“…it is the people, not the technology…” – Mary Beth

Posted on December 26, 2011 by Doug Bergman

We had just finished participating in a live audio conference with the head of a major video game company. He told us some great stories about working in the industry and working with some incredible technologies. He also discussed his experiences with his development team, marketing research team, testing team, support team, and sales teams over the last several years. One of the students in my advanced Computer Science class looks back at me as she is leaving the room and says, “I am starting to see that it is the people, not the technology.”

This past year has been an incredible year in our dynamic tech industry. I-pads, Windows/Android/IPhone smartphones, tablets, incredible broadband speeds, Cloud computing, Kinect…. and the list goes on and on.
And as a Computer Scientists I love reading about, playing with, programming on, experimenting with, creating with, using, teaching about, thinking of innovative uses for, and sharing information about all of those technologies. It is one reason why I am in Computer Science.

But as great at this year has been for “cool digital gadgets”, there is no question that Mary Beth was right:

“…it is the people….not the technology…”

I look back over the last year at some of the experiences at my own school and the great things we’ve done…and those successes were due to the hard work of my colleagues.

I remember my experience at the U.S. Innovative Educator Forum,

The most innovative teachers in the U.S. in 2011

and I think about the incredible teachers I met from across the country. A very humbling experience to be in the same room as some of those incredible folks! But I cannot think about that entire experience without smiling as I picture the faces of an incredible Partners in Learning team that spent this entire year involved in that effort. The people I connected with while in Seattle have fundamentally changed me as a teacher and a person.

When Fish Fly: First Place Collaboration Category

As part of the U.S forum, I enjoyed so much working collaboratively on our When Fish Fly project(see my previous post ) with fellow teachers from Texas, Florida, Maryland, and California. My friends Johnny, Margaret, and Lou (please submit all cigar-related questions to him) were so inspirational to work with. Winning an award with them was such a rush! I am looking forward to a new journey with some of those same colleagues as we embark on a new journey with the Kinect at the center.(Check us out & join the movement)

Joel Bato. One of the winnnig presentations from Uganda, Africa

I think back to my incredible experience in Jordan presenting at the Middle East African Innovator Forum. Margaret Noble and I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience as we met people from over 20 countries on 3 continents. Joel , one of the leading teachers in Uganda and I spent 4 hours together in a shuttle from the airport as we drove across the dessert to Aqaba. He and I also took our first swim in the Red Sea as we looked across the bay to Israel. Also swimming in the Red Sea with us was Mandeep, who was in from England to present about the SHOUT initiative. A fellow Computer Scientist and eventual winning presenter, Noura from Saudi Arabia, and I discussed how she could be a panelist at next year’s business plan presentations in my class in the U.S. My relationships with them, as well as many others, are still strong today.

I reflect back to the most amazing experience in my professional career at the Global Forum in Washington DC where over 700 educators from over 75 countries came together to share ideas, work together, and interact with fellow innovators.

Introducing Team USA who represented the U.S. at the Global Forum

Yeah, these are the people I was talking about. They totally ROCK

As part of that experience, I really got to know the other members of TeamUSA. Wow, what an amazing group of people. America: if these are representative of the future of education in the United States, we are in good hands. As part of that global forum, I had the pleasure of working with a team of colleagues from Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Ecuador. Talk about collaboration! We are from different countries, teach different subject areas & grade levels, have different religions, experience different economic conditions, work in different educational systems, work under different political systems, live in different family situations, teach in different types of schools, and believe in different value systems…yet not once did we have any issues. I love how Jawhara (Saudi Arabia) always reminds us to show real student work as evidence of learning in our proposal. And how Kim thought to use a translation website so we could communicate interactively with our Spanish speaking comrade. Over the last 6 weeks, through Skype, Facebook, Twitter, email, chat, and text messaging, we were able to communicate our thoughts, suggestions, and ideas and collaboratively build an entire project proposal together. Good Luck in the voting Garden 2 Team !(Jawhara, Kim, Doug, Allan, Andy).

Louse and Kim from South Africa

Also while at the Global Forum in D.C., I had a chance to hang out one evening with a bunch of friends from the U.S. and South Africa. I learned more about Apartheid in one hour than I had learned in my entire life. And I even got to ask really dumb questions like how they have Christmas with Santa Clause and snowmen and North Pole when it’s summer in December in South Africa.


It truly is the people…and not the technology(although I do admit, the technology is pretty freakin’ cool). And it is a pleasure to be involved with those people who see a different way forward.

