This past October, we excitedly opened up our first flagship Microsoft Store in Manhattan. To celebrate this moment, we announced local grants to help community organizations leverage technology for the success of their programs. One of these community grant recipients, We Connect the Dots, Inc. (WCTD), has taken this grant to help students build the STEM skills that are necessary in today’s professional world. We are excited to help WCTD take education in NYC one step further through the use of technology.
We connected with WCTD Program Manager Stephen Sobierajski to discuss the future of the organization and how technology and education interweave.
We Connect the Dots helps students build fundamental STEM skills that lead to success. What kind of experiences do you provide for these students? What are some of the best things you’ve seen students/alumni do?
We create brain-based experiential learning opportunities for students that explore every aspect of STEM disciplines, while also adding in the arts. We like to call it STEAM, because creative thinking is so important to innovation. The best things we continually see our students do is find their own paths to success and define what success means to them.
What does “civic technology” mean to you? How can we combine civic tech and STEM?
Civic Technology is akin to what we like to call digital citizenship, which is about learning how to use technology responsibly, helping others to understand its value, and providing a safe space in which to learn its many functions.
Tell us about your current technological setup at WCTD. What new technology have you implemented within the organization? What are your “next steps”?
Some of our more recent innovations include an exciting robotics program using the Trossen HROS1 Humanoid, teaching Windows 8 and 10 using the MS Surface devices, and our International Back-to-School Hackathon taking place this January, where students will learn to code in HTML and use the MS Azure Solutions Platform. Currently we run almost exclusively on a Microsoft platform for our internal needs. We plan to continue using our Yammer network and Office tools to continually expand our reach to more schools and students around the world.
Where do technology and education meet? Where do you see technology taking education in the future?
Technology is the purest inroad to education that we as human beings can provide to the next generation of students. Technology allows us to span huge distances, streamline communication, and package educational content like never before. In the evolution from print to computers, we have expanded the reach of our educational potential worldwide. Our vision is to see schools across the world connected through the network we have created, where students, teachers and professionals can collaborate openly and continue to share ideas.
Where is your new grant taking WCTD?
The grant provided by MS is allowing WCTD to reach out to a broader student audience and span greater distances. The grant will bolster our networking capabilities, while also allowing us to create better programming, ultimately giving us the opportunity to reach out to more students than ever before.
What’s one thing everyone should know about your company?
We are taking proactive steps to ensure that we can be an agent of change. We deliver education that will help students rise to the demands of an ever evolving workforce and the needs of the human race. Through our influence and successes, we will show educators around the world how to give students the proper tools to find their own paths to success.
Learn more about We Connect the Dots, Inc. by visiting their website or following them on Facebook and Twitter.