Task Discussion

chinmauche said:

The problem I have had with recruiting girls in computer science is that most of the girls are involved in many school clubs and some are taking high level classes that require a lot of time for completing work. I cannot see my teams making out more than two hours a week for the project. Working together for two hours a week and for twelve weeks should be able to give the girls a reasonable experience that can spur them into entrepreneurship. The mentors we have will bring a lot of expertise to the girls which I believe is invaluable.

on Jan. 17, 2013, 7:11 p.m.

annalise said:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! It is a big time commitment for girls to make, but that's what makes it life-changing for them. The amount that they learn over the 12 weeks is truly transformative, and they will get out every ounce of time and energy that they put in. Of course, they can put less time in, but they may not end up finishing the curriculum.

We encourage students to put in four hours a week because that's what we've found to be effective, but of course you can shape the course in any way you like to fit your students' schedules. We just recommend allowing enough time so that your students aren't scrambling at the end trying to finish everything. It could be that after a few weeks, the girls will want to put in the extra time and then will make time in their schedule for it, in order to make their app the best it can be. Good luck and keep us posted on how it goes!

AnnaLise

on Jan. 17, 2013, 7:22 p.m. in reply to chinmauche

Shannon said:

Hi AnnaLise,

My comment isn't at all about the value of the program or the value of the time spent on it but rather making the communication clear in your recruting materials so it can be understood when we're all deciding whether to take this on, and in our ability to communicate accurately in our own local recruting of other adults as well as the girls.

The girls will self-select once they know the reality. I agree it's very valuable and I know there will be a lot of parents and teachers who will agree too.

Not knowing means we're going to be losing some maybe all our girls because our Teacher who started this in Portland has the same girls involved in another STEM program on the same day not realizing how long this one was. They'll have to choose.

We will hopefully recover again by recruiting again with the real time commitment known. We'll let you know how it goes!

on Jan. 17, 2013, 7:59 p.m. in reply to annalise

annalise said:

Shannon,

I apologize for the miscommunication about the # of hours per week. Can you tell me where you found that # in our materials so we can change it? I appreciate your commitment to this program despite the challenges of the time commitment!

AnnaLise

on Jan. 17, 2013, 8:15 p.m. in reply to Shannon

Ann Greyson said:

Hi! Just between you and me, the four hours per week commitment was spelled out clearly, at least back in October when I was going off the iridescent website. Now that iridescent and p2pu are duplicating materials, I have experienced a little uncertainty at times regarding which information is most up to date, but nothing I couldn't figure out using a little common sense.

on Jan. 17, 2013, 9:01 p.m. in reply to annalise

Shannon said:

Jan.-Apr.

Meet with your team of five girls at least once per week for two hours. Lead 12-minute introductions on entrepreneurship and product development topics at the beginning of each meeting at the school site. For the remainder of the session, act as a project manager for your team, helping them to a) develop an app, b) write a business plan, and c) plan the perfect “pitch” to promote their app on video for the regional pitch competition.

Once per week for 12 weeks, (e.g. 5-7pm)

Ann, this is from the Mentor Responsibility document.

If you could show us where it was clearly spelled out that this is actually a four hour duration class for students in the recruitment documents, that would be constructive.

on Jan. 17, 2013, 11:21 p.m. in reply to Ann Greyson

annalise said:

Shannon,

I think I see what might have happened. This doc you refer to above is correct-- the mentor commitment is 2 hours per week. In the teacher responsibility document, however, it explains that the commitment for a teacher is to "Support students to work in your classroom after school on their Technovation projects" for "4 hours per week for 12 weeks."

The way it usually works is the teacher works with the girls for 2 hours, right after school (3-5), and then the mentor comes in from 5-7. During the first two hours, the girls have independent worktime in which they complete assignments that they didn't finish during the last class, and do a tutorial. As their mentor, you tell them what they need to do for next class at the end of each class (it will be clearly listed in the mentor lesson guide and student workbook).

You don't need to be there for four hours per week. The four hours is for the girls to finish work that they can do independently, with the teacher there just to supervise. The goal is for students to learn to work independently and problem-solve on their own before you arrive.

Of course, the "3-5 independent work/5-7 guided instruction with mentor" is just a guideline, you can choose to set your own schedule if you like, to accommodate the needs of your students and other things that vary from site to site. Does that make sense?