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Success in the midst of failure

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Doug Bergman

Android App Devlopment

I wanted to say a few words about an experience Trey had over the last couple weeks in my advanced Computer Science classroom. Students in that class, for their “final exam”, have to create an application for the Android, prepare a complete on-line video tutorial for making that app, and then lead their parents through that tutorial during a Parent Workshop one evening at the end of the semester. Over the last few weeks of class, students spend time creating the app itself, then create a teaching video which explains not only how to do it, but more importantly why they are doing those steps, what the commands mean, and how they play a part in the completed app. Mom and dad are invited to the Computer Lab and together with their child (in a supporting role much like I am as a teacher in that class), they work through the tutorial together, creating their first Android app in a student-led Android Workshop. It’s a fantastic evening with mom and dad usually blown away experiencing what their kids have been doing…and then to have their own child lead them through doing it themselves…wow… Lots of proud moms and dads….yes for completing their own app and seeing it on the smart phone…but more so of their son or daughter for a great evening of teaching and learning.

Trey had worked hard on his app for a couple weeks, but just could not get one last part to work. He researched, studied, asked questions, experimented, came in on free periods and study halls and after school, worked with me, and still he could not get the app to function correctly. Not once did he lose his excitement and optimism towards trying to get it to work. So, he decided to try to build a different app. He made tremendous progress but again got stuck one some of the advanced sections. Again, he came in at study hall, free period, lunch and break, trying this and trying that..and while many parts of the app worked great, the part he was working on was not, and that was not ok for him. Again, not once did he lose his excitement and optimism towards trying to get it to work. So, he decided to try yet another app and spent the same energy and eagerness getting it to work. And this time he persevered. I offered tid-bits of help here and there, but this effort was all Trey. So, now he would have to work on his video tutorial. And he finally finished it! But, as he rewatched it, there seemed as if the sound and video in the recording were not syncing up. So, he re-recorded the entire tutorial on a second computer. After completing his entire tutorial again, he noticed that the sound on the computer, while appearing to be recording…was not…so there was no audio instruction to go along with the tutorial. He just could not win. If there was ever a time to give up, I would have understood. Yet, he was still smiling and said he would figure it out.

And we had come to the day of the presentations…

With just a few hours left before the big event, Trey came to me for guidance on the best way forward. It was apparent that the video recording was not going to work as he wanted and I did not want him to spend any more time on this than he already had. Anything he was going to get out of this project was already learned. He had already written three apps and recorded the tutorial twice and had little to actually show for it. And yet he was still as excited and energetic and optimistic as he was two weeks ago. Here we were a few hours before the Parent Workshop, the “performance” that night counts 25% of the grade. He decided he would perform his tutorial workshop LIVE with his parents. Lots of unknown issues and risks come along with LIVE performance, but he confidentially said he was comfortable doing it that way, in fact was looking forward to it.

Trey leads his parents through the process of developing an Android Application

And so the event came, 30 parents and 15 students crowded the lab. After my brief introduction of the evening activities, students led their parents through the how-to and why for designing an app. There would be apps using UI controls, touchsceens, accelerometer, and GPS. As I walked around the room , I was so proud of all my students! Moms and dads were engaged with their computer screen and also their “teachers”, who were in control..confident..smiling… actually enjoying the experience. And I kept an extra eye on Trey just to see how he was doing. And every time I walked by, both parents were glued to the screen, immersed in their learning and project, listening to him with complete focus as he led them through an experience unlike any they’ve had.

And, to my pleasure and surprise, every student in the class, including Trey, was able to successfully lead their parents through the development of their app!

Despite numerous failures, numerous technical issues, time deadlines, and the pressures of presenting something LIVE to an audience….Trey worked through all those problems, held his head high, never lost control, (and in the middle of all this took an hour out of that afternoon to be the photographer for my other class’s presentations) and finished the evening with two very proud parents.

Trey’s experience the last few weeks, while I am sure he is glad it’s over, is exactly why we believe in our Computer Science program. There is freedom to figure things out, expectations are high, student self-direction is critical, both teaching and learning are part of the student experience, failure is part of the path to success and instead of failures stopping the learning…it inspires them to push on, problem solving and persistence is core to success, and passion for Computer Science is the backbone of the class.

It’s easy to be on top of the world when things go well, so I look for the student who is on top of the world when things don’t go well. Trey’s many successes over the next two years will happen as a result of working his way through the failures he experiences along the way.

And I have no doubt that he will succeed. Students like Trey are why teachers do what we do.

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Final Exam…Is there another way?

Posted on December 3, 2011 by Doug Bergman

Is there another way to evaluate content besides exams?

