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K12 Pilot Celebration!
K12 Pilot Celebration!
Details
Details
August 28, 2018
9:30am - 3:30pm
Apple Inc. NYC Headquarters
Agenda
Agenda
2018 Pilot Celebration
2018 Pilot Celebration
9:30 - 10:00am - Check in, welcome, breakfast
10:01 - 10:05am - Introduction: Morning agenda/outline (Meenakshi Baker, NYU IT)
10:06 - 10:15am - Education Timeline & Everyone Can Code (Jon Landis, Apple Inc.)
10:16 - 10:18am - Introduction of Lisa Atwan (James Walsh, NYU IT)
10:19 - 10:25am - School selection and participation (Lisa Atwan, Apple Inc.)
10:26 - 10:30am - Introduction of Volunteer Section of Multimedia Presentation (Kerri Campbell, NYU IT)
10:31 - 10:35am - Volunteer Interviews (Multimedia Presentation)
10:36 - 10:37am - Introduction of Student Projects - Social Apps Section (James Walsh)
10:38 - 10:42am - Rap, Socialtivity, Patrick's Interview (Multimedia Presentation)
10:43 - 10:44am - Introduction of Student Projects - Learning Apps Section (Kerri Campbell)
10: 45 - 10: 50am - V.I.L., Highbrow, GCOM (Multimedia Presentation)
10:51 - 10:52am - Introduction of Student Projects - Environmental Section (James Walsh)
10:53 - 11:00am - The Bridge, Patrick's interview, "we did it!" (Multimedia Presentation)
11:01 - 11:25am - Student Panel 1: Student Experience; Moderators: Kerri Campbell & Elvyn Perez, TAEHS
11:26 - 11:50am - Project Panel 2: NYU IT Volunteer Experience; Moderators: James Walsh & Deb Verhoff , NYU IT
11:51 - 12:15am - School Panel 3: School Experience; Moderators: Meenakshi Baker & Lisa Atwan
2019 Planning Session
2019 Planning Session
1:00 - 1:03pm - 2018 Data Analysis (Meenakshi Baker)
1:04 - 1:05pm - Introduction of Upperline Code (Meenakshi Baker)
1:06 - 1:25pm - New Products that we would like to include: A Frame VR coding (Presentation from Upperline Code)
1:26 - 1:27pm - Introduction of Zybooks (Meenakshi Baker)
1:28 - 1:50pm - New Products that we would like to include: Python training content using Zybooks (Presentation from Zybooks)
1:51 - 2:15pm - What is needed for the program to continue? Developing a schedule for 2019. Meeting schedule (how often, where, blackout dates, etc.)
2:16 - 2:30pm - Next meeting (who will attend, where, etc.)
2:31 - 2:50pm - Snacks and Goodbye
Students and teachers from Middle School 217 and Thomas A. Edison High School.
Left to right: Gurleen Kaur, Zabaida Kadir, Fatoumata Coulibali, Emilay Ospina, Ava Bishun, Aarsha Joshi, Anthony Alvarado, Mohammed Hossain, Mohammed Aljahmi, Ross Berman, Michael Goldstein, Adrian Singh, Edison Carchi, & Tamjeed Chowdhury
“Preparing Today’s Students for Tomorrow’s New York” is a first of its kind agile learning program that brought together middle and high school students along with NYU IT subject-matter experts to help students learn viable educational and workplace skills using project-based learning methodologies in software design and development. The concept was ideated and implemented by Meenakshi Baker, James Walsh, and Kerri Campbell.
Students used content created by NYU IT Volunteers (David Garwin, Deb Verhoff, Flora Richter, James Walsh, Kanishka Sardana, Katelynn Burns, Kerri Campbell, Levitt Li, Logan Johnson, Mohamed Farih, Nana Kumi, Shari Halter, Theresa Lau, and Vincent Hou) to learn the basic principles of project management, design, and data science; and development in Swift, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. During the program, the students created websites and mobile applications for solutions they felt would help improve their local schools, peer networks, and the greater NYC community, focusing on social and environmental issues.
These student projects included:
The Bridge: An application that enables high school and college-aged students to locate and sign up for local volunteer opportunities. It also allows students to track their volunteer hours so they can earn community service credits at their school.
Socialtivity: A website and app that helps students with social anxieties connect with others and create new friendships. It contains pages where students can play games, reflect on their feelings, provide encouragement to others, and manage their school work.
Variety Instrumental Learning: A website that helps students develop fundamental learning skills for their grade. Students can log into the site and play games that will help reinforce concepts for their age group in common school subjects.
