SWEET! (UWSEM Agenda for Change Initaitive)

September 7, 2007

United Way for Southeastern Michigan

1212 Griswold Street

Detroit, MI 48226

Ref: UWSEM Agenda for Change “Educational Preparedness” Collaborative LOI

Agenda for Change Committee:

Communities to Schools Regional Digital Collaboratory

SKETCH of INTENTION “Pilot Project”: Create and develop a youth-based digitally networked community (networked two-way telecommunications) of inclusive entities to include schools, neighborhood and city community centers, human service organizations, various community capacity building organizations, public service organizations, arts and cultural organizations, business, industry and government.

Attributes of Aspirations (Limited Only by Our Combined Imaginations, Creativity and Innovation)

• Community Interaction and Engagement

*Build deeper and richer community alliances. Build organizational leadership and capacity, service-learning and engagement vehicles for change from merely synergistic to systemic imperatives.

• Educational Enhancement and Distribution Channels

*Utilize existing K-12 educational assets; teachers, pedagogy, curriculum, underutilized digital infrastructure, etc. Develop digital media and learning curriculum, pedagogy, distribution methodologies and modalities aligned with new 21^st Century economic realities with a particular focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) disciplines. Create connections to relevant real-world experts and working environments.

• Youth Development and Leadership

*Create student-led, student-taught, project-based explorations emphasizing creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial endeavors that resonate with their world as they encounter it while also learning how to think instead of what to think.

• 21^st Century Skills for New Creative Economy Career Development

*Utilize digital technological innovations as a foundational element to further our youth’s interest in connecting socially to the world around them while coaching and facilitating conventional understandings (problem solving, critical thinking, cognitive discipline, creativity, innovation, collaboration, social responsibility) of how our great society works thereby enhancing our local, regional, state, national and global competitiveness in the urgent “brute-force to brain-force” transformation.