As schools across the United States go into “exam mode”, I’d like to throw something out there as food for thought. “…Oh no, he’s gonna say something crazy, here it comes…” What if we did not do exams like we usually do? “…..WHAT? Did you just say what I thought you said? I KNEW IT? Someone have his legs removed and his paycheck garnished and make sure Santa does NOT visit his house…” I am suggesting that that our current model of exam giving is outdated, ineffective, requires inappropriate amounts of effort and energy and time on both the student, school, and teachers in comparison to the benefits it offers, a great deal of the material is memorized in rote fashion and will be forgotten almost immediately…” Most schools probably lose 2- 4 weeks every year in order to prepare for and administer exams. At some schools, the entire week before exams is spent reviewing in class, and NOT progressing into new material, and then additionally an entire week is spent administering exams, so for an exam which might be 1.5 -3 hours in totals length we give up 10 hours of real-life instruction and learning…and what do we get in return? 3 hours of regurgitation.

I get that there needs to be opportunities to synthesize everything you’ve been learning together since we tend to teach skills in isolation, but I’d like to suggest that if that is the case then EVERY test you give should be cumulative and throughout your class all semester long, every quiz and test and homework and classwork incorporates all skills and concepts that are part of your curriculum. Of course you can focus on certain skills, but let those new skills be introduced and tested within the context of something which forces the demonstration of previous concepts and skills in such a way where every test is as hard as an exam.
I propose that if we did that, our students would progress farther and deeper with their learning than ever before. I propose that kids do not mind be challenged and I propose that they actually don’t mind working really hard….as long as what they are doing is engaging.

“…Whew. Ok. Is he done yet? Please let this be over…he is suggesting things which people should not be allowed to say…he is challenging the status quo…”

Sorry.

But, don’t stop there. Keep going! I am also going to propose that there are other ways to evaluate material than multiple choice, short answer, and fill in the blank tests. “…WHAT? IS THIS MAN SERIOUS? Did he just suggest that our current model of evaluation is outdated and out of touch with our students? We’ve used that model for decades without changing it…how could it possibly be anything but great? It worked for me 25 years ago when I was in school, it should work now…” If you really want to evaluate your students understanding of concepts and their ability and desire to apply them, then give them more than a worksheet, word problem, and test at the end of the chapter. Let them build something, create something, work together with some other students to put something together that requires the use of the concepts and then demonstrates those concepts, get out of the classroom and experience your subject material in the real world. Daniel, one of the teachers at my school, said something which I love: if his kids are not out of their seat presenting in front of the other students at least once per week, then he is failing as a teacher. Let those projects span many days. Make them rigorous, incredibly challenging, out of the cliché comfort zone. Help them design complex enough projects that will challenge them to think bigger and to face complicated problems, and have to work together to figure them out. They will not only do it, they will do it well. And their learning experience will be a more meaningful one

Write apps for the Windows Phone

Your students can write application for smart phones

And sometimes, you might decide to let technology be a part of those projects. For example, students might create a Windows Phone app which helps students see line graph changes as they drag their fingers across the screen. Or maybe they create a game for the I-PAD which teaches about the economic and environment issues related to over-population. Or maybe they write a program on their Android Smartphone which draws fractal images while blending art and math together. Maybe some students write an Xbox game for the Kinect which simulates the actual throwing motion of a player which uses physics, math, and physical education.

Research, design, and make a bridge modell

But, I also love projects which do not require technology: maybe groups of students write and film a play which is based around principles in chemistry. Perhaps a group of students design a wooden or metal bridge and have to research traffic patterns, structure analysis of materials, geometric principles of support, weight distribution, and environment impacts. Maybe they interview a first generation immigrant, in their own native language, about the differences between our political climate and the one from which they came. Maybe they go to a football game and take accurate notes about each play so that they can write up a statistical analysis of the game for the coach.

So, you see my point. Not just project based learning, but project based evaluation.

A new way forward in education might be for teachers to reach out more to students with more than just a textbook. Don’t let the textbook be the center of the classroom, please don’t let the questions at the end of the chapter be their mundane homework each night, and certainly don’t let the test-bank be the only way you determine how well they got the information from chapter 13. And if your exam is the last thing they will do for you in your class, the let the exam be as engaging, interactive, and valuable as your class was.

Let students experience your content by interacting with it.

If that makes sense to you, join us.

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What just happened?