Highbrow: A website and application that streamlines the communication process between students and teachers. Students can check into class, review their homework, play games to study for tests and quizzes, and create reminders for their classes. Teachers are able to post course-review materials and homework assignments and review class attendance.
GCOM: An inclusive web community for gamers where users can ask gaming questions and join different gaming communities. User are also able to connect with other users who share similar gaming interests.
On Tuesday, August 28, 2018, students from Thomas A. Edison High School (TAEHS), who just completed the tenth grade, and Middle School 217 (M.S. 217), who just completed the seventh grade, participated in the K12 Pilot Program “Preparing Today’s Students for Tomorrow’s New York,” coming together with volunteers from NYU IT and Apple Inc. to celebrate the forward thinking, dedication, and creativity that students exhibited while participating in this program over the summer. During the morning session, panel presentations were held allowing student participants, NYU IT volunteers, and representatives from TAEHS and M.S. 217 to reflect on the work they completed and to share their hopes for the continuation of the program.
NYU attendees included Professors Fred Strauss and Haldun Hadimioglu, NYU Tandon School of Engineering; Sara-Lee Ramsawak, Summer Research Programs, NYU Tandon School of Engineering; Linda Chiarelli, NYU Capital Projects and Facilities Management; Janine Wilcox, NYU Treasurer; and Maxine Kho, Joanna Yen, Pratik Jain, Karan Sancheti, Katelynn Burns, Mohamed Farih, Nana Kumi, Logan Johnson, Flora Richter, Deb Verhoff, Annie Merkle, Tamara Santiago, and Johanna Romano, NYU IT.
School attendees included principals, administrators, and teachers from Middle School 217, Thomas A. Edison High School, Intermediate School 5, Corona Arts & Sciences Academy (CASA) 311, the Marymount School of New York, and the Loyola School.
The seven-hour event was hosted at Apple Inc.’s NYC head office and was led by Meenakshi Baker, Kerri Campbell, and James Walsh of NYU IT, with support from Jon Landis, Lisa Atwan, and Christine Cooke from Apple Inc.
When asked to reflect on the impact of this program, M.S. 217 Principal Patrick Burns said “I think through the work they did in this series, in collaboration with Edison and NYU, the students became more and more understanding that when you’re out in the world, it’s going to get uncomfortable. You’re not going to sit there and just get information; you’re going to be challenged to find your own solutions...Here they got a platform in the classroom where teachers got to say ‘here’s where you’re supposed to be’ rather than ‘here’s what you need to do.’” Meanwhile TAEHS student Adrian Singh, reflected on the importance of partnership and collaboration: “I think this benefited us because only in this program did you realize that everyone in your class is a puzzle piece and we have a lot more potential together. Once you have those puzzle pieces together you realize you can make a much larger impact...Leadership is not only about who is in charge, but also about sharing ideas and learning from each other and being able to benefit from that. I’m able to share that with all of my peers now.”
Student Panel. Left to Right: Elvyn Perez (moderator), Zabaida Kadir, Edison Carchi, Tamjeed Chowdhury, Kerra Sinanan, Adrian Singh, Aarsha Joshi, Mohammed Eshan, & Kerri Campbell (moderator).
Students also explained how participation in this program impacted them as individuals. TAEHS student Kerra Sinanan, noted why learning about Project Management was important to her: “At the end, they all tie into one. You’re going to need to a little bit of everything but project management is one that stood out the most to me. If you want to be the boss of your own company one day, you need to a lot of project management.” Adrian Singh agreed: “I feel like project management is one of those skills that once you learn it, you can apply it to your everyday life in an every way. Project management teaches you responsibility and discipline. All across the board, you learn how to manage your time... It allowed me to be able to set priorities and be able to set timelines”
For Aarsha Joshi, a student from M.S. 217, learning about the development process was a meaningful experience. When asked what she liked most about the program, Aarsha said “For me development meant the most. When we were developing our apps and our ideas were just on paper and we wrote them down really quick and we expanded them into something that was important to us... Development helped me visualize my ideas and took something from paper and made it tangible.”
Meanwhile Mohammed Aljahmi, said that learning the principles of data science was important to him. When asked what he liked most about the program, Mohammed said “The lesson that was most important to me throughout the course was data science because I learned a lot and in working with my group I learned how to put A and B together to see who was interested in what.” Mohammed also shared that he will advance his learning in this area by taking more computer science courses: “I want to continue with computer science and I’m probably going to continue with a coding bootcamp or online courses. I’ve also applied to AP computer science for the following year.” His classmate Tamjeed, echoed this idea: “I also plan to continue computer science because during this program I learned how important it is and so if I continue with computer science I’ll learn how to make an impact on technology in the future.”
