A Visit to Western STEM Magnet High School's new eSports Arena

Late last year, a video came across my LinkedIn feed.  It was a ribbon cutting ceremony at Jefferson County Public School's Western STEM Magnet High School, celebrating their newly built eSports Arena and multimedia learning space:

I was blown away by what I saw, and reached out to Western's Principal Melanie Weaver and Project Manager Greg Fehr about the possibility of facilitating a visit for OVEC educators (and others!) to see the space in person.  Melanie and Greg enthusiastically accepted, and on February 13, our caravan arrived!

Before discussing the eSports arena, I'll share some school demographics for Western.  This is Western's first school year as a district-wide magnet program, with four learning pathways: Culinary Science, Public Health Discoveries (Data Science), Computer Science, and - as the most relevant pathway tying into their arena - Digital Design and Gaming Development.  Western currently has over 400 students. As a sign of their diverse student population, their current freshmen class comes from 22 JCPS middle schools and represent 13 zip codes.

Melanie Weaver, Western's Principal

Greg Fehr, Western's Project Manager

At first, Western's arena project faced an uphill battle, as the school tirelessly problem-solved how to renovate an existing area with working tech at an agreed budget.  To share one of several challenges along the way,  they had to figure out how to consistently provide air conditioning to the space so that its high performing computers didn't overheat.  Vendors such as Creative-Image Technologies and Extron helped Western manifest their vision.  Finally, by December 2024, it was ready for students. 

Computer and tech specs, courtesy of Halston Turner with C-it.

The arena ended up at a whopping 4300 square feet, with a "shoutcast station," a competition area, a separate production studio room, and two instructional spaces that can serve multiple classes simultaneously.  Not only is Western's eSports arena easily the biggest in a Kentucky K-16 school, it would likely rival the size of many across the nation.  Greg mentions one of the design intentions was to have a "wow" factor for students, and it succeeds!   

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A post shared by Adam Watson (@watsonedtech)

Besides all of the amazing technology, we can't forget about the learners!  We were able to interact with some students during their Game Design and Development class, and were impressed by their engagement and their level of rigorous work. 

Despite creating such an incredible learning and competition space, Western is not resting on any laurels.  They expect to grow to 1000 students within the next few years, and soon want to have eSports tournaments both within JCPS and between other districts in the state.  Community partners like Louisville Geek are coming in to work with students. And the seniors at Western don't have to hang up their video game controllers when they graduate.  One of the day's guests was Mitch Greenwell, Director of eSports & Sports Administration Professor at Bellarmine University, and a consultant for the arena project.  Mitch reminded us that Bellarmine has an eSports Management Minor, and offers scholarships for players, as many colleges now do across the nation.

Overall, the visitors and I had all of our expectations surpassed, and left inspired.  Here's to more schools innovatively transforming their learning spaces like Western STEM Magnet!

Special thanks to Melanie Weaver and Greg Fehr for hosting our visit, to Greg for providing many of the background details on Western and their arena project, and for Western's student ambassadors for helping our visitors around the building.

Note: eSports is also often stylized as "e-sports" and "Esports" (as you can see even in this post); my choice was arbitrary, but I wanted to be consistent in my wording for this blog entry.

Share Fair 2020 Tickets Now Available!

Our sixth annual Share Fair (#SCsharefair) will be on Thursday, February 20, 2020!  This FREE professional development, open to educators outside of Shelby County, will have sessions on edtech as well as competency-based education successes and strategies.

Last year, I launched a new website for Share Fair that is chock full of resources.   The site has pages for Frequently Asked Questions (recommended for first-timers in order to understand the conference structure), Multimedia (pictures and video from previous Share Fairs), and an Archive for press clippings and past presenters/sessions.  In order to register for your free tickets, check out the site's Event page. 

We have some "firsts" to celebrate!

• Gi Boylan is our building tech at Heritage Elementary who will be discussing robots and coding.  While this is the second time we've had a building tech present at Share Fair, this is the first time a tech is leading a session alone!
• We have not just one, but TWO sessions with students presenting!  Rachel Kinsey and her Marnel C. Moorman K-8 students will talk about how they are using single-point rubrics to self-assess their competencies.  Kelly Hudson will be facilitating some East Middle students, discussing how Empower and their advisory schedule structure is helping them become self-advocates for their learning. 
• And speaking of Empower . . . we have a Physical Education teacher presenting for the first time!  Billy Smith from West Middle will discuss how he's using Empower to provide feedback to students on their mastery of P.E. and health standards.

