Ask Slashdot: Where Should a Geek's Charitable Donations Go? 263
An anonymous reader writes "I'm in the position to direct (or at least suggest the direction of) a fairly large amount of charitable donation on behalf of a foundation interested in promoting education. As a lifelong geek, I'd like to see some of this money directed toward organizations involved in things geeks-like (e.g. spreading technology in education to those without it, improving the use of technology for those who have it, etc.). If it was up to you, what charitable organizations would you support and why?"
I heard about this teacher... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Raspberry Pi foundation (Score:4, Insightful)
Give-it to The Raspberry Pi foundation [raspberrypi.org].
In a world that is becoming increasely dependent on computers, they strive so today's and tomorrow's children won't become mindless consumers, regarding any electronic device as magic.
Elementary education (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who's kids are currently in Elementary school -
Find someone who's writing public domain textbooks for elementary education, especially those aimed at technological implementations (tablet based, etc). Why in god's name does my school district have to pay $60 for a fifth-grade math textbook - revised last year? What has changed in "3x=24" in the last, oh, 1000 years that requires a new revision of a textbook?
There's so much that could be done with technology and education that hasn't been. Why can't learning Multiplication tables be phrased as a game - come up with the answers to jump and capture a coin; take too long and you miss it? Why can't Spelling, and Grammar, be a game; Why can't the broad sweep of history be presented as a graph, with hyperlinks from points on the graph to an overview and details of that point in time? Why can't the out-of-copyright classics be available in a learning-reader format, with hyperlinks for all difficult words to pronunciation and definition?
Hell, give me the money and I'll get started!
Truly Open Textbooks (Score:5, Insightful)
The Ada Initiative (Score:3, Insightful)
One of my favourite geek charities is the Ada Initiative [adainitiative.org] which provides resources and training for women in open source and open culture.
Needless to say, you should speak directly to any charity you're seriously considering; they'll often have good suggestions for how they money could be used.
Good luck!
Rusty.
F.I.R.S.T. Robotics (Score:5, Insightful)
I participated in high school back in 1995. It and its younger cousins are still going strong, introducing hundreds of thousands of elementary, junior high, and high school students to robotics and by extension programming, engineering, and science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRST_Robotics_Competition [wikipedia.org]
Don't just give money (Score:5, Insightful)
I just happened to mention this to my Mum, who works with several charities in the UK.
She says - "Don't just give money. Most local charities are in dire need of help with their IT."
RS
Re:I heard about this teacher... (Score:4, Insightful)
I always suspect racism.
If you always suspect racism in everything that happened, in everything other people do or say, I sincerely suggest that you pay your local friendly psychologist a visit.
local after school clubs (Score:4, Insightful)
Help fund local after school clubs: activities run in your local schools that further education local kids in a more informal environment. Get in contact with a local school and ask them what would help them run a technology / computing after school club. Perhaps they could do with some electronics tools (soldering irons etc) or some raspberry pi's, or basic robot kits.
These activities really help both academically struggling kids to find something they enjoy and catch up with their peers, reduces the chances of them dropping out, and also give gifted pupils the opportunity to push on further. The teachers can be more laid back as these activities are outside the core curriculum and not strictly evaluated so they often encourage the children to try out more experimental activities and emphasise fun and individual learning more than exam passing. And it's a good place for kids to be after school, they also learn a lot of positive social skills.
To be totally selfish, helping local kids to become inspired and enjoy education is better for your neighbourhood as well, and builds future social capacity as well as economic capacity in the area!
Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
What's more important:
People eating? People having access to the Internet?
People not being shot? People having a laptop each?
People not dying from diarrhoea? People offering lessons on the Internet?
People going to school? People going to a school which has Wifi tablets or OLPC's?
I work in education. Computers, and technology, do not make that much of a difference over plain, ordinary education. In fact, in some cases it's quite plainly DETRIMENTAL to the quality of education given (the kids know how to google an image, paste it into word, and print it out but can't do simple sums without a calculator).
Sure, in a good school, with decent funding, and teachers who know how to use it effectively and do so all the time (the last of which is very rare and the only people you ever see demonstrating their results improvements!), IT can make a difference. But it's not that much.
But out in the African deserts, Indian slums or wherever you wish to focus your efforts, it's not going to make a jot of difference. For the price of such junk you could just train a decent teacher who doesn't NEED instant, fingertip access to the works of Shakespeare to teach any subject you want them to. All you're doing is putting a technology burden on charities and people who can't afford to eat.
I don't "get" tech charities at all. In any country. If you want to make a difference, give a kid some manky horrible porridge that will keep him alive this month, or work to get them out of the slums through basic, normal education (i.e. funding a school building and a teacher is MORE than enough to get him going and any IT crap is just getting in the way after that), or give them an injection to make them immune to some killer disease, or support efforts to make their home countries safer from rebels killing and raping them.
Don't give them a hand-me-down gadget that you think is "cool". Just don't. Give them a life, instead.
And, take it from someone who works in schools: Don't donate your old crap to your local school. Hell, don't even encourage them to have "one PC per child" or whatever. It hurts basic education in your average school compared to just employing a slightly better teacher.