Learning & Leading Through Technology

produce high-quality products. We sought constructive feedback from the online Scratch community by creating a gallery specifically for our students to post their work. One Scratcher, “Cooler-Than-Ice,” who had won third place in the challenge the previous year, commented on all of our students’ video games, and our students modified their projects based on her and other online feedback.

One student explained, “The [teachers] were there in
case I needed help, but the students were helpful too,
especially those who had more experience.”
When they finished their projects, we hosted a Virtual
Arcade where other young people could beta-test their
classmates’ STEM games and give feedback before the
final upload to the competition website.

Top-Down Support

Because video game design and music video production are relatively new in schools, teaching with these tools might be an uncomfortable and even daunting feat for teachers. That’s why technology leaders and school administration must support them as they take risks to incorporate innovative, constructionist activities in their classroom.

In our case, Peter Endriss, a technology leader at Penn Alexander, visited periodically and brought his class to participate in our Virtual Arcade. He supported our initial efforts by subsequently entering students’ video games in statewide competitions, including the Science and Engineering Fair. These additional competitions ensured that students continued to work on their games even after our course had ended.

At our second site, the Science Leadership Academy, the principal and ISTE’s 2013 Outstanding Leader, Chris Lehmann, supported the Collab Camps by giving us extended sessions throughout the year and allowing us to recruit participants during their student advisement periods.

He also posted these projects on the school website, signaling a schoolwide commitment to constructionist learning.

But encouraging teachers to use more authentic learning activities and assessments rather than multiple-choice tests is not enough. Administrators and technology leaders must also provide opportunities for teachers to gain the skills to become even more successful through individualized professional development and common planning time.

At the Rockdale College and Career Academy, the leadership is working with teachers to redefine the use of technology in their classrooms and has already committed to funding a new project. Physics, electronics engineering, manufacturing, and Cisco networking teachers are collaborating with industry experts and each other to break down content silos and create meaningful constructing activities for students related to the workplace and their career

Enter a Competition

Computer Science Network Competitions |

eCybermission |

ICS Scratch Competition |

Imagine Cup |

Google Science Fair |

West Point Bridge Design Contest |

Zero Robotics Tournaments |

facts, each game enacts the scientific processes and makes them integral to gameplay. The students needed to learn and understand at a deeper level to successfully create them.

In both of these examples, a science teacher could formatively assess student understanding of organelles and genetics over the course of the competition through rubrics or by posing questions that capture deep content knowledge: How does the expression of a genotype (DNA) express itself in phenotype (hair color)? How do lysosomes work to protect the cell from foreign invaders? What better way to assess understanding of how a cell functions than by having students show you by programming these functions in a video game!