School Panel. Left to Right: Elvyn Perez, Patrick Burns, Georgia Ioannou, Michael Goldstein, Ross Berman, Meenakshi Baker (moderator), Lisa Atwan (moderator)
Learning wasn’t limited to the student participants, though. M.S. 217 teachers Ross Berman and Michael Goldstein explained that participation in this program was a learning opportunity for them as well. As Michael reflected on how he approached preparing for the classes that he led throughout the program he said “I didn’t know what to expect, but I was all for it. During the day when we were executing the lesson plans, we were learning with the students. This is my 19th year of teaching and I find myself learning with the students and with colleagues and administrators.” Similar sentiments were shared by Ross who noted that he plans on incorporating some of the overarching concepts he learned while participating in program into his regular classroom curriculum. During the program students were encouraged to develop their own solutions to problems at hand. Encouraging independent thinking and allowing the students to engage in problem solving discussions impacted how they approached designing and developing their projects. Ross shared that “It’s communicating and work together and solving problems in the right way and I hope I can teach my students that these are the 21st century skills that it takes to be successful.”
IT Volunteer Panel. Left to Right: Logan Johnson, Nana Kumi, Flora Richter, Katelynn Burns, James Walsh (moderator), Deb Verhoff (moderator).
The impact that NYU IT volunteers made was also evident as students and teachers reflected on how they . Elvyn Perez, a teacher from TAEHS stated “Nana comes up to mind as a volunteer. There was one particular time where he came out to Edison and he was just there mingling with the students and to the students that meant a lot. The students were at a crossing point in their app development and he was able to answer questions right there.”
It wasn’t just students who felt this impact, though. NYU IT volunteers also reflected on how their participation in the program influenced their own work. Logan Johnson stated that “This made me appreciate my role a lot more. It’s easy to get into the mundane day to day tasks of being a working professional but working with students, we really see how impactful this can be and we see how these concepts that you’ve been doing for years through a set of fresh eyes. It really helps you to reevaluate what your doing and I really appreciate that. It was a big motivator for me.” Similarly Nana Kumi noted “As professional we go day to day through the motions and I feel this program did allow me to reevaluate the way that I see my work and the impact that I want to have… Even throughout the duration of the program I was able to hone my own skills in my position because I was able to work with different people from different roles in the IT department. It allowed me to work on my leadership skills and my team building exercises as well. I think the program itself benefited me, as much as the students, as well.”
NYU IT volunteers also shared that participating in the program helped them to feel more connected to NYU and their partners within NYU IT. Flora Richter said that volunteering for the program helped her to connect to NYU and that “It added value because it helped us grow our own institutional knowledge which is kinda hard to do when you work in your silos. So that took us out of our silo and exposed us to other branches within our own NYU group.” Katelynn Burns also reflected on how working with other NYU IT teams has advanced her own professional practices. When asked what she took out of participating as a content developer, Katelynn said “It was incredibly fun and inspiring to work across those IT departments that I don’t normally get to work with and not within my project management subgroup but across all the groups. I definitely made some new friends and developed some new skills in things that I’ve incorporated into other training that I had to develop. It’s been an exciting and collaborative experience.”
Finally, when students were asked what they would improve about the program for the 2nd cohort Mohammad Eshan from TAEHS, stated “I would propose that you expand the languages students learn so that students can make more apps and websites.” Another TAEHS student, Tamjeed Chowdhury said “Overall this program was great, but we needed more time. We got a week or two to code to make our apps and we needed more time to make them.”
In addition to celebrating the first student cohort’s achievements, leaders from Upperline Code, zyBooks, JP Morgan Chase, and Dell Inc., along with school representatives from Marymount School, Loyola School, The Walter H. Crowley Intermediate School, and the Corona Arts & Sciences Academy came together to discuss the potential for this program over the upcoming academic year and ways it can be expanded in terms of time, content, and schools to enhance the experience for students and teachers. Based on this, the program administration team along with the schools participating in the second cohort of the program are looking to incorporate course content in cybersecurity, augmented reality, and virtual reality.
If you’re interested in learning more about Preparing Today’s Students for Tomorrow’s New York, please visit http://bit.ly/nyuk12
To learn more about the Upperline Code, please visit www.upperlinecode.com
To learn more about zyBooks, please visit www.zybooks.com
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