Another project I have been working on this year has been to “re-start” a company my grandmother founded in 1949 (Miss Prink). Here is a picture of Jane Coventry in 1925 as she made her way alone, to New York City from Des Moines, Iowa … an artist and engineer! Miss Prink was a product she sold via mail and at Bloomingdales etc. It was a furniture polish!
This year has been one of careful reflection and contemplation. After my resignation at the Purnell School as their “Tech Guy” (Which closed at the end of 2020 after 57 years), I had to look deeply into the outcomes schools seek in deploying and assessing that technology – both for the classroom and the administrative perspective. Too often have we seen tech thrown into the classroom without standards or methods of evaluating outcomes. Too often we are paying too much for our student information systems – a significant cost factor – without leveraging what they can do for all constituent groups – prospective applicants, current students and alumni. A shout out to my predecessor who helped all the way into chaos that was Purnell.
Critical thinking is more important than ever when it comes to our viewing “information” on screens. This might sound odd, but as a previous Tech Director and Coordinator, I’m calling on educational institutions to spend less time on screens and more time on reflecting about what they see rather than constantly experiencing what they see – and asking, “Is this true?” How do Design Thinking methodologies fit into the this puzzle? How do we look at what we learned from COVID? How do we make this equitable?
Working diligently with the GlowForge Plus (The pro-uses a different laser and requires more safety), and collaborating with BB&N’s Middle School ceramist, Sasha Bergman, we developed a new (to us) technique. Using a converted Photoshop file of a pattern, we cut this into thrown away cardboard, laser cut, and rolled onto a clay form. The output is amazing!
A rainy Sunday, a good book and time to reflect. This particular non-fiction tome is very interesting … remember, most of this world is about how you attract and keep eyeballs. TVs, Phones, Screens … name it.
As we cautiously emerge from this chapter, what have we learned from an educational perspective?
There are great inequities of race, culture and socio-economic status. Access to broadband internet and devices is still an enormous issue. The asynchronous/real time nature of virtual spaces will continue. Hybrid models are difficult to achieve – snow days will inevitably face a make over going forward.
Let’s hold fast to being safe as we see the light at the end of the tunnel.
One of the most fascinating articles I have read in a long time about the role of Women in Computing – Thank You New York Times! Exceptional work!
As we rely more and more on computers to stay connected in this era of Covid, we need to keep the balance between tradition, innovation, teaching and learning at the center of what we do as educators, students and administrators. Having deployed 100′s of laptops and servers, managed databases and virtualized many machines – and having taught at every grade level from K-12, I seek a community and school where my educational and technical experience will be of service to teaching and learning in this new phase.
Here is one I worked on collaboratively with a colleague recently. The students spend 10 minutes in VR using Tilt Brush (Google) “painting” in a virtual world. We print images of their work and then they take the image and go into a quiet room and reflect on what they created and what virtual means. Amazing!
I have been coaching “Maker Space” projects all year, three classes a week – everything from how to use a hammer to a laser cutter. This fall, students wrote and signed a petition to have my class taught every day. It’s flattering to get student support!
