Category: Volunteers

Dear Supporters of Shoulder to Shoulder’s Educational Initiative:By way of introduction, I have been involved with Shoulder to Shoulder since 2001.  In 2018, I became president of Board of Directors.  I also sponsor the overall education program including our efforts in robotics.

In early 2017, Shoulder to Shoulder was contacted by FIRST to help them create a Honduran National Team for their new international robotics event. We were concerned that given the lack of overall technology exposure of the children from southern Intibucá, we would not be able to field a credible team. We tried unsuccessfully to partner with a private school in the capitol city, but they had no interest.   So, we went ahead and got lucky in obtaining an experienced coach mentor, Alan Ostrow (a High School physics teacher from Philadelphia). With his help, the local math teacher coached our team to a 40^th place finish in a field of 160+ teams.

In the 2018 global robotics competition, we did even better, placing 16^th. See https://first.global/.

In parallel with the First Global effort, we began putting robotics into our bilingual school. Last year, we expanded Lego Robotics to three area high schools and held a “coopertition” among seven municipalities. We are expanding the robotics program to other schools in our service area where we can find local coaches willing to run the teams.

The robotics program falls within our emphasis on STEM. Also in this program is our project to deliver Khan Academy math and science first to our bilingual school and then to 23 additional schools in our service area. We are using technology from https://learningequality.org/kolibri that delivers Khan, CK-12, and other curriculum locally without internet. We are working to expand this program substantially this year and have recently obtained the Honduran textbooks in digital form.

In addition to our main web site, we also maintain another dedicated to the education efforts: http://hondurasrobot.org/. This contains more detail on robotics and other education technology efforts.

In closing, I want to thank you for your long-term significant support of education.

Very sincerely yours,

Dick Buten

On August 30th, we held a training session on Educational Technology.  In attendance were 80 teachers, from 23 schools, in 7 towns.  Nine (9) of the schools were new to using the KA Lite technology.  We trained on the transition from KA Lite to Kolibri. Eight (8) schools were sent off with new equipment to start teaching in “presentation mode.”For myself, it was a special meeting to have all of the teachers we have been working with over the last year and a half together in one room.  I believe we work with the absolute best from each school.  These teachers inspire us at Shoulder to Shoulder, and without their dedication to the kids’ education, this project would not be successful.

In September, we were lucky to have Dr. Dick Buten and Laura Manship come to Camasca for a week and a half. These two are treasured not only by us, but everyone in the Frontera. All year we hear “When is Dick coming?” “When is Laura coming?” We had another successful and productive week by their sides – visiting schools, talking with teachers and leaders, planning for the future, and deploying some extra equipment. Highlights from the trip include:

** Talking with leaders in Concepcion and San Antonio about community proposals to expand the educational projects to their WHOLE municipalities;

** Working with the Regional Education Department to get all of the Honduran curriculum in digital form, and

** Encouraging the expansion of the robotics programs. In November, we are going to have a robotics competition between Concepcion, Camasca and Santa Lucia!