Governor's School - The Second Class (Report from the event)
Our second successful year went off without a hitch. Ok, so the Pizza got a little lost but everything else worked out great. We had Hal Stern and Jim Parkinson as keynote speakers and the students were all ears listening to them. They also had lots of questions which is great. We had some new breakouts and some old ones. We'll see how the feedback comes back but I know that several of the students told me it was better than their Merck visit and others said they also liked it better than MTA.
Some interesting tidbits that emerged from my impromptu surveys with each session.
- Almost all of them have a FaceBook account and/or a MySpace account. FaceBook is overwhelmingly more popular than MySpace.
- Less than 5 of the 90 students have used Hi5 or SecondLife.
- Less than 5 of the 90 have their own Blog.
- About 10% or so have used Wiki's.
- The consensus on whether there is still a stereotype about girls being in technology was very mixed. Some girls said they are definitely in the minority and some said they don't feel any predjudices. It's good to know that shifts are happening in this area.
Also, the students in my session came up with some interesting ideas on how to use the tools of the participation age to solve issues that exist in their lives. This ranged from suggestions like having a Wiki or Blog for Governor's Schools students to share expectations and feedback on the program to next years students, or ways to address more global issues like global warming, accomodations for working mothers, and online learning.
I was very happy to have PARTICIPATED once again in this worthwhile program. As promised, here is the presentation and assignment for the "Big Lesson You Learned in Kindergarten" session.
Presentation - Part 1
Presentation - Part 2
Presentation - Part 2
Take care,
-Robin
