Wilderness Technology Alliance - Pioneering Character and Technology Education Through Service Learning

Thursday, July 29, 2010
ABOUT US

In February of 2003, the WTA President established a foothold in Washington DC to advance the federal partnership made possible by Hands on the Land project as well as to establish new WTA sites on the East Coast. Programs are now advancing on both coasts with the WTA headquarters still located in Seattle. In February of 2004, the WTA established a partnership with the East Baltimore Technology Resource Center (EBTRC) and Johns Hopkins University and began offering technology training classes and free computers to low-income families in Baltimore. This program continues to grow, supported by a myriad of Baltimore-area community centers refering underpriviliged clients in need of essential technology skills to gain employment, computers for k-12 students to use at home and at school and more.

In December of 2006, the WTA established its second site on the East Coast through a partnership with the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV), the largest homeless shelter in America and just three blocks from the US Capitol Building in downtown Washington DC. This center provides technology training classes, job search skills, software training classes and Internet access to nearly 1000 homeless people at the shelter as well as to other low-income community members. In adherence to the WTA service-learning model, technically advanced members of the homeless community are trained in teaching skills and well as other “softskills.” They then provide software training classes to employees of Washington DC area non-profit organizations and government agencies.

The WTA in the West Coast is also growing. In October of 2005, the WTA re-located its headquarters from Redmond, Washington to the White Center area of Seattle, Washington. In the process, it expanded its office and warehouse space by over 400%. The WTA now serves the entire Pacific Northwest from this location. WTA staff and volunteers as well as AmeriCorps and VISTA members serve low-income adults in the Puget Sound region with hundreds of refurbished computers, training classes, repair services, and service-learning opportunities. They even export computers to the neediest peoples of the world, including El Salvador.

Every year Washington State schools join the WildTech hardware or multimedia program and are trained in WildTech service-learn activities associated with the technology curricula they use. Those joining the hardware program also get 10 to 30 high quality surplus computers for their student to refurbish. All gain access to the WildTech Enterprise Curriculum to assist them in establishing and running a student-run technology enterprise.

Every summer the Seattle headquarters sponsors a wilderness-based technology enterprise institute for teachers and students where they share best-practices in operating student-run technology enterprises and develop business plans and culminating projects for the upcoming school year.

  
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