Google Comes to Bayshore

Bayshore Tech Team at Bayshore

On October 11th, some of the Dolphin Tech Team including all of the leaders, set off to share what they do during their once a week, 2:45-3:30 meetings. The audience was staff from Google as well as teachers throughout the state. From 10:30 A.M.  to 1:00 P.M. , we spoke to about six groups of anywhere from ten to twenty-five people in each group. The discussion started off with a basic introduction, then we almost immediately moved into a live Q&A. We also talked about some of their projects, and recent public social events, like the Lego wall, and presenting at Monmouth University.

Presenting at Monmouth University

                                                 

Amber Hager
7th Grade Tech Team Leader

Lego Wall

With every year more and more students are coming into Dr, Strobel's class ready for 40 minutes of computers and everything technological. But after a post on Twitter where the tech team was tagged o a plan was hatched, a way for us to spice up the classroom a bit. And with that the Lego Wall was born. First things first,  Dr. Strobel checked out this link which was provided on Twitter.

http://renovatedlearning.com/2014/09/12/the-epic-library-lego-wall-how-to-build-one/

Next she contacted to author of the site to get more information and brought it to the Tech Team meeting. Now that we had a plan we needed a way for everyone in the school to know. So members of the Tech Team started on PR for the project, giving every homeroom a bag for donating Legos and loose change.  Also, our PE teacher, Mrs. B. Siegel, decided she would donate the money from the faculty vs 8th grade Volley Ball game to purchase the baseplates. After a few weeks, we were finally able to raise enough money to complete the wall.   Mr. Strobel came in and worked with Nick F, Kevin K and Pat B to cut and glue the baseplates onto the plywood frame.  Once it was completed it had to dry for 5 days.  You can see how we started to decorate it with our initials. We also figured that it could be used as a green screen as well. The Lego Wall serves many purposes and is a fun, imaginative way to incorporate Legos into our curriculum.

Matt Conway
8th Grade Tech Team



Picture taken by Luke Ferrell through Twitter

Starting the Tech Team-Part 2

I was excited when I was asked to be the “adult in the room” aka adviser for the Bayshore Tech team, but on the same hand, was not sure how to tackle this task.  The first thing I did was to “Google it” to look for other ideas on how people set up their team, how members were selected, and the types of projects they did.  I knew this would be such a positive experience for the students because it would

• Create student leaders at school
• Encourage teamwork, cooperation, and collaboration
• Practice coding skills
• Give them the opportunity at public speaking
• Encourage digital citizenship
• Help build friendships that crossed grade level boundaries
• Help them create content
• Help them build confidence
• Help them have student voice

We decided we needed a purpose and a mission statement.  After looking at other websites, one of the purposes of a student led team was to act as a help-desk or to staff a “genius bar”.  Though the students have helped troubleshoot basic issues in their teacher's’ classroom, that did not seem like something that would work with the middle school schedule.  We also toyed with the idea of having a “genius bar” but that did not seem like it would work either. You can view our purpose and mission statement by clicking on this link: Bayshore Tech Team Presentation. We finally agreed that we wanted a program that was student led, that had specific tasks (you can view some of the tasks we completed in the presentation) so that we were not scattered and doing too many things at once.  It was difficult to get 20 students to agree on the same task, so team leaders from each grade level were created.

The job of the team leaders was to meet together with me to look at different tasks and decide what we would like to do.  After the leadership team decided on a specific project, their job was to do the groundwork to have as much information to present to the entire Tech Team. Some of our entire team meetings were spent hearing the team leaders’ proposals and deciding the direction we were heading.  Our most current project is the installation of a Lego Wall in room 241.