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Doug Bergman

Margaret David Lou Andrew Johnny Doug Sig

So, a week or so has passed since I returned from perhaps one of the most amazing experiences of my life. And I have been asking myself in a variety of different ways, “What just happened?” And I think the answer to that is far from obvious. Any time you are part of team that wins an award that distinguishes you, of course it feels great because it is confirmation that all your hard work, all your crazy ideas, and all your persistence does have an impact and a message that is being heard. And for most people, as with myself, that alone is worth every ounce of time and effort that goes into our work.

One of the pleasures of an experience like this is the chance to interact with people from all over the world through almost every available media including Twitter, Facebook, Blog, website, E-mail, postal mail, cell phone, Skype video call, audio conference call , and probably even a few more. And we have all been telling our stories, sharing our ideas, commenting on pictures and video taken during the week in DC at the many social and professional events planned by Microsoft, and making collaborative connections to bring into our classrooms.

And I think I have identified the common thread about what was REALLY so great about experience…I may have found out what just happened! In our day-to-day life at our schools, in our cities, and at our jobs, we face many obstacles, many limitations, many reasons why we cannot do something, people who are not motivated or passionate, policies that are in the way , rules that prevent you from doing things, and hundreds of reasons why you cannot do what you want to do.

Last week at the Microsoft Global Innovator Education Forum, I interacted with over 700 people (not sure if I met all of them, but I tried) from over 75 countries. My fellow TeamUSA colleagues were second to none and we came together in so many ways! We worked together with the team from Microsoft….one of the most supportive and professional teams I could imagine working with. I interacted with people from almost every religion, culture, economic status, belief system, gender, race, sexual orientation, rank, career title, and personality. And the overwhelming message I heard over and over everywhere I went was not “No, you cannot”, but “Yes, and how can I help you?”

Instead of reasons why this idea just cannot be implemented, I found people who had not only already implemented it but asked to be able help me implement it at my own school. Instead of reasons why this technology might not work, I found people who had gotten it to work and would gladly help me figure it out at my school. Instead of policies that seem to be restrictive, limiting, and unproductive, I found administrators who made policies that support innovation and were glad to offer their advice. Instead of a media that was focused on “dirty laundry” news bits, I found media who were focused on positive ideas and people and were excited to share success stories instead of the many failures we see on the nightly news. Instead of colleagues who spend their day defending their turf, I found comrades who crave interactions across the curriculum. Instead of fellow teachers who have lost the passion in their classroom, I found fellow teachers who might even be more passionate than I am. Instead of people who shy away from hard work or challenge, I found people who eagerly smile with the chance to do something challenging and difficult. Instead of spending countless hours debating insignificant issues which sometimes fill up our meetings at home, I spent countless hours discussing new ways forward, ways to improve education, ways to work together to help teachers and students succeed, ways to make education more engaging, ways to connect better with our students, ways for me as an educator to raise the bar, and ways to try to make the world a better place.

Everywhere I turned I was welcomed with an open handshake, smile, an occasional hug, one awesome chest-bump, a dynamic high five, a few yells and screams, or perhaps just a Konichi wa, Marhaban, Bonjour, Hola, or Ni hao. But, it was always a genuine welcome and it always led to a passionate conversation that was centered on making education better.

If the world is looking for better ways forward in education…..try spending a few hours in a room of optimistic, passionate, eager, and dedicated educators from around the world. The answers are not hard to grasp. We as a human race trying to find our way into the 21st Century have got to find ways to say “Yes” much more than the world says “No.”

That is what just happened.

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When Fish Fly

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Doug Bergman

Global Educator Innovator ForumI had the privilege of spending 5 days in one of the greatest cities in the world with some of the most innovative educators on the planet. Microsoft hosted over 700 educators from over 75 countries at the annual Global Education Innovator Forum. With an opening reception at the American History Museum and a closing gala at the National Portrait Museum, it was a world class event in every sense of the word.

Over 125 teams presented projects over the course of 2 days to judges, peers, and other guest as they hoped to earn one of 3 awards in each of 6 different categories.

Team USA meets U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

Team USA meets U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

Team USA was represented well with incredible projects by even more incredible educators (say hello to Nate, Jason, Kelli, Colin, Margaret, Melanie, Lou, Donna, Pauline, Johnny, Anthony, and David).

