Why We Need More Ignite Talks and Less Software Training in High School
“Why do we have to give a speech during a Microsoft Office class?” – Disgruntled Student “Software changes too fast. Let’s learn something you’ll use your whole life, like how to talk about something you care about in a clear, concise way.” – Me. “Enlighten us, but make it quick.” An Ignite talk is exactly 5 minutes long…20 slides auto rotated every 15 seconds. The presenter can’t slow it down or speed it up. It’s more difficult than a “death by PowerPoint” type talk that aides the presenter with bullet...
Read MoreTaking Students to Conferences
A teacher friend told me, “Why did you bring students to the conference..that’s where you go to get AWAY from them!” I bit my tongue, but I thought to myself, “Because I LIKE my students, and I want to help them become young professionals.” Isn’t that why we became teachers? To make a difference? Why Take Students to a Teacher’s Conference? Night session of Ohio CS teachers, put on by Battelle's own @kellymgaier ! Entrepreneurial thinking for realsies #MSFTedu @RWScholars pic.twitter.com/vZGovliAf9 — Mark Suter (@Garlicsuter) March 8, 2017...
Read MoreBuilding a Business in the Classroom Part 4: Traction
For weeks my students and I gathered, asking “Where are the customers? Why aren’t they responding to our advertising?” Some students got frustrated that customers weren’t breaking down the door to give us money. Turns out, this struggle was just what we needed. The Push The more frustrated we got, the more determined we were to succeed. It made us work harder, pitching to relatives, making phone calls and sending emails to anyone who would listen. On the last day before Christmas break, we got a TV news story on our local station and a free radio spot in January....
Read More3 Ways to Teach Computer Science through Game Design
There is more to computer science than programming, I know. So just for fun, let’s see the ways game design meets ALL the CS strands as defined in the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) K-12 Computer Science Standards. Each time I see a standard being met, I’ll shout out in parenthesis one of the below strands. I’m using “QuickTextPaste” app to ctrl + alt + # to paste the pre-typed text of the standard. 1) Gamemaker Studio I use this most often. It starts students breaking larger problems down into digestible ones (4.2.1 Computational Thinking). The...
Read MoreBuilding a Business in the Classroom Part 3: Grit9 Emerges
We finally have a name, we are “Grit 9 Design”. Grit9 came out of many iterations and consults with trusted peers, former students, colleagues, and other business owners. We even utilized the pros-in-the-classroom services of Nepris, who hooked us up with Colin Dwan, owner of Prologue Games, to help us choose a good name. Why the name Grit9? Ultimately, it came down to being simple, memorable, and having an available domain, grit9.com. The term “grit” is somewhat of a buzzword, which was actually a detriment, but the word “perseverance” was too long. The...
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