Student Spotlight: Mauricio Miraglia
My name is Mauricio Miraglia,
MA Instructional Technology & Media (2003) from Teachers
College. I am currently on my second month in the Greyston
Foundation's Technology Education Center (TEC) in Yonkers. The
center's aim is to increase young people's opportunities to
develop lifelong skills through technology learning in safe,
healthy, and rich environments.
I came to Greyston's TEC to teach a summer class on web
design to 10-14 year olds. A few days before the class
started, I discovered that it was actually a part of a larger
joint project with a local music store in Yonkers. The
students were to design a top-notch professional website in 10
hours over the course of five weeks! The students had little
or no experience with computers or the Internet. Quite a
challenge this class was; yet it turned out to be one of the
most rewarding teaching experiences I've had.
The Center requires me to teach and design curricula for
the technology-micro enterprise programs running in the fall
this year. I assist in the Pre-K classes in the morning, teach
teenagers in the afternoon and have adult learners in the
evening. I am also designing the Center's new website and
putting together a new brochure and presentations for our
contributors, partners and the community outside Greyston. In
addition, I'm building a computer-based set of tutorials for
Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash MX that we expect to use with
the youth and adults in our classes and Open Access hours.
The work goes far beyond just teaching or designing
technology-enterprise courses. Our audience faces a number of
issues such as unemployment, homelessness, or living with
HIV/AIDS. The center attempts to encourage and support
self-sufficiency and life skills. Students are engaged in
technology projects that relate to small local businesses and
adults are encouraged to develop ways to become financially
independent.
The flag-ship at Greyston is the Ben & Jerry's
sponsored initiative Greyston Bakery. At Greyston's TEC we
would like to become more visible and well known to our
administration and Yonker's local community through the
projects coming up in the next few months. Y.O. KidZ, one of
the biggest projects this fall, will match students and local
businesses as partners in the learning process and in the
development of technology products for the Yonkers community.
This fall Greyston will be featured in 60 Minutes and we are
evaluating a public screening with PBS for the Talk Back
program (http://www.pov.org/).
Shawna Bu Shell, Intern Coordinator at ILT, visited the
center on the day of the black-out! She met with Raya Moore,
TEC Director, to discuss some of these projects and to look
for ways ILT could participate in the Center's projects this
year. An immediate result of the meeting is that beginning
this fall, Greyston TEC will receive one intern from our
program each term. | 