Day 2 of ISTE 2014

This morning I started off early in the hope I'd avoid the heat of the day as my first session was a PhotoQuest of Atlanta. This was a scavenger hunt around Atlanta

where we worked in teams and against each other. My team included a teacher from St Thomas in the Carribean, a teacher from St Louis, a help desk guru and his 11 yr old daughter from Kansas, a hysterical, if not crazy 26 year old community college teacher who was so excited to be "playing like a real adult", away from home for the first time (but here she was participating in what essentially was a game...the irony!), a district Technology leader from Canada and moi!  The purpose was to show how just one way of engaging students via gaming and a pretty neat little app called, Social Scavenger. However it was at least 30c by 9am when we hit the road and at the 1.5 hr mark when we discovered we were coming 8th, out of 10 teams, we stopped in the shade and had a valuable brainstorm of how it could be used in each of our situations, locations etc.

After a second shower back at the hotel and some much needed hydration I made my way back to the conference centre to visit the expo floor. With over 500 exhibitors I knew I would need at least two hours and even then I tore up and down each aisle seeking out the most innovative in software, hardware, furnishings, data management, device management, robotics and left with a dozen brochures or so and a number of business cards. I also got a sneak, pre Australian release look at Google Classroom,  which I predict will be the game chnager in the world of Learning Management Systems. I have already tweeted out links to the appropriate staff back at school for them to follow up and investigate. 

I rushed from the expo to a poster session called  "That was then, this is now: Digital age library design", unfortunately it was located in a busy thoroughfare, was to run for 2 hours without any chairs being provided and seeing as I couldn't hear a thing I moved on after ten minutes. Truthfully it didn't look all that transformational to me anyway.

I headed off looking for somewhere quiet to recharge my devices and eat. I located a restaurant, a long story follows but the most hysterical part was asking for a glass of white wine to have with my meal (it is my birthday today after all!). The waitress announced that they had no wine list but that they had both red and white wines: a merlot and a chardonnay. I asked, "just the two?" "Oh no the Chardonnay comes in red AND white which would you prefer?" You all know my answer!

So after lunch I was due at a two hour session:  "Coding for the future: Engaging student interest in programming" . I'd booked this one way back in March and it had sold out quickly but as I waited in line to enter, I discovered the presenter was the Daily Organiser and teacher of  Maths at Kingswood College in Melbourne, Lorraine Bignell. It was a hands on workshop where we got to play with the software she has introduced into her classes. The model of delivery was  one of blended learning where the students log into a site called www.codehs.com and work their way through various level courses that include videos, mastery type assessments and opportunities to display your new skills as you progress.

"The goal of CodeHS is to spread the knowledge of computer science by offering well crafted instructional materials supported continuously by the quality, personal attention of our enthusiastic tutors. We believe that everyone has the ability to learn computer science, and we want to help them do so."

In the second part of this presentation the Corona SDK (Software Development Kit) was demonstrated as a means of allowing students to develop apps for a range of mobile devices. We discovered 2 things as the session progressed, this was targeting Yr 10's via an elective option, and even though Kingswood is a co-ed school, sadly, not one girl has ever signed up to partipate in this class. I asked what they were doing to address this and in return I got a shrug of the shoulders and , " what can you do?"

I know what we can do. This term we already have robotics and coding workshops arranged for our girls in Prep. To Year 4 during Term 3 as we know the earlier we can engage them, the better.  But now I believe we can also offer an opportunity, via the library, for girls in Years 5-12 to join us in the library after school one night per week to learn together!

Supporting research

The sites listed below either discuss the importance of coding skills for the future workforce or the decline in student numbers in Computer Science degrees:
http://code.org/
http://www.nextgenskills.com/new-figures-reveal-crash-in-computer-science-degrees/
http://logos.cs.uic.edu/recruit/csstatistics.htm