Generation YES Blog

Wow, it’s been a busy summer!

Two weeks ago, Dennis Harper and Emily McCartan participated in two, week-long summer camps for middle school students in New York. The students learned about technology, but more than that, they learned how to be leaders and mentors. Starting this fall, they will become the first group of New York State Student Technology Leaders (NYSSTL) in their schools in 25 districts in New York.

HFM BOCES News: Leadership and Achievement through Technology Initiative - Camp prepares students to become technology mentors

NYSSTL students will mentor other students in technology literacy using the TechYES project-based approach, and will use the GenYES 2.0 tools to assist teachers to support technology integration in every classroom.

From the HFM BOCES article:

“The one-week camp was part of HFM BOCES’ Enhancing Education through Technology program, designed to create technology mentors among teachers and students in participating schools. These digitally-savvy students hope to tutor fellow students in technology-related projects, while assisting their teachers in learning and using new technology as a teaching tool. The program helps meet the federal goal that all students will demonstrate technology literacy by the end of eighth grade.”

The HFM and WSWHE BOCES already have a strong support system for technology integration, and we know that these NYSSTL students will be a welcome addition to the team of technology advocates and mentors at each school site!

Videos coming soon!

Sylvia

We’re pleased to announce the winners of our first “Go Green” contest. Generation YES students were asked to create a video showcasing their school’s efforts to help the environment.

Our two grand prize winners are:

• Winston Churchill Middle School near Sacramento, California
• Heim Middle School in Williamsville, New York

See both videos here!

Bonus - just got word of another Green contest:
Do Something is inviting America’s middle and high schools to reduce their carbon footprint this fall through the “Increase Your Green” competition. All initiatives must be youth-designed and -led. The competition opens October 13 and closes December 8. Visit the Do Something Web site for complete program guidelines and application procedures.

Sylvia

In 1995, Dr. Dennis Harper was the technology director of the Olympia School District in Washington State. This video was shot then and shows some pretty forward thinking, collaborative learning going on with technology. In Olympia, students were in charge of teaching everyone, teachers, staff and students how to use computers and the Internet. Students built and ran the school website, did tech support, installation and training for peers and staff. You’ll see students from 3rd grade to high school showing how they use technology to improve learning throughout the whole school.

This was the beginning of the GenYES model, just before Dennis proposed the idea to the USDOE, who funded it as a Technology Innovation Challenge Grant. The technology being used may appear outdated, but the idea is timeless — to see youth as agents of change rather than objects to be changed.

For you DH fans out there, Dr. Harper appears about 6 minutes in. (If you can’t see the embedded video, use this link.)

Unfortunately, in many schools today, computers and technology are unused and under-utilized. Ignoring the passion and talent of this digital generation, who make up 92% of the population at any school, is overlooking a solution that works and has worked in many schools across the country.

This video was cut down from the original by Andy Baio of Waxy.org, who collects video and other artifacts about early Internet days. He says, “…it’s clear this public school district was way ahead of their time.” You can read his take on it here.

We put this link in our email newsletter and heard from several of these students (now twenty-somethings) who loved remembering their experiences, but hated seeing their teenage selves. Guess that never changes either!

Sylvia

Congratulations to Hill City Elementary School/Longfellow Middle School for winning the Kansas in the World Award for Excellence in International Education 2008!

Longfellow Middle School and teacher Scott Parker have been part of the GenYES program for ten years, starting when GenYES was a federal Technology Innovation Challenge grant. At Longfellow, GenYES students help teachers throughout the school integrate technology in their classrooms, and in TechYES, 7th and 8th grade students do projects to gain a technology literacy certification. Students worked on Rural Symposium projects and tied them into international studies through the International Education and Resource Network (iEARN). See the student projects here.

Longfellow GenYES students have also been at the forefront of working with Liberian students who are part of the new Liberia Renaissance School of which GenYES founder, Dr. Dennis Harper is a board member. Their Liberia projects are on the LREC/LMS website here.

In addition, many of the TechYES/GenYES students are involved in the “Schools Fantasy League” program based on England’s Premier League soccer. This project is designed for schools to take part in an exciting, engaging activity that promotes collaboration, learning and cross-curricular connections. Longfellow Middle School is recognized as a “Champion School” as the first USA school to be involved in the program.

Congratulations to the Longfellow students and Scott Parker! This is a well-deserved award indeed.

Sylvia

A few weeks ago I posted a story about Jon, an 11 year old who has taken on the job of network administrator at his school.

This is what I love about blogging. A few days ago, Jon’s mom added a comment to that post!

She says:
Thank you, GenYes! Finally someone gets the point of this whole story. There is so much talent in the next generation, and if we give them chances to use it in ways that make the world better, they will. If we do not, they will find ways to use it that are destructive. The hi-tech frontier may be relatively new, but raising children has always been like that, right?

So often we hear about parents who are fearful of the digital world and who focus completely on the negative affect they think it will have on their children. So it’s nice to hear from a parent who sees her son’s talents as a normal expression of childhood, not some newly invented form of abnormal behavior.

Childhood has always been a time to reach for the stars with guidance from adults who can point the way without being in the way.

Thanks, Jon’s mom - you are an inspiration!

Sylvia

There are some great student-created videos among the all the winners of C-SPAN Classroom’s StudentCam video documentary competition!