AnnaLise

on Jan. 17, 2013, 11:45 p.m. in reply to Shannon

Ann Greyson said:

Here is one of the links I reviewed back in October 2012: http://iridescentlearning.org/programs/technovation-challenge/involved/involved-coaches/ Here's another: http://iridescentlearning.org/programs/technovation-challenge/involved/involved-coaches/coach-responsibility/ And another: http://iridescentlearning.org/programs/technovation-challenge/involved/involved-students/student-responsibility/ I think that maybe the distinction between "mentors" and "coaches" might be contributing to some of the confusion. On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 8:22 PM, ShannonS <

on Jan. 18, 2013, 2:06 a.m. in reply to Shannon

Shannon said:

That response is perfect AnnaLise, I really suggest it goes on the very first page of "Get Involved" as it paints a clear picture of structure and commitment.

As Ann notes w/ numerous links the info is out there, but this is really something everyone needs to understand right away.

on Jan. 19, 2013, 10:15 a.m. in reply to annalise

Shannon said:

Hi Technovation Team,

It's been a tough couple of weeks as we discover what it will really take to get this done. I have a suggestion to make things clear on the site for those of us remote and without Technovation experience.

The recruitment info on what is expected of a teacher and mentor says 2 hours a week. When we read the curriculum we realized much later those 2 hours weren't in parallel and the students were expected to have a four hour commitment a week with the teacher coming in first to monitor work, the mentor second actually teaching the students. We're getting some understandable pushback on the commit now from kids and parents. One adult is going to have to lead the team -- mentor or teacher -- and will understand they'll need to be available for four hours. Important info to volunteer, plan and recruit to spelled out in the expectations doc.

I like the convention of task lists in the curriculum, very helpful. Would love to see something similar for us to set up the program. I'd be happy to write up a Setting-Up Logistics check list if it doesn't already exist (it's a content rich site, realize it might be there now). It would be an interesting living document with other's input too.

It would be really helpful too if the course materials were consolidated. As the lead I'm spending a lot of time looking around for what I need to organize the classes and communicate with the other mentors. 'Course Materials', under the 'Curriculum' tab from the home page would be a great place for:

1. Student Guide

2. Mentor Guide

3. Course flow with all .ppts for all weeks on one page.

4. Links to all tutorials that are referenced in the materials.

I'm sure others will have a few ideas. Thanks!

the Portlandia team

on Jan. 17, 2013, 10:30 a.m.

Joshua Paley said:

Thank you for your thoughtful post. I feel a bit at sea at the moment, sometimes having difficulty navigating the P2PU site (though this could be just me) and always finding the herding the cats process challenging.

I just wanted to add a voice of support to your comments.

on Jan. 17, 2013, 12:21 p.m. in reply to Shannon

TahaniZ said:

Thanks for you input and feedback! We'd love to hear more! You can always post feedback on our feedback page. I will work on putting all the materials under the curriculum page on the website to make things easier. I recently added p2pu links to all the weeks on our curriculum page as well, so hopefully that will navigation a bit easier until I get the course materials on there as well.

Tahani

on Jan. 17, 2013, 2:56 p.m. in reply to Shannon

Angelica said:

Hi Shannon and Josh,

Thanks for your feedback. We have run into issues with getting everyone information on how to recruit and set up a program, trying to find a balance between sharing enough but not overwhelming people with too much. Your checklist idea is brilliant. This is our first season trying the program virtually, so your feedback as someone who has never been at one of our sites is incredibly enlightening and helpful.

Tahani posted each week of the Challenge in the curriculum page on our website. http://iridescentlearning.org/programs/technovation-challenge/2013-curriculum/. We will add the materials onto this page as well, labeled the way you suggested for all the PPTs in one place and the student workbook, mentor guide, etc. as their own links, with just one caveat, which AnnaLise brought up when we were posting PPTs for the course. As we hear from you and continue to do our own research as a team, we update our materials. You may have noticed that our starter kit, for example, morphed a few times this fall (lean methodology based on user feedback!). We have started to add a "last update: date" onto our materials, so that you can check to make sure you have the latest version. When you download materials ahead of time, keep in mind that there may be a later, better version available when you get to that week.

As for "herding cats", Joshua, even at the founding sites, this is very much at the core of the Technovation experience! If you have ever met someone doing their Masters in Business Administration (MBA), watched the show The Apprentice, or worked on a team to meet a deadline, you appreciate how challenging it is to work on a team of adults. Now add having to work with middle and high school girls, and you will start to understand why so many of the adults and young women who complete our program have told us that Technovation Challenge has tranformed them into more confident, strong, team-driven, project-driven, and process-intensive individuals.

