Success can only be measured by comparing results to original goals. Within our project we had two major components: the Vendée Globe 2016; and our sitesALIVE! education program based on our participation in that race.
Our objectives for the race were to finish, and to finish in less time than 2008-9, which was 121 days. We have not yet finished, so we cannot say yet that we succeeded. We are still at sea and racing, whereas 11 have had to drop out for various reasons. The boat is in pretty good shape and the skipper too, although both are tired.
With our school program, there were two sides to our goals. The first was the technical production of the program and its expansiveness. We wanted to make it truly international, have it be in multiple languages, to deliver our content on a rigorous schedule so that teachers could absolutely count on it being there when we said it would be, to support multiple distribution methods (newspapers, web, social media), to contract with various distribution partners globally for further widening of our network, and to assemble a Team of Experts without peer. We have done all of these, so the technical production can be declared a success.
Yet the ultimate goal was to engage and excite students in learning with our unique approach to using the real world to showcase and explain different subject areas. Whether we have succeeded in this will be a question for you, the students and teachers using the program. We have had good encouragement from many of you so far, but we will have to finish our program completely, and then look back at what we hear from you. We keep our fingers crossed that it has worked for you – that will be the ultimate test for whether we have succeeded or not.
We thank you immensely for your participation.