Our sessions span multiple contents and include presenters from elementary, middle and high school. For a complete list of sessions and presenters, go to the Share Fair site's Event page or click here.

Mark your calendars, get your tickets, and see you in there in February!

To Tech or Not to Tech: Reflecting on Blended Learning for Young Students

The world of education is quickly becoming a digitized place, and for some, this can be unsettling. Parents, community members, teachers and even students sometimes lament the shift away from past instructional tools; recently, a high school freshman wrote an opinion piece titled "Public education should be less dependent on technology." At the end, she quips, "Technology may fail, but pencils and pens always work."

The debate is important to have for all grades, but in K-3 classrooms, this argument becomes nearly an emotional one. For our youngest students, the choice can seem agonizing. Do you fully engage them by recognizing their “real” life outside of school is constantly filtered through a digital lens, and an online workforce is their present and future?  Or do you make your classroom an analog haven where traditional materials -- actual books with paper pages, physical math manipulatives, Elmer’s Glue -- give the students a digital reprieve from hours of at-home screen time?

While I won't pretend that I can definitively solve this conundrum, I offer three steps to determine a way forward.

The first asks for hard reflection. You must consider how much bang for the buck you are currently getting for your traditional “this is the way I’ve always done it” approach.  Pencils and pens may never fail, but clearly across the United States, students do. Are your math and reading scores rising every year, or have they become stagnant or even declined?  On any given day, are students fully engaged and actively learning, or more distracted than ever and only passively receiving content?  If your current state tends toward the latter in both of those questions, recognize your present instruction is not having your expected impact, and change is necessary; you need to at least consider a different approach to teaching with additional or different (possibly digital) tools.

This is a good segue into the second step: analyze not how much you are using technology, but how you are using it. Just like any effective pedagogical tool, technology should enable students to be collaborative, creative, and critical thinkers. Two recent tweets (both of which reference TeachThought) shared to me by my colleague Lora Shields sum this point up nicely. The first uses side by side columns to show the difference between mere usage and intentional integration:

You're using technology in the classroom (I hope), but are you truly integrating it? Do you know the difference? https://t.co/dhKi1d5rvo pic.twitter.com/iJPK5AwPCM

— TeachThought (@TeachThought) November 17, 2017

The second tweet looks at Bloom's Taxonomy verbs from a digital perspective. What are students doing with the tech? Clearly, the higher up the scale, the higher order the thinking:

pic.twitter.com/KPdj3sES2M

— Moker (@MokerKQ) November 18, 2017

The third step is to reject the either/or false dilemma nature of the question of "to tech or not to tech."  A modern classroom will likely have both digital and analog tools side by side, where technology usage is not seen as a “reward” or for a special hour on Friday.  It requires balance and moderation -- in short, a blended learning approach.  This can take time, a growth mindset, and patience.  It also requires moving the blended learning classroom from a "substitution" model -- where the pinnacle of achievement is merely digital flashcards and online dictionaries -- to a “redefinition” model where teaching is truly transformed and recentered . . . a place where students are exploring creativity, impacting their environment, and active reflectors of their own learning.

If you need to see a blended learning model, look no further than Jodie Collins and her kindergarten classroom at Wright Elementary. Ms. Collins (like all Shelby K students) has a 1:1 class set of iPads. After a recent visit, I knew she would be a great person to interview about the challenges and successes of integrating technology with our youngest students.

Ms. Collins, welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Share your story. 
I began teaching in 2000. I taught Head Start. I finished my BA in Early Childhood Education in 2003 and continued with Head Start at Wright. In 2005 I began teaching Kindergarten here. I went to Georgetown and obtained my Masters in the Teacher Leader Program in Instructional Technology. Technology has always been a love of mine. I have always loved being innovative in my teaching. I started just by using technology in my classroom. I used to hear, “Oh, kindergarten students can’t use technology to learn.” Yes they can and they do! I do a lot of blog reading of other teachers and technology. Technology in primary is powerful and necessary considering the world our kiddos are growing up in!

How have you used your class set of iPads to create a blended learning environment in your classroom? My students use iPads for different avenues of their learning. The basic one is apps. We use apps for educational games. They also use iPads as a listening center. They scan QR codes and listen and watch stories being read to them. We have math stations during the week and students will use an iPad to access the video I make to show them how to work in their math station. They access this through a QR code I create to connect them to the video. The video helps them see and hear the rules for the station but also different ways to play the games and the learning targets they will be working on while in that station! [Editor's note: if you don't have a mobile device, you can scan QR codes with the webcam of a laptop or Chromebook using The QR Code Generator website.] I also use iPads for personalized learning in Kindergarten.