My group was honored, excited, surprised, and humbled to have received First Place in the Collaboration category. (and my fellow TeamUSA colleagues will understand the need for an immediate YEAH BABY shout out)
I will be blogging about the experience in a few different ways over the next month, but I’d like to start by showing the document that we submitted to Microsoft before the event occurred. It will give you a sense for our project, called When Fish Fly

• Project Summary
When Fish Fly is a Kinect Xbox game creation project designed to replicate the sights, sounds, history and “sense of place” of Pike Place Fish Co.in Seattle, Washington. Student design teams incorporate Computer Science, project management, business concepts, and multimedia technologies to create a dynamic motion-based game simulation.
• Project Description
When Fish Fly is a game creation project designed to replicate the sights, sounds, history and “sense of place” of Pike Place Fish Co. in Seattle while actively engaging the student design team in a technology driven collaborative process. This semester long project allows students to build a simulation for the Xbox Kinect game system focusing on multimedia technology, motion, digital arts, and Computer Science. Students utilize project management and business concepts as they collaboratively research, design, and code a game simulation replicating the experience of Pike Place Fish Co. While our project is based on this location, the concept is intended to be used as a model to be replicated in any city in the world. In addition to game play, there is a heavy educational component to both building the project and playing the completed game; there are numerous links to video clips, sound bites, historical facts and figures and other information, even live web feeds. In our project model, students study the history and economic data of the location while collecting audio and video interviews. In order to simulate the experience as accurately as possible, students also observe, photograph, and record the many types of people interactions, transactions, and activities that occur in the market. The completed project will be driven by dynamic motion-based interaction using the Kinect camera system. Part of the creative challenge and fun of this project is not only determining what motions and kinetic movements to incorporate, but how to implement them.

•Project Inspiration What was the inspiration for your entry? During the U.S. IEF in Seattle, The Partners in Learning Network initiated an experiment dubbed “learning excursions,” which was created to engage and challenge the participants. Educators were organized into collaborative working groups and sent to interesting sites around Seattle. What kind of learning activities might be generated when top-tier educators are paired up with similar subject-matter and grade level peers and sent to explore unique places in a community and asked to come up with engaging, 21st century learning activities that could be used by teachers around the globe? Our team’s destination was Pike Place Market and our first task was to decide what format to present our project. Taking advantage of our core strengths: Computer Science, Digital Media Arts and KinectEd,

Margaret, Donna, Johnny, Lou, and myself

the logical solution for our project was a game-like simulation. We considered all the local businesses located in Pike Place Market that would lend themselves to a game simulation; the Pike Place Fish Co. was the obvious choice because of its history and its unique “fish toss” that would lend itself to the Kinect and game play. Pike Place Fish Co. captures the essence of the market and Seattle and allowed our team to build a replicable project that can be adapted to any locale. This focus had to meet the requirements of the task while promoting a multi-dimensional, cross- curricular, collaborative environment for the project to be a success. This solution allows for scaling as well as in complexity to accommodate advanced students or larger class sizes

• Why did you start using technology in your classroom? Our students have grown up their whole lives in a world that has been digital and full of gadgets and advanced technology. Yet in schools we tend to fight that technology with rules, restrictions, bans, and regulations. So, the culture on school campus ends up being very different than the world we are preparing them for. Our group believes in using technology to design, create, build, interact, and present. Our classrooms must offer the chance for our students to create and build things using the tools of the digital age. Those who are in command of those digital tools, and can use them to produce creative, thoughtful, useful, and engaging products will be the next leaders of business, academic, entertainment, and research. We embrace technology and push it as far as it can go. And when we reach the edge, we use those same tools to innovate as we design the next tool.

• What do you hope to get out of the Global Forum? We are all honored and excited to represent the United States at the Global Forum, so our first responsibility is to make sure we make the Partners in Learning team proud. The experience in Washington DC will be an experience of a lifetime; we’ll share our own ideas; hear other culture’s philosophies of education, and learn best practices from some of the most passionate people and schools in the world. What we loved about our own regional forum the was the chance to collaborate and engage with fellow colleagues from around the country; that experience has and will live on long after that forum was over. This Global Forum offers that same chance to learn and share with some of the true leaders of education and innovation across the world.

————————————-

Did this event meet and exceed anything you might have ever imagined? Without question.
Would you recommend going through the application process in 2012? With a doubt if you feel you are doing some great stuff in your classroom and would like to share and meeting others who are doing great things in their classroom.
Has this experience changed you fundamentally as a person? Having spent 5 days with some of the leading educators from the United States, along with some of the most professional and passionate staff and leaders from Microsoft, I can truly say that I am a better person due to this experience.
Did you really scream “Yeah Baby” loudly while accepting your award? uh huh

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Global Innovator Forum Nov 7-11 in Washington DC

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Doug Bergman

I am excited to be preparing for the Global Innovative Educator Forum in Washington DC. Over 700 educators representing over 75 countries will be there to present, observe, teach, learn, share, participate, and judge presentations by some of the most innovative teachers in the world. I and ten of my colleagues, who won awards at our national event in July, will represent the United States during the week of Nov 7 -11. We’ll spent that time partnering with our international comrades as we work together, travel around together, discuss and debate together, eat and drink together, and learn about our respective cultures and countries. What a great concept: to bring some of the most creative, energetic, and innovative educator minds together. Who knows what might come out of that?

