Roboprince

I teach electronics and robotics to high school students in the Detroit Public School system. I teach in the toughest part of the City and have come to appreciate my students in ways I never thought possible three years ago when I begin teaching. I work at a comprehensive high school that has a decent Manufacturing Design and Technology pathway incorporated into its Social Studies, Business, and Career and Technical Education department. My program has been pretty fortunate and has enjoyed a good relationship with private industry, resulting in quite a bit of new technology for my students. My classrooms are fully equipped labs and those of my students who are motivated actually learn and train on state-of-the-art equipment. I have had students gainfully employed at Ford and Chrysler facilities for the past two summers, and have a few who are working with GM designers while earning educational credits. I am pretty impressed with the fact that industry finds my students capable enough to pay for their efforts and they are only in high school! Last year a number of my students were accepted into engineering programs at some pretty good universtities. I have been able to write grant proposals which so far this year has brought $35,000 into the school for activities that would not be possible otherwise with the many budget cuts in the school system. I have a high school chapter of a national engineering society as well as fielding two competitive robotics teams in the FIRST Robotics and FIRST VEX international competitions.
Of course all of my students are not trying to be the best that they can be, and I have not figured out a way to reach that population of my students (yet). Perhaps as I learn from you master teachers my success numbers will improve.
I can definitely see ways that blogging can help in my classes and increase my student's use and knowledge of "positive" technology. Most of them already know how to use the internet for downloading hip-hop and the social dating sites; blogging could be a very good way for me to keep them on track. It would also be useful as a means of providing them with real-time venues for communicating with robotic teams and news around the english-speaking world.

Victor