Personalized learning in kindergarten?  How do you do that?  
Yes, you heard me right! My students are on an app called Boom Learning (Boom Cards is the name in the app store). I created my free account and added my students. I am able to assign task cards to my students based on their individual needs in the areas of Math, ELA, Science and Social Studies. I can create task cards, but the website has a ton of free task cards in their store or I can purchase decks through Boom Learning and on Teachers Pay Teachers. My students are able to work on skills they need and on their level. Not only does this help the students but Boom Learning keeps reports for me to access how my students are performing on each skill. I see their accuracy, the number of times the deck was attempted, and I can even see the rate at which the student is answering or performing the skill. This helps me see if they lingering on a certain problem for a long time, and I can check in with them and pinpoint where they may be struggling and intervene to help!

Some stakeholders are concerned if we are using too much technology, especially with primary students.  What is your opinion on integrating digital tools for K-3 students?  How do you balance and manage digital tools with more traditional, analog approaches to learning? 
I think we are doing our students a disservice if we do not use technology in our classrooms. That is the nature of the beast and the world around us is filled with technology. We want our students able to use technology appropriately and efficiently. Yes, I use a lot of technology in my classroom, but I also use pencil and paper and crayons and markers. My students are well balanced in learning from both technology and traditional tools in Kindergarten. We write daily, we color daily, and we are learning to type too!

What are some of your favorite iOS apps or iPad-friendly web tools?  
Definitely Boom Learning! I love how I can differentiate with it. I have students working on addition through 20 already even though we are not to addition in our Core Content instruction yet! I found Boom Learning to be more beneficial having the iPads and also because of the reports I get from it. I also like Splash Math, ABCya, Sand Draw, Rainbow Draw, Glo Draw.  With an app called Sticky, students practice typing words. We have just started working with a few apps on coding!

What’s a new tool or digital approach you are wanting to try out for the first time?
I want to incorporate Google Classroom but we are not there yet!  Google Classroom may work better for iPads a little later in the year. I am definitely interested in coding and teaching them how to code. I am looking into some LEGO kits that do just that for the classroom!

Any advice you would like to share with other K-3 teachers wanting to integrate edtech? 
TRY IT! Yes, it can be scary and yes you are going to STRUGGLE but as [our principal] Mr. Green reminds us, it is all about the struggle! We learn when we struggle! Do not give up and be creative.  Make it work for you and your kiddos!

Thank you Ms. Collins for taking the time to interview!


In closing, here are some additional resources for blended learning and tools for elementary students:

• Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools by Michael B. Horn and Heather Staker.
• K-3 Technology Primer, with some tools suggested by Shelby staff!
• Julia Lyle’s website, a teacher at Heritage Elementary, which details her blended and personalized learning journey.
• Edtech Elixirs entries on blended learning.  In particular, I suggest “Blended and Personalized Learning.”

Hour of Code 2016

It's that time of year again!  Shelby County just experienced another week of #HourOfCode (Dec. 5 - 9).  Our previous years had memorable milestones, but one thing I could see differently this year was how many of our librarians took a lead in getting students excited about coding.   (For this, I have to give props to Sarah Price at Wright Elementary for setting a high bar last year.)

I asked for Shelby County librarians to share their 2016 coding stories via email.  Here are some of their responses (slightly edited):

Penny Bland, Heritage Elementary:

Students work on coding in the library while having fun with Dash the robot.#heritagerocks pic.twitter.com/QvME87B0AU

— Penny Bland (@heritageeagles3) December 7, 2016

Renae Orange, East Middle: "I have a personalized learning class I teach.  We spent our time yesterday coding at code.org.  Some of my students are exploring how to take what they learned to build a robot and program it."

Vicki Stoltz, Clear Creek Elementary: "I am introducing a few unplugged lessons for my K-1 classes with 4 little Bee Bots and some floor mats [see the video below].  Dash has also been a big hit with the older kids.  Second through Fifth Grade students have been exploring bookmarked coding sites as well."

