XO’s functionality.

XO Laptop Tools used: Write – Chronicle process, findings, accomplishments, and conclusions; create scripts and marketing materials Record – Document real life example of the impact of a water shortage on the local topography Paint – Develop graphics or other art asset for use in the campaign Memory – Create game to promote awareness and basic facts Browser – Conduct research

Reading Power Challenge – Burbank School, Pasadena Unified School District, Pasadena, CA Project will ask a team of students, ages 6-12 to generate a compelling awareness campaign and contest using the XO’s to promote students at Burbank School, which has grades K thru 6, to read more often and inspire them to compete in the Reading Power Challenge. The Challenge will be over the summer and will offer school supplies and other educational materials as prizes for those who read the most books, documenting their critiques of the books using the various functions in the XO Laptops.

The purpose of the campaign is to generate buzz and resources for the contest as well as a renewed excitement for reading among the students. The Reading Power Challenge will be coordinated with the Principal and Administration to optimize participation as well as engrain that reading is cool, enriching and necessary to the students. The campaign will outline what is expected and detail the contest guidelines leading into the end of the 2009-2010 school year. Contest will be administered through the faculty.

XO Laptop Tools used: Write – Create ad copy and other marketing content, document lists, guidelines, book list, libraries, etc Record – Shoot videos of the team of student for the campaign as well as participants during and after the contest in order to drive inspiration and education. Paint – Develop graphics or other art asset for use in the campaign and rewards. Memory – Create game to promote awareness and basic facts Browser – Conduct research

“Saving the Arts” School Supply Marketing Campaign – Pasadena, CA Project will empower a team of students ages 6-12 to work with a few local artists to develop a school supply marketing campaign utilizing XO’s to promote the Arts as a critical part of a good education. With budget cuts in the State of California, many of the arts programs are in jeopardy at our local public schools. Students and parents don’t realize their voices are essential in stopping these cuts. The local artists will donate their talents (illustration, music, etc) to develop an awareness and empowerment campaign so encourage more students and parents to stand up and demand the Arts becoming a larger part of the education offered in public schools. The school supplies that will be created and distributed, such as book covers, book marks, folders, buttons, etc will all have positive and inspirational messages the kids generate in conjunction with the artists. The XO’s will play a critical part in documenting the planning process, crafting the messages and art to be used on the school supplies.

XO Laptop Tools used: Write – Create process plan, write ad copy and other marketing content to be used on supplied as well as lists and other organizational tools. Record – Shoot videos that create positive and inspirational messages that can be used in the campaign about the Arts. Paint – Develop graphics or other art asset for use in the campaign or on school supplies. Memory – Create game to promote awareness and basic facts Browser – Conduct research

XO Laptops would provide the platform to present these projects and tie them to individual skills and decisions which would serve to empower the masses to redefine business success and create a blueprint that can be followed to emulate the career success in the future.

Project Success Links: 3 Projects for Change. . . . .Timeline

Week 1-3 Develop and launch Project One to drive awareness of the program. Conduct assessments and select group of children and mentors.

Administer a pre-evaluation once the children are selected. The pre-evaluation will be both a short survey of career aspirations, career fields they are aware of and some of the pre-requisite requirements of entering that field.

Launch and conduct classroom sessions (biweekly) with children and mentors to create project campaigns. The first will be Creative Book Report Program. (See Below)

Week 5-7 Conduct survey on skills on progress and begin to work with artists and other school administrators to build awareness and interest in rolling out the 3 Projects for Change.

All information developed will be added to the knowledge base for marketing materials and future projects to further promote the program’s progress and how others can get involved. Projects are completed and prepped for presentation and eventual implementation back into the OLPC community.

Week 9-12 Identify create methods of distribution through local cable access channels, websites, school presentations and the Reading Power Challenge for Burbank School. Post surveys will be conducted to gain feedback on the projects, to assess and measure progress and to identify additional projects and causes the children and their mentors could get involved with at the conclusion of the program.

First Projects for Change: Creative Book Reading Program

Students will read a Book and work as a team to summarize it in their own words. (Comprehension/synthesis)

They will use Write to journal their progress and thoughts and to complete the final analysis.

Students will learn to make simple programs in Scratch. (simple programming skills)

Students will work as a group to create a simple script for an Ad. (Creative writing, art, project planning)

Students will share their Ads with the other groups and decide (by consenses/peer feedback) on which is the most outstanding Ad, the most interesting Ad, the most artistic Ad, the most persuasive Ad.... etc. (Self-evaluation, evaluation of media, receiving/using constructive feedback).