2020 #PaSTEMambassador

This week started off with the flu hitting home.  My wife and daughter both fell ill and missed school for several days, I was very cautious in helping them with their sickness and thankfully I did not catch the stomach bug they had.

My Acceptance E-Mail into the 2020 PA STEM Ambassador Program

This was great news because for the final two days of February I was at training because I was selected as a 2020 PA STEM Ambassador through the Pennsylvania Statewide Afterschool Youth Development Network (PSAYDN).  I was chosen as 1 of 28 educators and business leaders to work with PSAYDN to develop our advocacy efficacy and work with policymakers in The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The Stats of this Amazing Cohort!

For two days we listened and learned about great organizations such as The Education Policy and Leadership Center (EPLC), the STEM Education Coalition, the Afterschool Alliance, the PA Department of Education STEM Initiative, and the PA Workforce Development Board.  All of these advocacy groups had great information and a powerful message to engage students in STEM activities, during and after school.  One of the best nuggets of information was from the Keynote Speaker was that STEM is not just content, it is an inquiry-based take on processing and learning.

With coming on board for this program I met some great innovative educators and business leaders.  We are all being tasked with creating a policy project for the next 10 months, and with my passion for computer science and gaming, I think this is a great way to help push game design and video games are legitimate STEM learning opportunities.  I hope that this will also have a greater impact on urban student experiences.  To find out more about the features of the program check out the press release: 2020 STEM Ambassadors!

How Family Saved My Career

I am far from a perfect human being and far from a perfect teacher.

I never wanted to go above and beyond what I considered my job until I met my wife.

The year, 2011 was the start of something special, my wife went on a first date with me, and that was the start of our amazing little family.

Three houses, three energetic dogs and two remarkable daughters later I have found myself wanting to make sure I am pushing myself to be the teacher that my daughters deserve in my own classroom.  It is funny how having your own children can change your perspective on teaching.  My family gave me the confidence to step-up to more leadership roles, go for the master's degree I wanted and become an educator that my students deserve.

My Girls 

After starting courses on Technology in Education, I brought up my Twitter account and started following more educators, growing an awesome #PLN (Professional Learning Network).  I found the Math-Twitter Blog-o-Sphere (#MTBoS) and followed more like-minded math teachers which in turn helped me find fun, engaging activities for my students. While researching and finding more information during my second master's, I dove headfirst into video games in the classroom and exploring the ever-growing eSports in education movement. I also found the #eSportsEDU and #games4ed hashtag followings on Twitter.  Growing my #PLN to include more technology education and game-based learning in the classroom.

Search Twitter for #MTBoS

Finding support in my family, both in my home, in my Bearcat Family and also with my Twitter Family, has given me more confidence in my teaching, pushed me to find meaning and challenges in education, and ultimately saved my career.

Search Twitter for #esportsEDU

Constant Change

As I started my 13th year, I was naive and hopeful.  Yet again I was starting with a mostly new group of students, and adding another course to my repertoire, AP Computer Science A.  I also finished up my second master's, a MsEd in Instructional Technology Specialist, which added to my PA State Certification.  I have always wanted to teach students about computers, it was originally my reason to go into teaching, now I am living that dream.

2nd Master's Degree

IT Specialist Certification

Having added the AP CSP course in the 2018-2019 school year, helped our school achieve the 10th Annual AP District Honor Roll, which also shocked our surrounding community.  (See the Article here: Surprising Results for York County AP Honor Roll)  But I did not want to just stop with computer science.  I grew up playing video games, and as an avid gamer, a lot of my graduate work incorporated gaming to learn, gamification and video games in the classroom.  Through this research and willingness to learn, I found help from some amazing places.

AP CSP Added last year to increase
our student AP experiences

My co-worker, Nicholas, and I decided it was time to do more, and we became Class Advisers for the incoming freshmen, the Bearcat Class of 2023.  We also are still co-advising the Video Game Club.  Over the summer we attended the CS For All PA Summitt, which helped us discover the great program, NASEF, which started the process to become a part of a sanctioned High School eSports League.   Though we have some hiccups in setting up our online games, there has been a lot of interest in the club and eSports team.  Check out the William Penn Cybercat's Facebook Page for more info on what the students are doing.