Jennifer Tinsley, Painted Stone Elementary:  "The prior week, we discussed coding vocabulary and did a little intro with Angry Birds from the Code.org website.   On Hour of Code week, we used mainly Angry Birds and Star Wars.  So far so good!  I've even heard from several students 'I want to do this at home'!"

Sarah Price, Wright Elementary: "Everybody is coding in the library all week long on activities found on Code.org (Star Wars, Minecraft, Angry Birds) as well as iPad apps such as Kodable with our kindergarteners.  I set up folders inside a Schoology Course with grade-appropriate choices to help them narrow down which program to click.  I have been using a few fifth grade volunteers to help with the K-1 classes, and that has been working very well.  Having the high school volunteers was nice last year, but I think it is even nicer to be using our own student leaders."

Of course, our teachers independently did their share of coding as well.  Tina Eden (East Middle) tweeted out:

Hour of Code in my classes @EastMSMissiles #HourofCode Kids programming games and making connections! #STEMscience pic.twitter.com/s1eprT8igW

— Tina Eden (@Eden1Eden) December 8, 2016

What better way to end than to share a tweet from Matthew Watts from Collins High School:

Mine craft hour of code continues at home. Riley is trying to cut down all 3 trees, level 4. @watsonedtech @JohnR_Leeper pic.twitter.com/RRDc7xwYfd

— Matthew Watts (@mjwgolfer) December 7, 2016

That is our hope for Riley and others: that the coding we start at school becomes a passion they want to do at home and beyond.

Thanks to all who encourage their students and children to code, last week and every week!

Hour of Code 2015

This week (Dec. 7-11), Shelby County again celebrated the #HourOfCode!  In my entry last year,  I went into detail what the Hour of Code is.   In short, students are encouraged to try programming and coding for at least one hour.

Teachers and librarians across the district have been facilitating student coding all this week.  Here are some highlights!

Beth Jones (LMS at Collins High School) was ready to receive Mrs. Terhune's students:

Collins is getting ready. Hour of Code with Mrs. Terhune's 1st Period tomorrow. #HourOfCode @watsonedtech pic.twitter.com/5GauKxjQGC

— Beth Jones (@mlchslibrary) December 9, 2015

Vicki Stoltz (LMS at Clear Creek Elementary, who made a Symbaloo last year listing some great coding resources) captured some fifth grade students Minecrafting via the Code.org website.  She particularly praised how these students, like many, worked collaboratively side by side to problem solve their way through the modules:

When I emailed out to the district to talk up the Hour of Code, several other teachers replied with their own pledge to give students this learning opportunity: Tina Eden (East Middle), Teresa Walther (Talented and Gifted), Tyler Harris (SCHS), Julie Webb (LMS at SCHS), Sarah Smith and Meredith Morrison (both from Southside Elementary).

One particular partnership, between Wright Elementary's LMS Sarah Price and our Area Technology Center (ATC) teacher Valerie Ricchio, really caught my attention.  Every day this week, Ms. Price took on a huge challenge of making sure that all of Wright's K-5 students got an hour of code -- as far as I know, the first time in Shelby County that one of our schools got 100% student participation in coding.  In addition, Ms. Ricchio arranged for students in her technical computer program (from Collins and Shelby County High School) to come over to Wright as mentor-helpers.  Using iPads, the Wright students interacted with both Code.org (besides Minecraft, the Star Wars modules were particularly popular!) and the app Lightbot.

Here with @shelbycountysch 1st graders in @wrightjetsread library. With ATC student help, doing #hourofcode! pic.twitter.com/iYLYiCYVUe

— Adam Watson (@watsonedtech) December 7, 2015

.@wrightjetsread K Ss using @lightbotcom.Thank you Ms. Ricchio for bringing SCHS & MLC Ss over to help! #HourOfCode pic.twitter.com/qtWbHYJRcC

— Adam Watson (@watsonedtech) December 7, 2015

And others in our state noticed!

More Shelby Co students -- @shelbycountysch #HourOfCode #Minecraft @MS_ITAcademy @megahoch pic.twitter.com/YPHtJrNIcH

— Ky IT Academy (@KYITAcademy) December 8, 2015

It was wonderful to see our younger and older students have such meaningful interaction (as well as such valuable teamwork between a librarian and a teacher from two different schools).  But cross-collaboration and compassion are not limited to technical assistance in Shelby County.  It's part of our mission statement to "embrace social responsibility."  It's part of our Strategic Leadership strands: globally effective, healthy and responsible students.   So whether it is intermediate elementary students being readers for primary students....or high school students purchasing holiday gifts for elementary students who are less fortunate, or helping them code....or our plans for student-run help desks as our 1:1 initiative simply becomes another part of our daily learning culture....helping is just another day in the district.

