"Nobody wants to get pwned!" says Kieran Norton, Principal Deloitte, Cyber Risk Management, while discussing internet vulnerabilities with students at TLCoding Lab. Norton introduced cyber risk management, and also discussed it as career path for our students beyond their academic careers. He captured his student audience with some intriguing cyber hacking stories that had the entire group listening on edge. Students learned that as a business or even socially as a student, you are flat-lined if you can't access the internet. Student understood his point recognizing that the internet is pervasive in our lives because it is a primary channel for communication-- and is almost like oxygen for us. So, he warned students not to do stupid things as your posts are permanent--even on the transitory Snapchat or Vine. Norton also shared that cyber risk programmers make significantly hirer salaries compared to other programming applications. He offered many sources to follow to learn more about cyber risk management, and also answered our student's many questions. Our hats-off to Kieran for generously taking the time out of his busy professional life to inspire our students beyond the classroom by participating in AE@TL's new enrichment special speaker series, TLTalks.
Collaboration & Community: TLCoding Lab
"Coding is a group activity..." says Andrew Stone super cool guru software developer and creator of Twittelator in a recent Skype chat with our students in our new TLCoding Lab--a lunch time enrichment program developed by Academic Excellence@TL (AE@TL). Stone's statement seems to contrast sharply against the typical stereo-typed image of the lone programmer sipping Mountain Dew while typing solely into the wee hours of the morning. Stone continued to explain that really teams put together the apps, games and programs that we use in our daily lives. A wonderful outcome of our weekly coding lab is that we see each Wednesday our student attendance growing, and also individual students reaching out to one another to trouble shoot bugs and challenges in the instructional materials. Today's SKYPE chat brought our students together in an unexpected way.
A sudden dip in bandwidth just before our SKYPE chat began with Stone, caused the call to drop, then reconnect with only sound and not video. Immediately our savvy student tech was working the problem with Stone. Immediately students began to brainstorm as a group and began to purposed alternate solutions to the tiresome connectivity issue. Two students immediately rose to support their fellow tech student and classmate with offers to help work the problem. Additional students began to offer their cell phones to provide wireless hot spots for the SKYPE. Another student had a special tower to tower connection with her phone and offered to run the entire chat off her phone as not to have the whole TLCoding Lab team miss such an amazing opportunity.. The tiresome connectivity issue sorted itself out and the chat was a HUGE success thanks to the calm student tech and the group's critical thinking, collaboration, brainstorming, problem solving, and TEAMWORK!
Stone identified as a take-away for our students that "critical thinking and teamwork" are keys to success in computer programming. Funny, they are "the very same keys" to success that are popularized by many educators today in project-based learning and proponents of core curriculum. So, why isn't Computer Science offered in our curriculum as a critical path in STEM education at TL; or in our district? Our students, who give up their lunch hour to code each week, see it as a necessary and vital key to their academic success and futures beyond TL. AE@TL believes that Computer Science is an essential key to knowledge that is relevant in our students academic lives and futures to our students beyond TL; and that is why we are working hard to raise funds and advocate for it to be part of the curriculum. We only wish that our TL community--teachers, administrators, and parents-- got to see our students in action today successfully using "the keys" of collaborating and community in TLCoding Lab! TLCoding Lab offers our students each week the keys for academic success come in and see.
TL Talks Present a Skype Chat with Andrew Stone, Twittelator Developer
TLCoding Lab will Skpe with the celebrated programmer Andrew Stone, Twittlelator Developer and founder of Stone Design. This event is sponsored by TLTalks, an academic enrichment program of AcademicExcellence@TL. Open to all and priority will be given to TL Coding Lab Students. RSVP Required to: bartolf.family@gmail.com
Building Community at TLCoding Lab
Standing Room Only in TLCoding Lab! Supervisor Damon Connolly, Marin County Board of Supervisors-District 1 and his Aide, Chris Callaway, and Lars Christensen, Principal at TL helped to build community with students around coding, computer science and technology at TL! We were all blown away to see a room full of students coding during Lunch! Go Techie Trojans!