The preparation for this global event has been one of the most intense I’ve been involved with in my professional career. If you’ve ever presented at a local or regional conferences, you know how hard you worked….but when the event is an international, you have to bring your “A+++” game in every aspect of everything that you prepare, do, bring , say, ask, and present. While your presentation might be a good one, it will be next to one of the best presentation & demonstrations from an entire country…It better be amazing and you better BRING IT. I am incredibly honored that in addition to having been one of the individual award winners at the national forum in July(see a short video about it), another group of four fellow teachers and myself were also selected in an Educator’s Choice format to present about another project. While it has been twice the work, it has also been twice the fun, and it also gives us a chance to meet twice as many people, and have another chance at being judged as one of the international award winners.

The Categories for the Global Forum are:
• Extending Learning beyond the Classroom
• Collaboration
• Knowledge Building & Critical Thinking
• Innovation in Challenging Contexts
• Cutting Edge Use of Microsoft Technology for Learning

It will be so exciting to wonder around this room full of lively, engaging, eager, happy, passionate, and down-right GREAT teachers. Any person in there you can walk up to, introduce yourself, start a conversation, and you know you are going to see and hear something amazing. What an opportunity!

Being part of this experience for the last 6 months of my life has been one of the most rewarding, helpful, engaging, worthwhile, productive, challenging, and fun experiences in my life. The people I’ve met at Microsoft are the reason why Microsoft is one of the greatest companies on the planet. The peers that I interact with on a regular basis are some of the best teachers I’ve worked with ever. It gives me faith that: education is in fact, NOT BROKEN. It is not our government that will make education great. It will be the teachers, administrators, students, and parents who, quite frankly, see a different way forward.

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Innovation, NFTE, and Microsoft

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Doug Bergman

In my freshman class, the students have just finished submitting their games that they’ve been working on for over 5 weeks. They each had to pick one of the United Nations Millennium Goals (Hunger, Education, Gender equality, Children health, AIDS, Maternal health, Global partnership, and environmental sustainability) and make a game that either brings attention to the concept or teaches about the concept. To see the students take a raw idea and develop it day after day and see the idea start to take shape…ahhh music to my ears. As a teacher, there is no greater joy. Entrepreneurism at it’s finest! It’s gonna take me the better part of a week to go through each game, but what a fun week!

So, I knew it was fate when I found out about the World Series of Innovation competition that Microsoft and NFTE are sponsoring. It is not necessarily targeted at Computer Scientists, but it fits beautifully into what we just finished doing in class. Having just completed their game design projects, they now understand what goes into making a great game. Can they take that knowledge and apply it to solve another problem?

Ok, so what is the World Series of Innovation?

Students, in groups of 5 or 6 work together to submit a 2 page application which describes in great detail everything to know about their project idea. While there were many more categories in the competition, my class focused only on the Mobile App and Mobile Game categories. Both the app and games ideas have to be based around the idea of students and education. Each team will also submit a 30 second video “selling” their idea. The students do not actually make the app or game, but they submit the concept. The winning team of the competition, in addition to winning many cool prizes, gets to work with a real Microsoft developer to try to actually produce a working copy of the their idea
We’ve spent the last 4 days letting the kids work on this and I have been blown away by the collaboration, team work, communication, and productivity I’ve seen. The teams have split themselves up into the script writers, videographers, actors, application question responders, and project manager. While I’ve worked with each team just to make sure they were on track with the project guidelines they have taken the ball and ran with it. As a teacher I am so proud. Our school will submit 8 groups between the 2 categories and I would not be surprised at all if one of these teams gets some national recognition.
Yes, it took 4 days of my class….and yes it has been a wonderful 4 days…and yes I would do it again in a heartbeat.
An innovative teacher never misses opportunities to let the real world enter your classroom.

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When Fish Fly: A new kind of Project

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Doug Bergman

I was recently honored to have been part of a team which was selected by fellow innovative educators as the first place finisher for our project ” When Fish Fly”. We are excited to be invited to present this project at the Global Innovative Educator Forum in November in Washington DC.
“When Fish Fly” which is a Kinect Xbox game creation project designed to replicate the sights, sounds, history and “sense of place” of Pike Place Fish Co.in Seattle, Washington. Student design teams incorporate Computer Science, project management, business concepts, and multimedia technologies to create a dynamic motion-based game simulation.

