Photos by Norton Gusky CC BY 4.0

In November 2015 I joined colleagues from South Fayette, Fort Cherry, and the MACS for a presentation, “Making a Digital Salad” at the PASCD Conference in Pittsburgh. Also in November I coordinated the programming for this year’s Three Rivers Educational Technology Conference (TRETC) on November 4 at the Bethel Park High School in Pittsburgh. This year the Edsurge Summit, a national event that brings an entrepreneurial perspective to education, shared the keynote speaker, Mandela Schumacher-Hodge,  with TRETC and then each event had their own separate tracks targeting educational leaders and practitioners. In November I also joined the edcampPGH team for our fifth unconference event. Over 130 educators from K-12, out of school, higher education, and business came to the Montour High School for an energizing event organized by Justin Aglio. Mike Ghalani, the superintendent, gave a great introduction and pointed out that I helped the district to hire Justin and to write a grant that brought in the first zSpace virtual media lab in the state.

I work with two startups  – Zulama and Birdbrain Technologies. This fall I helped the Zulama team to develop a new format for game-based learning workshops. For Birdbrain I assisted in the shaping of a Robot Petting Zoo at the MakerFaire in October. The final projects were created over a weekend by thirteen creative high school students from schools around the region.

For the fall I wrapped up a white paper for the Design and Innovation Center at Parkway West Career and Technology Center.(PWCTC)  I helped to negotiate a collaboration between PWCTC  and the Energy Innovation Center (EIC) in Pittsburgh. The first activity for the collaborative effort will have teams of students from three schools taking on the role of consultants to complete a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a design to remake one of the courtyards at the EIC.