Dr. Strobel

Ideas for Student-Led Tech Teams

1. Tech Contest- At first, students may not be very enthusiastic to be involved in a "tech team". A contest might grab their attention and get them excited about helping the school and working with technology throughout the school!
2. Coding Workshops or Maker Space- This should be very informal, relaxed, and open to all students. Reserve an hour or two in a classroom or your auditorium and invite students to come and learn about coding, robotics, or STEM creations. A great place to start is with block coding using Scratch or Hour of Code.
3. Coding Choice Activities- If you are looking for a more controlled and organized environment
4. Student-Led Tutorials- Start by asking teachers and other students what programs they want to learn how to use. From those suggestions, students can create tutorials, either videos or online presentations, demonstrating step-by-step how to use these programs.
5. Teacher Workshop/Tech Expo- Organize an event for your school district for parents, teachers, and administrators to present and teach some of the tools that your tech team members created tutorials for. Here are two ways of organizing this event:
1. Presentations: Students can demonstrate how to use these program is sessions. Attendees can choose sessions they want to attend in different classrooms throughout the school.
2. 1-on-1: Held in a bigger room, (such as a Library/Media Center, Cafeteria, or Auditorium), tables and chair should be set up around the room, each table for a different program.
6. Basic Troubleshooting- Either an hour or two after school or during a lunch period, members should be available to help teachers with their school devices or a specific program.
7. Teaching Lower Grades- Though this may require a little bit of planning and you might need to wait for approval from your school district, taking your team on a trip to visit and teach lower grades is a great way to get younger kids and teachers excited about computer science and using technology in the classroom! This should be done at the end of the school year to allow the team to develop lessons and tutorials and practice teaching them.
8. Digital Citizenship- Through online games, such as Minecraft EDU and Second Life, students can interact with others, reinforcing vital digital citizenship concepts in an online game.

Luke Ferrell
8th Grade Leader and Founder
Bayshore Tech Team

Creation of the Bayshore Tech Team

I have the privilege of working with a very talented and well-rounded group of middle school students that make up the Bayshore Dolphin's Tech Team. These students not only love tech but are involved in band, chorus, drama, sports, Boy Scouts, and community service.

The concept of a Tech Team was purposed in 2013 by a 6th grader at the Mikey D 3 v 3 benefit basketball tournament to then Vice Principal Mr. Alston. The original purpose of the team was to compete in the White House Film Fest, (which we did ). The team started as 5 students who met twice a week during lunch.  These students had approximately 4 weeks to get the video created and submitted. They used their smartphones to record the footage, uploaded it to Animoto (which at that time was free) and worked to edit together the various pieces. There were so many frustrating moments because there were multiple times footage was lost or had to be redone because of the quality. These students worked tirelessly to edit the raw footage and to finish the video.  They were determine to finish this project and represent Bayshore!  Starting with a challenge or specific project is the way to go because it created so much energy and excitement.  After finishing the video they asked what was the next step and couldn't wait to get started on that task!

Thanks to the support from our principal, Mr. Scarano, our then Vice-Principal, Mr. Alston, and our current Vice Principal, Mr. Cullen, the team evolved into a general-purpose Tech Team, which takes on a variety of projects at our school and for our district. We have presented at parent's nights, assisted in troubleshooting equipment for presentations, and presented at EdCamp Jersey Shore and Ednado.  These students have created digital badges and tutorials for teachers in the building to use. We also have a partnership with the Computer Science department at Monmouth University.

From the first team of 5 sixth graders passionate about creating a video for the White House Challenge, we have grown into a team of 29 students.  This team reaches beyond the walls of Bayshore.  We are pleased to have DJ Hager, a former Bayshore student and a student leader at High School South be a part of this amazing team. We are an entirely student-led team of 6th, 7th, 8th and 12th grade students. There are "team leaders" for each grade level that suggest and plan activities for the group.These students meet after school once a week for approximately 45 minutes, which enables former students the opportunity to stay involved with the team.

Below are some of the videos showing what we created or participated in:.

ASL Translator

CommomSense Media Teen Panel

Hour of Code Video

Dr. Donna Strobel

Bayshore Middle School Tech Team Advisor