This past July, I was also honored to have been selected to represent the United States at the Global Innovative Educator Forum in Washington dc (See my previous blog post). While we were the the Partners in Learning team initiated an “experiment” called Learning Excursions, which was created to engage and challenge the over 100 educator participants who were there. Educators were organized into collaborative working groups and sent to interesting sites around Seattle. What kind of learning activities might be generated when top-tier educators are paired up with similar subject-matter and grade level peers and sent to explore unique places in a community and asked to come up with engaging, 21st century learning activities that could be used by teachers around the globe? Our team’s destination was Pike Place Market and our first task was to decide what format to present our project. Taking advantage of our core strengths: Computer Science, Digital Media Arts and KinectEd, the logical solution for our project was a game-like simulation. We considered all the local businesses located in Pike Place Market that would lend themselves to a game simulation; the Pike Place Fish Co. was the obvious choice because of its history and its unique “fish toss” that would lend itself to the Kinect and game play. Pike Place Fish Co. captures the essence of the market and Seattle and allowed our team to build a replicable project that can be adapted to any locale. This focus had to meet the requirements of the task while promoting a multi-dimensional, cross- curricular, collaborative environment for the project to be a success. This solution allows for scaling as well as in complexity to accommodate advanced students or larger class sizes.
When Fish Fly is a game creation project designed to replicate the sights, sounds, history and “sense of place” of Pike Place Fish Co. in Seattle while actively engaging the student design team in a technology driven collaborative process. This semester long project allows students to build a simulation for the Xbox Kinect game system focusing on multimedia technology, motion, digital arts, and Computer Science. Students utilize project management and business concepts as they collaboratively research, design, and code a game simulation replicating the experience of Pike Place Fish Co. While our project is based on this location, the concept is intended to be used as a model to be replicated in any city in the world. In addition to game play, there is a heavy educational component to both building the project and playing the completed game; there are numerous links to video clips, sound bites, historical facts and figures and other information, even live web feeds. In our project model, students study the history and economic data of the location while collecting audio and video interviews. In order to simulate the experience as accurately as possible, students also observe, photograph, and record the many types of people interactions, transactions, and activities that occur in the market. The completed project will be driven by dynamic motion-based interaction using the Kinect camera system. Part of the creative challenge and fun of this project is not only determining what motions and kinetic movements to incorporate, but how to implement them.

Our group of 5 (myself, Lou Zulli, Margaret Noble, Johhny Kissko, and Donna Thomas) worked hard and spent many hours as a team collaborating together to put together our project submission, and now that we’ve been selected to attend the Global Forum, we are working equally as hard to prepare for that. For us, the teachers, actually working on this project submission and project design was full of many of the same 21rst Century Skills that our students will experience as they work through the project.

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Free Xbox 360 Game Design Curriculum & Lessons Plans

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Doug Bergman

Wow. Microsoft continues to amaze me. Pat Yongpradit along with and the staff at Microsoft, is one of the most innovative teachers in the United States and throughout the world(based on his recognition and award last year in South Africa at the 2010 Global Innovative Educator Forum), have worked hard to put together new kind of curriculum…one that makes the student the center of learning and introduces Computer Science in new ways.

It is based on designing games and simulations for the Xbox 360 in the Computer Science classroom. It uses a language called C# (Microsoft proprietary language is a mix between Java and C++) in unison with the XNA studio to allow students to explore programming in a completely new way. All the software, curriculum, and everything that comes with it….is FREE.

If you are wanting to try something new in your Computer Science classroom, give this a try. I assure you: they will love it; they will learn tremendous amounts; you will learn tremendous amounts; they will produce amazing games.

Here is the official post from Microsoft. Enjoy!

The news you have been waiting for…

Your students will love the new Game Development with XNA: Semester 1 curriculum. It is an exciting and engaging computer science course that enables students to apply a basic foundation in programming to game development and simulation using C# and the XNA framework. Students will learn how variables, conditionals, and loops get applied to game creation. They will also learn and apply Object-Oriented design, inheritance and polymorphism, recursion, sorting, searching, and data structures. This course is recommended for students with previous structured programming experience.

The semester curriculum package contains a curriculum framework, lesson plans, demonstration projects, 14 video tutorials, 20 lab assignments, student activities, and assessment tools with keys and exemplars – absolutely everything you need! Student-directed learning resources support independent learning, freeing teachers to focusing on instruction of computer science concepts and student assessment. All materials are teacher-created, classroom-tested, and aligned to nationally recognized computer science standards.

