Well, in what may be the understatement of the year, this has been a busy couple of months! The intrepid Generation YES staff has been working on two major projects with a deadline to have both of them done for NECC this month in San Antonio. NECC is a great place to show off new stuff, and we have a lot to show this year!
I blogged about TechYES Science (Announcing TechYES Science) last week, our latest addition to the TechYES – Student Technology Literacy Certification family.
But now the REALLY big news. The exemplary GenYES model is undergoing a major update to make it easier to use and even more aligned with the needs of 21st century learning communities. If you haven’t heard of GenYES (!) — GenYES students learn technology skills and apply those skills to real life issues — teaching teachers technology, building classroom resources, and doing tech support.
GenYES 2.0 is a proven way to help K-12 schools leverage students’ tech-savvy passion to integrate technology in every classroom. Empowered GenYES students inspire teachers to use technology and provide help when and where they need it.
- All resources online for ease of use
- New student-powered online help desk for the whole school
- New student project tools and teacher class management tools
- New blog and wiki tools
- Activity guides, project starters, and 20+ units of curriculum teach technology skills, multimedia, media literacy, audio, video, Web 2.0 tools, level 1 tech support, and more. Advanced units cover student leadership, community service, careers and more advanced tech support.
- Student certificates
- GenYES students learn collaboration skills, project planning, teaching, mentoring and troubleshooting skills.
- Club or class; upper elementary, middle and high school.
Read more about GenYES 2.0 online or in this downloadable flyer (PDF).
Note: There is a really big change to the way GenYES 2.0 is priced. For the first time, there are NO RENEWAL FEES – GenYES 2.0 is a one-time only site license. This is a pretty big change for us, and I plan to blog about why we’ve made this decision.
Another note: GenYES 2.0 includes all the resources from our Generation TECH student tech support program, which is being retired and integrated into GenYES 2.0. We kept hearing from customers that they wanted students to learn to collaborate with teachers on technology integration projects AND do tech support. So we finally figured out how to incorporate all of these in one easy to use tool.
OK, one more note: For GenYES 2.0, we’ve invented a Web 2.0 application we call the GenYES Technology Assistance Project (TAP) Manager. The TAP manager acts a bit like a help desk combined with a student-friendly project management tool. Any teacher in a GenYES school can request help or tech support by clicking a link. The GenYES teacher acts as a traffic manager, assigning TAPs to GenYES students. And like Facebook and other Web 2.0 tools, the web application gives GenYES students and their teacher a running report of what’s going on in their learning community as they work on their projects.
If you are coming to NECC, come by our booth (7148) and we’d be happy to give you a demo. Soon after NECC, we’ll have an online demo available.
Sylvia