The new Cybercat Student Leaders.

My PIC, Nicholas Naugle and I
on Twin Day.

Some other projects I am excited about working on include partnerships in my community and abroad have brought on new opportunities. The biggest one involves helping build a former student's student-driven eSports and Video Game community, the BEAST Initiative Push.  Through this partnership, students will have more opportunities to build and be a voice in the eSports community in York. 

Cybercats playing on the Occulus!

I also have a good idea of what to do next with students who are not going to compete in the eSports competitions, and just want to game with friends at school.  Finding the organization VGC USA and it's founders right in South Central PA have opened up the possibility for more gaming learning, volunteer experiences, and career exploration for the Cybercats. 

Cybercats Gaming Together.

Finally, I would like to share where I have been finding more inspiration in gamification, and gaming to learn in everyday life from the Podcast, Professor Game.  I have ideas galore and studies to back-up my desire to game and play games in the classroom.  I am thinking to start by creating a new card game for my students to play when we learn about congruent triangles.

My Gaming Information Folder.

All of these great resources have just fallen into my lap and I wanted to make sure I shared them with others who are looking for similar information.  This blog started as a way for me to share mathematical experiences, but now is morphing into my entire educational experience including my push of educational boundaries to include video games.

Social Media Wellness - A Resource for Parents

As parents, we all want to be able to protect our children from the world and make sure they grow up with confidence, self-awareness, and great interpersonal skills.  As a parent, I want to make sure my little girls grow up nurtured and loved, and although a little bit sheltered because realistically I want them to be safe from traumatic and damaging experiences.  Some of the most used applications that I discussed with my high school students recently involve the ever-popular, Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok, all of which involve the opportunity to connect and interact with peers and others.

Facebook: 
What is it? Facebook has been around for the longest and acts as an online connection to people, places, and events.  There are so many uses for Facebook including sharing posts, photos, websites, and videos. People can create events, tag each other in any of the different mediums shared.

When allowing a child to use social media such as Facebook it is often a good idea to maintain open communication about expectations you have with your student and how they interact with others online. Your student will want to maintain good privacy settings, talk them through setting them up, talk to them about monitoring who and what they are tagged in on Facebook.  Future schools and employers look at social media accounts when accepting and hiring.  Help them not share personal information that others could potentially use against them.  

Snapchat:
What is it? Snapchat is a more creative approach to sharing photos and videos, where you can directly send one of these media and then your connected friend who views it only has a certain amount of time to see the pic or vid.  There are filters and voice modifiers to make interacting fun and entertaining, and a way to create a story in one’s profile that shares a day's events, only for twenty-four hours.

Help your student by setting the expectation that they must adhere to family rules and etiquette online. Snapchat can be potentially damaging when pictures and videos are shared from one phone to another. Something that was meant to be private could be shared with others and the world. Parents should talk to their students about the importance of privacy and not adding people to their Snapchat friend list who they do not know.

TikTok:
What is it? Tiktok has been a newer invention and allows users to create mini-videos, about 15 seconds and string four videos together for a maximum of 60 seconds in a story. The videos can be spliced together with friends, have added Augmented Reality features and incorporate music from around the web. Tiktok allows it's users to add friends, curate their videos and liked videos to share with those they connected with.

Parents can help their students by making sure they understand friending random people can be dangerous and potentially expose them to unwanted videos. Students should have good privacy settings so not everyone can see their videos, and make sure they are using the app in an acceptable way that their parents agree on.

Using good common sense to help guide your own student in this world can help keep everyone safe. Young adults are looking for connections and finding them all around the world in the apps that they use. A simple way to keep your teenager safe online is to talk with them and set the tone for them to be able to come to you and speak about any issues.

During an online course, I was tasked with reading Social Media Wellness, by Ana Homayoun. If you would like more information on how to connect with your teenager about social media, I highly recommend this book!