Rose State Wins International Award for MyMachine Published November 10, 2016 by Ali Sexton

Creative Program Turning Heads

Rose State College began a partnership with MyMachine Global in April 2015 and has recently been awarded the prestigious Programming Award from the Learning Resources Network (LERN). LERN recognizes courses, activities, programs, or events that are creative, innovative, or exemplary.

Rose State College is the first school in North America to offer the MyMachine educational concept - a collaboration that took shape with the help of Creative Oklahoma. MyMachine began in Belgium as an idea to foster creativity in the minds of children around the world. The program has since expanded to Slovenia, Portugal, South Africa, and now the first and only location in the Western Hemisphere is at Rose State College. The program united the creative ideas of elementary school students at Soldier Creek Elementary in Midwest City and John Rex Elementary in downtown Oklahoma City with the abilities of college engineering students and high school technology center students to create seven “dream machines.”

“Rose State and the MyMachine program are fulfilling this school’s desire to encourage creativity in our kids – the change agents of the future,” said Dr. Joe Pierce, head of school at John Rex Charter Elementary. “This program reinforces the value of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in a fun and thought provoking way.”

“We are positioning ourselves at the College to lead in the area of creativity and Innovation and the MyMachine project was an award winning, team effort that we will continue over the next few years,” said Bret Wood, Associate Vice President for Workforce Development at Rose State.

The award will be accepted by Rick Woodard, Director of the Community Learning Center on November 18 in Baltimore, Maryland.