What have you done for Hour of Code this year?  Please tell us in the Comments below.

The Hour of Code in Shelby County

As many of you know, we are at the end of Computer Science Education Week, when students worldwide have been challenged to complete an #HourOfCode.   Programming is not only for future computer science majors.  As the Steve Jobs quote at the beginning of this video reminds us, "Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer...because it teaches you how to think."

President Obama made history by being the first President to participate:

Today Obama became the 1st US President to write a computer program #HourOfCode @WhiteHouse http://t.co/tg0Xcdu1w0 pic.twitter.com/kPeLZRSu4A
— Code.org (@codeorg) December 9, 2014

Of course, coding is a gender-neutral endeavor, not just "for the boys."  As a father of two daughters, I am heartened to see the efforts of others (and websites like this) that give young female programmers a starting nudge.  After all, as this tweet reminds us:

A 31yr old female wrote the code that landed Apollo 11 on the moon. She coined the term Software Engineer. Thank you, Margaret Hamilton!
— Sarah Pressler (@sarahpressler) December 10, 2014

 Computer programming may seem daunting at first, but from small beginnings big things come.  Websites  like Code.org offer fantastic resources -- for free! -- that teach coding in modular small steps that even our youngest students can learn from.

While at East Middle, I knew that Amber Hall taught a technology class to 6th and 7th graders, so I asked if I could slide on by.  Sure enough, she was having her students use Code.org to independently practice code.  The website allows the teacher to create accounts for the students and monitor their progress as they complete modules.  The students were incredibly engaged and dedicated to making their programs work.  For many of the lessons, it involves moving your game-like avatar around the screen in a prescribed way.  The code algorithms are "drag and drop" elements that can easily be rearranged, although the actual code can be seen with a click, much in the same way that the "compose" in Blogger shows "what you see is what you get," but you can click on the HTML button to see the underlying code.

An example from a student's Code.org screen. (from Heather McCall's class, SCHS)

Here is a tweet from Amber showing her students in action:

Ms. Hall's classes are excited about #hourofcode @watsonedtech pic.twitter.com/hadRW4GBRY
— Amber (@Ambnichall) December 10, 2014

Amber is enthusiastic to receive some new Windows laptops in January so that she can have students assemble and program robots, using the same basic code algorithms they are practicing now.  Awesome stuff.

Earlier in the week, I emailed and tweeted out to Shelby County teachers to share their Hour of Code stories and pictures.  Here are some of their responses!

Valerie Ricchio at the Shelby County Area Technical Center had her students do an Hour of Code.

Laura Smith at West Middle is having her 6th and 7th graders in Robotics program their robots to move around.

Lest you think programming is only for middle and high school students, here's a Clear Creek Elementary student programming with the Smartboard, shared by LMS Vicki Stoltz:

Vicki also created a Symbaloo webmix of coding sites.

Heather McCall, an Engineering teacher at Shelby County High School, has her freshmen through senior students do programming all year long.  "We use ROBOTC to program motors and use input sensors to create robots and machines to accomplish different tasks. In Computer Integrated Manufacturing we program a CNC machine to mill parts out of wood or polycarbonate materials using G&M codes and AutoCAD for 3D modeling."   Here are some of Heather's tweets:

We are participating in the #HourofCode at Shelby Co. Over 100 lines of code so far! pic.twitter.com/nKrXlGchN2
— Ms. Heather McCall (@msheathermccall) December 10, 2014

Engineering class doing an #HourofCode #CSEdWeek pic.twitter.com/2apfEItksL
— Ms. Heather McCall (@msheathermccall) December 11, 2014

Let us come full circle back to East Middle. Using a class set of iPads, the students of Tina Eden (7th Grade Science) and Terry Walther have written over 6000 lines of code this week in an "Flappy Bird" coding program:

As a final tribute, here's' a Magisto video to Shelby County Hour of Code 2014!

The week may be ending, but that's no reason to stop teaching computer science and programming.  The free curriculum is out there, so keep using it!  Don't stress out if students know more than you do; learn beside them and let them teach you.  Take a breath and remember:

From http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-and-carry-on-coding-100.png

A very special #ShelbyTUITshoutout to all of the above educators, and thank you for sharing your stories!