C-SPAN StudentCam video documentary winners

The contest was sponsored by C-SPAN Classroom. The site offers downloadable and searchable civics and history video clips, with a feature that allows educators to rate, comment and share them, plus other classroom friendly content. Free registration.

It’s slightly annoying that the videos are in Real Player format…

BUT… there are some really great resources here, especially for the current US presidential campaign. View Campaign 2008 Clips.

Sylvia

Kern Kelley’s students in Maine have created a web-enabled comic book style help guide for the Google Doc applications they are using. Kern blogs at The Tech Curve, and I’ve written about Kern and his students before, they are very involved in student-centered ways to use technology.

Direct link to: Overview of the Google Online Applications

This is a terrific project for students, and useful for a school! Since you create it yourself, students can add customized details about your server and network, remind readers about the Acceptable Use Policies, and make suggestions for using these tools.

I’ve blogged about student-created video help guides before, and all the reasons that these are terrific projects for students. These comic-book creations are another idea to accomplish the same goals!

The online PDF viewer is called Issuu (pronounce “issue”). It’s a new, free Web 2.0 application. You upload a PDF and it converts it to a very slick looking viewer. There are tools to share these through email or embed them in a blog, Facebook site, or other ways. It’s new, so take care in its use with students. The user agreement does say you have to be 18 to upload. I didn’t see anything “bad” in the PDFs that are shared on the home page, but you never know.

Sylvia

Teens in Boston have the opportunity to join Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn.

This program teaches teens (14-19) how to teach others in their community about technology. Run out of the South End Technology Center @ Tent City and started by Mel King, the program has a mission to enable people to become producers of knowledge and sharers of ideas and information. They provide free or low-cost access and training in most aspects of computer-related technology.

Teens can learn how to work with others, learn to teach, and improve their community. More details and the application are on the website.

Sylvia

Computers4Kids is a non-profit after-school technology mentoring program for disadvantaged youth. The program uses computers as a catalyst for youth to challenge themselves, become engaged in their own learning, and realize greater possibilities academically, professionally, and for their community.

Alice Shipman, TechYES advisor at the Charlottesville, VA Compter4Kids location has helped implement TechYES to ensure these students are learning the technology skills they will need to compete in the working world.

The TechYES certification process has challenged students to achieve difficult goals such as web design, gaming and animation design.

Alice is working with her second group of TechYES students and they currently are finishing up their first project before the break. Here are some of the cool projects her students did.

Websites galore!

Tic-Tac-Toe - One student built this game using freeware that they’d found online

Favorite Soccer Player Website

Tanzania Website

Games! (made with GameMaker):

Help a dog find its home

Race a car!

Animation!

One student went to town with Blender, and created blog with advice and videos for others.

We are so happy to see that these students have found success with the TechYES program. Thank you for sharing Alice.

Megan E

Well, the cat is out of the bag! We’ve been working hard on a pilot project through our non-profit Generation Y with Cable in the Classroom called Media Smart Day. We have seven pilot schools in New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut participating.

The concept is that students take a leading role in learning and teaching about how media plays a role in their lives and education. Media Smart Day was conceived as a single day planned and run by students at their own school. By focusing on a single day, special events can take place without changing curriculum or convincing teachers who may be reluctant technology users to take part. Empowered students are incredible evangelists for informed use of media and technology in education.

In each of the seven pilot schools, students have planned and organized a Media Smart Day that will take place this week or next, or right after school begins again in January. Each school is doing things a little differently, but it is all student created. Students have planned everything, including assemblies, activities, workshops, presentations, parent and community outreach and contests. They’ve drawn in their peers, younger students, teachers, parents and community. And of course, they’ve transformed it with amazing ideas of their own.

The first pilot Media Smart Day was last week at Northern Lebanon High School in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

Northern Lebanon goes high-tech for ‘Media’ day (article from the Lebanon Daily News.)

As Brett Bicksler demonstrated to his fellow students how a Nintendo Wii can be use in the classroom, another student, Mark Thompson, filmed him from the corner of the room. Bicksler and Thompson are two of 15 students from Northern Lebanon High School selected to educate other students, as well as faculty members, on varying forms of media during Media Smart Day.

The goal of this pilot is to learn what works (and doesn’t work) in creating a Media Smart Day. We started the pilot with a suite of Web 2.0 collaboration and networking tools, templates, resources and a few pre-conceived notions. Some have proven useful, others less so. We still have quite a bit of work to do collecting our data and working with everyone involved to make this replicable and self-supporting. The eventual goal is that these lessons learned can be used by any school or local cable operator wanting to create their own Media Smart Day.

Participation of the local cable operators has been tremendous. Cable in the Classroom is the national education foundation of the U.S. cable industry, and represents the collective desire of local cable operators to advocate for “… visionary, sensible and effective use of media in homes, schools, and communities.” On a local level, though, many cable operators are eager to help, but might not know exactly what to do. Supporting a Media Smart Day is a win-win for local schools and local cable companies, giving them a positive focus and great media opportunities to share with the whole community.

What’s been proven so far is that (not surprisingly) the students have exceeded expectations with their enthusiasm, creativity, and organizational skills. We deliberately did NOT provide a checklist of “Media Smart Day activities”. It’s a good thing, because we could not have imagined the fabulous ideas they have come up with.

Next week, I’ll be traveling to visit three more Media Smart Days. Stay tuned!

Sylvia