“When middle school students Alison and Nat confer with their teachers, it’s to talk about the lessons the students are preparing for student teachers as part of a new Generation www.Y program. The young people are part of a growing group in schools across the country who are sharing their own expertise to help make prospective teachers more aware of how students learn and the best ways technology can be used to support their learning.”
Edutopia, the website of the George Lucas Educational Foundation published this story and video on the GenYES program in Olympia, WA. The video is from a while back when the model was called Generation www.Y. That was a bit difficult to pronounce, so we changed the name to GenYES.
This video was created during an interesting time period – the GenYES students not only worked with teachers at their school, but formed teams with their teacher and a pre-service teacher. These 3 member teams learned and taught each other technology, and prepared lessons using new technology. Just another way students can be involved in improving education for all!
At the Northwest Council for Computers in Education (NCCE) in Seattle March 2-5, 2010, over 70 students from districts around Washington will be on site to assist. Students from grades 7-12 will help with video and audio production, technical support for attendees, geocaching events, and support for speakers. Generation YES is proud to be a sponsor of these student volunteers. They hail from several local districts that all use the Generation YES models of student technology.
If you are attending NCCE and need technical help during the NCCE conference, just go to the Generation YES Student Tech Support Station. It will be right outside the exhibit hall entrance and will be staffed with trained, helpful students from Tuesday – Friday 9 AM – 5 PM. Students will also be taking photographs, shooting video and doing interviews throughout the conference to document all the events at NCCE. Don’t miss the closing keynote for the debut of their production!
These students work daily in their own schools to help teachers use computers, video and more to make education better for all. If you meet these fine young men and women, you are sure to be impressed with their professionalism and knowledge about technology. They are pros at helping out — they do it all the time!
I won’t personally be at NCCE this year, but if you are a Generation YES blog fan, be sure to stop by and say hello to the students, Dennis Harper, Megan Evander, and Steven Hicks, the rest of the awesome Generation YES team.
Thou shalt talk to actual students and teachers and make time to watch how technology works during actual class time, not just when it’s quiet.
Thou shalt not make fun of the tech skills of teachers or students, nor allow anyone else in the tech department to make disparaging remarks about them.
Closing trouble tickets shalt not be thine highest calling; thou shalt strive to continually make the learning environment better.
Thou shalt not elevate the system above the users.
The network will be never be perfect. Learning is messy. Get thyself over it.
When teaching someone a new skill, keep thy hands off the mouse.
Thou shalt listen to requests with an open mind and respond in plain English.
Blocking shall be controlled by educators, not filtering companies. Thy job is to enable learning, not enforce behavior.
Thou shalt include students and teachers in decision-making about technology purchases and policy. Their interest is not an affront to your professionalism.
GenYes is the ultimate tech group at Shadow Mountain High School! We simply rock when it come to new tech and learning! In addition to tech support for teachers and students, we are implementing educational and social gaming in the media center, telepresence communication with students, academia, scientists across the globe, developing interactive Wii walls and more!
There’s a new blog in town about 1:1 schools, aptly named the 1:1 Schools blog. Scott McLeod of Iowa State University is the organizer of a group of authors who blog about issues, resources, and the special needs of 1:1 schools. I’m happy to be on the team!
Many of our GenYES and TechYES schools are laptop schools. The philosophy of putting the power into student hands with a laptop fits nicely with empowering students to improve education school-wide!
So naturally, my first post for the 1:1 Schools Blog is about student support of laptop programs. Not just tech support, but support for planning, implementation, and teachers. How can students do this? Do students do this? Yes they can and do in schools around the world!
In most schools, students are over 92% of the people in the system, and they are certainly the ones most affected by any change. Yet we often overlook them when we plan and implement visionary efforts like going 1:1. This does not have to be – students, if allowed to participate, can be powerful allies and evangelists for your laptop revolution.
Today, introductory courses in computer science are too often focused merely on teaching students to use software like word processing and spreadsheet programs, said Janice C. Cuny, a program director at the National Science Foundation. The Advanced Placement curriculum, she added, concentrates narrowly on programming. “We’re not showing and teaching kids the magic of computing,” Ms. Cuny said.
Professor Sapna Cheryan led her student into a small classroom in Stanford University’s computer science building. Star Wars posters adorned the walls, discarded computer parts and cans of Coke clustered on a table, and a life-size bust of Spock perched on the desk. “Sorry about the mess,” Cheryan said. “Just ignore that stuff, it’s not part of our study. Here’s your questionnaire. Let me know when you’re done.”
The student took a dubious look at her surroundings and raised her pencil to answer the question: “How interested are you in computer science?”
Cheryan, now a psychologist at the University of Washington, has placed students in situations like this for nearly five years. She has found that women rate themselves as less interested in computer science than men in the “geek room” described above. But in a room decorated more neutrally with art posters, nature photos, and water bottles, their interest levels were about the same.
A few years ago one of our GenYES advisors told me that he was very proud of the fact that his student tech support team was over 50% female. But it wasn’t always that way. He said that it took time and effort to change the culture of the team, but the thing that made the most difference was that he remodeled the “tech room”. He took down the video game posters, brought in a couch, and cleaned it up. His advice to other advisors was that this little thing mattered. He wasn’t sure at the time it was a big deal, but now he’s sure it changed everything.
What does your classroom or clubroom say about who belongs there? And if you aren’t sure, ask some students.
It’s back to school time again in the US! Time for fresh new school supplies, backpacks, or maybe some new laptops?
Student Support of Laptop Programs – new laptops? old laptops? Are you getting the benefit of making students allies in your laptop initiative? Peer mentoring, student-led training on new hardware and software, student tech support and other ideas can be time saving, cost effective, and best of all, good for students and the whole learning community.
This whitepaper contains research, case studies, practical information that you can use right now, whether you have one cart or are a 1:1 laptop school.
Today we unveiled a new tool for GenYES schools. It’s a simple online inventory tracker. Many of our GenYES schools have students help out with inventory tasks and have asked us for this. It’s not meant to replace systems already in place in a school, but in many schools, the inventory is literally a spreadsheet that hasn’t been updated in a long time.
Update – this offer is now expired. You can still get the e-book for $9.95 (or $7.95 if you are an ASCD member) using the link below. Still a pretty good deal if you ask me!
Last November, our Working with Tech-Savvy Kids article appeared in the ASCD magazine Educational Leadership. The good news is that Ed Leadership is one of the best magazines around for thoughtful articles about education. The bad news is that these articles are not freely available on the website.
But now, ASCD is offering ebooks with article collections with a short period of free access.
Better yet, I was very pleased to find out that Working with Tech Savvy Kids was selected for inclusion in a new ASCD ebook entitled Engaging the Whole Child, the first in a series of Whole Child ebooks. Educating the Whole Child ebook – free download link (valid April 15 – May 6, 2009)
As part of ASCD’s Whole Child Initiative, ASCD wanted to share with a larger audience—including preK–12 educators, policymakers, and parents—some of the fine articles on the topic of engagement that were originally published in Educational Leadership in 2006–2008. From April 15 through May 6, 2009, readers will be able to access these articles through a free ebook download. After May 6, sample chapters will be posted on the ASCD Web site and the complete book will be available through the online store for a small fee.
Don’t miss the window to download the ebook for free! Please share this link with friends and colleagues.
Sylvia
Update: Thanks to all the commentors who helped debug the link errors. They seem to be working now. The basic problem was pilot error, compounded by the fact that this is a LARGE download (366 page PDF) and the ASCD site seems to be very busy. Enjoy!
At the 
But now, ASCD is offering ebooks with article collections with a short period of free access.