I am grateful to all of you for taking on this Challenge, and appreciate any feedback you can give us to make this program work for you and your students.

We will post once we have updated our website. Shannon, thank you for your offer to help by creating a checklist. Could you create a first draft and post here? We will get everyone's feedback and include the checklist on the website and in our materials.

Thanks again,

Angélica

on Jan. 17, 2013, 2:57 p.m. in reply to Joshua Paley

TahaniZ said:

Hi everyone,

After Shannon's feedback, we posted a link on our curriculum page (all the way at the bottom) that puts all the course materials into one place :)

Here is our curriculum page, where at the bottom you will find the link to all the course materials!

Thanks for your patience and feedback everyone, good night!

Tahani

on Jan. 18, 2013, 10:15 p.m. in reply to Angelica

Shannon said:

Sweet! Thank you Tahani! Very helpful consolidation.

on Jan. 19, 2013, 10:11 a.m. in reply to TahaniZ
Sara Spiegel said:

I am a little confused about the structure of the Challenge.

Are the videos posted with each lesson on p2pU part of each lesson, or extra add-ons?

Also, does anyone have experience running the challenge with 5 teams? All of my mentors will be working virtually, so I am not sure how much of each lesson they should deliver and how much should be done in a large group. I don't know if my schools network can handle 5 virtual meet-ups at the same time, in one room due to chaperoning.

Thanks for any advice,

Sara

on Jan. 15, 2013, 8:23 p.m.

Angelica said:

Hi Sara

The videos on the task for each lesson are optional; they are previous Technovation guest speakers on the topic. For teams that do not have a mentor, the videos are a great way to get the "mentor experience" by hearing a woman in tech talk about the subject. For teams with a mentor, the mentor may or may not choose to show the video depending on how she wants to present that week's content. Teams can also watch them on their own.

One idea is to have your mentors take turns presenting the content so that the "lecture" portion is just done by one mentor/speaker to the whole large group each week. The other mentors can join the hangout to listen to that week's speaker too and maybe add their own experience at the end of the presentation. Then, teams can do ad hoc virtual meetups (maybe you stagger the meeting times) so that their mentors can help with project management. These are usually check-ins where the mentor helps the team agree about what has been completed and what needs to be worked on next, who is doing it, when it will be done, etc. Having the team all work on the same Google doc has worked well in the past, so that everyone can have access to the most updated business plan, pitch, etc. When the mentor does not have face time with the team, she can be editing the Google doc, IMing them through regular chat, etc.

Hope this helps, and excited to hear what has worked for other people.

Angélica

on Jan. 15, 2013, 9:48 p.m. in reply to Sara Spiegel

Kelly Powers said:

Hi Sara,

We ran our first session last week using a video from Week 1 and Week 2. I previewed the videos first and chose to show 2 videos. We also have 5 teams and they all watch the videos together. We have the girls stay after school from 3 hours.

1rst half hour to 1 hour - Goal of the week on the board, since I previewed videos I put some key words on the boards, pivot / success / fail so they see key terms before watching video

During this 1rst hour the girls eat a snack / or pizza. We are all together for the videos but sitting in our groups.

I then gave paper out to the teams to start writing down and brainstorming ideas. After 45 minutes of group chat, I played the 2nd video and then a couple of mentors arrived and we introduced them.

This week, I will start off with coding with the girls by having them complete an AppInventor Tutorial, then food and video. We do have a guest speaker too. After guest speaker, back to group work. The guest speaker will speak no longer then 30 minutes on the topic of the week or inspirational talk.

Still figuring it out but videos definitely all with the group.

Kelly P

on Jan. 16, 2013, 9:50 a.m. in reply to Sara Spiegel

Elaine Mistretta said:

That is about my plan too. meeting 4-6; 4-4:30 videos, 4:30-5 brainstorming and development; 5-5:15 break and snack; 5:15-5:45 mentor or speaker on topic; 5:45 summary statements, impressions and ideas. elaine On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 9:50 AM, kelpowers <

on Jan. 16, 2013, 9:55 a.m. in reply to Kelly Powers

TahaniZ said:

Thanks for sharing your plans Kelly and Elaine! It's nice to know what others are doing :)

on Jan. 16, 2013, 10:29 a.m. in reply to Elaine Mistretta

Sara Spiegel said:

Thanks Angelica, I have decided to meet twice a week with a teacher being lead on the lessons. Then mentors can meet with their team virtual on one of those days. I think this is the only way to be flexible enough for 5 mentors/teams. This has been a serious undertaking:) Best, Sara

on Jan. 17, 2013, 8:38 a.m. in reply to Angelica

Angelica said:

Perfect! That sounds like a wonderful set up, Sara. Let us know how it goes.