The curriculum and software are free.
Download all 4 components (Roadmap, Part 1 & 2, and Appendix)
Save and unzip on the desktop before moving to directory folders.

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“Innovation” Presentation at the Middle East and Africa Microsoft Innovators Forum in Jordan

Posted on September 11, 2011 by Doug Bergman

I was honored to have been one of two invited to the MEA forum held in Aqaba, Jordan Sept 7-10. It was 2 1/2 days full of discussions, conversations, sharing, and presentations from innovative teachers and schools from over 20 countries from the Middle East and Africa. The Ministry of Education of Jordan, Microsoft, and the team of professionals who planned the event provided for a truly world class experience. I’ll talk more about that experience next week.
We were asked to present a 5 minute talk on innovation.

To start the presentation, I showed a slide, which said
1) I ask you to consider Computer Science
2) Making innovation work
3) 21rst Century Evaluation

here is the talk I presented.

Good morning. Thank you so much for inviting me as a guest to your conference.

The digital world is such a dynamic area. That’s what I love about it. But how can we possible know, or even imagine where the world will be 10 years from now. So, how can we possibly prepare our students for that world?
Regardless of what country we come from, what culture we grow up in, and what economic conditions we live in…we all must solve the problems in our world……our local world…and our global world. We need tools in order to do that. And the tools of today are digital. The ones who are in command of those digital tools will be the next leaders of academia, research, business, politics, and philanthropy.
We’ve got to teach the students how to learn to design and build their own digital tools, so they can solve those problems
One of the greatest digital tools available in our world today is Computer Science. It is central to all subject areas and almost every known industry. It is the cross-curricular by definition. And solving problems is what it does.
Computer Science teaches students how to use build something, maybe a new tool, using technology, computation thinking, and creativity. That might be a new game to teach difficult concepts to kids, a mobile app for the Blackberry to help better manage your business, a new data analysis software program on the PC for the medical research lab , maybe….. even designing an entirely new device. It gives people the power and ability to build the digital solutions to solve their own problems.
And what’s great about many of the Computer Science development tools…they are (mostly) free. Many international level companies, including Microsoft provide almost everything FREE of charge. So, schools with limited economic resources can actually design and implement a pretty good Computer Science program.

What have we done? What can we do?

Recognize what Computer Science is and consider Computer Science as a fundamental component of education.

Applications such as Microsoft Office and photo & movie editing are excellent tools in the various subject areas we teach in our schools. Look at some of the great projects your presenting about here. Those applications must be taught in subject area classrooms, not in the Computer Science classroom.
We start early. In my school, we’ve got Computer Science introduced formally in the 6th grade and informally as early as the 4th grade. If they choose, students can take Computer Science every year until they graduate high school as part of our Accelerated Program in Computer Science.

Crucial to our success of our Computer Science program were the partnerships that were made from the beginning: with our college counseling department, our division head, school head, scheduling registrar ,parents, students, technology companies such as Microsoft, and even our local college. Classroom innovation could not, and can cannot happen without that team approach.

In July, I was honored to have been one of 9 selected to represent the United States at the Global Innovators Forum in Washington , DC . In that project, we brought together some leading edge technologies, such as the Xbox 360, Computer Science, and we worked with the students to write computer programs , games, and simulations that teach about such global issues such as animal testing in labs, cancer treatments in children, and the exploration of Egyptian pyramids. But, fun games and ideas are not enough for a complete class. So, we brought in Entrepreneur curriculum which gave students a new vocabulary and skillset to be able to take an idea (such as their Xbox game) and go through a process that leads them to turning that idea into a real product , and then taking that product to the marketplace. That’s a skill that is real and is needed by every industry in any country.

Inside the classroom, class is multimedia, multi-tasking; it’s all hands-on projects, student are out of their seats working together every day, lots of guest speakers from the business world. Evaluation is different: In this class, if your robot is able to interact with an environment; if your Xbox simulation accurately interprets your motion; If your ecommerce websites actually processes an order and updates the SQL database, that’s success. (Pause) We use Blogging to allow students to evaluate and reflect upon their own projects, as well as those of others. For one class, the final exam is students presenting and demonstrate one module of class to room full of adults; in another class, students lead a workshop tutorial for adults on making mobile apps. And in another class, they presented their business plans, which they spent all semester writing, to a panel of professional judges. That is how the real world is going to evaluate our students.

Schools must prepare students for the world they are going into, and that world is digital. Program or be programmed.

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