As the co-chair of the Consortium of School Networking (CoSN) Emerging Technologies Committee I sometimes represent the organization at national, state or regional events. This fall I worked on the new 2020 version of the Driving Innovation project with educational experts from around the globe. In addition, I joined the State of XR and Immersive Learning Panel as a CoSN representative.

This fall the Energy Innovation Center (EIC) kicked off a new series of Design Challenges  with high school students from the Parkway West consortium of schools.  One of the Design Challenges engaged students to come up with ways for the EIC to use the facility as both a training and tournament site for eSports. The second Design Challenge asked the students to to design a mobile green wall with a robotics maintenance system for Innovation Hall at the EIC.

I had a chance to visit several places using XR (Extended Reality) activities. At the New Sun Rising Community Center in Millvale I joined Karen Alexander from XRConnectED. It was exciting to see young and older folks sampling these new technologies. I also spent an afternoon at Sewickley Academy where middle school students were creating a virtual tour of their campus.

In November I headed to the Deer Lakes School District to see how they’re personalizing learning and creating Maker spaces for students and staff. I observed students from kindergarten to the middle school involved in a variety of activities that tapped into technology tools in new colorful and engaging redesigned learning spaces.

In October I joined AYA Instruments for the installation of a new Solar Discovery Zone with weather station at the Community Day School in Squirrel Hill. In November AYA also installed a new Discovery Zone for the West Allegheny Middle School.