Kelly and Elaine -- thanks for sharing your experiences, your posts help everyone who is also trying to figure out how to run their teams.

on Jan. 17, 2013, 1:45 p.m. in reply to Sara Spiegel
Kelly Powers said:

Hello,

I am running a program in Marlborough, MA at AMSA Charter School. We are in need of 4 mentors. Please contact me if you can help. We run our program from 3:30 - 6:30 pm on Thursdays!

Thanks,

Kelly

on Jan. 8, 2013, 8:14 p.m.

annalise said:

Kelly,

The best place for this question is on this thread in our mentor course. Good luck connecting with mentors!

AnnaLise

on Jan. 14, 2013, 2:27 p.m. in reply to Kelly Powers
Elaine Mistretta said:

I am in Haverhill MA. I am happy to make all our speakers open to other teams. Every Friday after school approximately 4-6PM we will have a speaker on the topic that week at HHS. I will also be planning a pitch night with a keynote speaker if anyone wants to join us for one or more than one of the Firdays- let me know and we can plan get togethers. I am happy to host any team who would lke to visit and make a calendar of our professional speakers.

on Dec. 31, 2012, 7:33 p.m.
Elaine Mistretta said:

I have been looking for the map with pins on it to contact mentors that have signed up in the Boston area and can not find it. Also, I am not finding navigation of materials that easy- is there a one page instructions anywhere so i can understand it better?

Thank you

Elaine Mistretta

Haverhill, MA

on Dec. 30, 2012, 2:23 p.m.

Angelica said:

Hi Elaine

Here are the map links:

http://bit.ly/TeacherMap2013
http://bit.ly/MentorMap2013

AnnaLise is still working on the 12-week course (this is a draft). Along with PowerPoint presentations for each week, she has created a mentor guide and a student workbook. Would you like to help preview/proof the materials as she's finishing them up?

The final versions of everything will be ready on P2PU on Jan 14.

Thanks,

Angélica

on Dec. 31, 2012, 10:12 a.m. in reply to Elaine Mistretta

Elaine Mistretta said:

Hi Angelica

That would be great. I am getting a handle on the calendar and tasks. Are the badges a requirement or incentive?

Elaine

on Jan. 1, 2013, 1:33 p.m. in reply to Angelica

TahaniZ said:

Hi Elaine,

The badges are more of an incentive, they are not a requirement. Remember that teachers and/or mentors can also award their teams badges if they feel they have done a good job with the task!

Tahani

on Jan. 2, 2013, 11:25 a.m. in reply to Elaine Mistretta
Elaine Mistretta said:

Question: Is there a timeline that indicates when the due date of the pitch is? I am trying to develop a weekly calendar and want to know when the project is due. I know it is 12 weeks of curriculum material, does the 12 week start Jan 2?

Elaine

Haverhill, MA

on Dec. 28, 2012, 3:19 p.m.

Elaine Mistretta said:

I see that the course starts Jan 21 but do not see the due date

on Dec. 28, 2012, 3:25 p.m. in reply to Elaine Mistretta

Angelica said:

Hi Elaine

The 12 weeks start Jan 21, but can be completed at the team's pace. All deliverables (video pitch, business plan, app source code, etc.) are due April 13, 2013.

Thanks,

Angélica

on Dec. 28, 2012, 3:56 p.m. in reply to Elaine Mistretta

Elaine Mistretta said:

thank you, that makes sense On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 3:56 PM, AngelicaTechnovation <

on Dec. 28, 2012, 4 p.m. in reply to Angelica
Sara Spiegel said:

Can the videos be posted in SchoolTube We don't have access to YouTube at school.

on Dec. 20, 2012, 7:45 p.m.

annalise said:

This is a great point, Sara. Do you know whether Vimeo works at most schools?

AnnaLise

on Dec. 20, 2012, 7:58 p.m. in reply to Sara Spiegel

Sara Spiegel said:

I asked my coworker and they said Vimeo was not blocked. Unfortunately I forgot to check myself.

Thanks, Sara

on Dec. 21, 2012, 8:24 p.m. in reply to annalise