The students at Benjamin E. Mays High School now have a new “sandbox for learning,” after the opening of the new Google Tech Hub on campus. Google worked with Mays High School to design a space and develop a program fitting the needs of the students.
The students at Benjamin E. Mays High School now have a new “sandbox for learning,” after the opening of the new Google Tech Hub on campus.
Atlanta Public Schools’ partnership with Google and the Georgia Tech Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC) has delivered an engaging experience for students at Mays to get a hands-on experience learning with the tools and technology of the future.
“The tech hub gives the students a sandbox for deeper learning,” CEISMC associate director for school and community engagement Norman “Storm” Robinson III said. “We are actually doing industry level type tasks. So now, students can make that direct correlation from the things you learn in the classroom to a career making a livable earning wage.”
Google was the first corporate partner to fully take on the adopt-a-school model and worked with Mays High School to design a space and develop a program fitting the needs of the students.
“We wanted corporations to have a deeper engagement approach with schools,” APS executive director of partnerships and development Joi Hunter said. “In thinking about a model that was not just for one year but will be impactful and sustainable for years and years to come.”
“Google’s strong commitment to listening to school leadership on the needs of their students has been truly instrumental to building this relationship and serves as an example for other corporations across the district,” she added.
Malachi Rivers, a senior at Mays High School, was one of the few students who experienced working with Google on three main capstone projects: Game Design, Engineering and Computer Design.
As a straight-A student, Rivers relished the challenge of working on an interactive project and that he actually enjoyed. He took on all three capstones, which included creating a game server for the school, designing and building a tour-bot that will autonomously traverse the school and provide information about the school, and designing a game that solves one of 17 United Nations sustainable problems.
Rivers, of course, is attempting to solve three he believes are interconnected.
“This brings a little more excitement to my high school career,” he said. “Having access to this type of information and technology brings more interactive ways to learn to students like myself.”
“With Google, it’s like, ‘Hey. I’m going to teach you how to do this. We’re going to build it together, and then we’re actually going to use it and play with it,’” he added. “If this is the learning experience I can get daily, I’d rather have this in high school than the traditional ‘teach this and test on this.’”
In Anbria Powell’s 12th-grade game design class, students utilize their critical thinking, computational thinking, and problem-solving skills to work on 2-D and 3-D development as well as networking. Ultimately, the game server they are building in her class will be used by the school.
“This partnership just takes our level of engagement to a different level,” Mays High School principal Ramon Garner said. “I’m really excited about what’s to come and the pipeline that we’re creating here for students that will be able to take on jobs at Google or anywhere else. It feels almost like a proud parent to see kids really take on and understand what they’re doing and make the connection that this is meaningful work that is preparing them for their future.”
By: Taylor R. Jones
Can you imagine visiting the bottom of the sea and the surface of Mars in one day? This has now become a marvelous reality thanks to Google’s Expeditions Pioneer Program.
The Expeditions Pioneer Program is a virtual reality platform built for the classroom and designed to incorporate with teacher lesson plans. Teachers guide students on 3D virtual tours of places that school buses cannot go.
When this program was first launched in September 2015, its availability was limited to certain cities within the United States and around the world. When Gina Wilson, Dobbs Elementary School’s Educational Technology Specialist, was first introduced to Google Expedition technology last summer, she helped convince Google officials to include Atlanta Public Schools in their beta testing protocol. Now, these guided virtual tours not only enhance the in-classroom learning experience, but these tours have also given teachers extra motivation.
“Our teachers are able to use this technology to take their students on a virtual field trip all over the world,” Wilson said. “Our teachers have taken this technology, embraced it, and now see the positive impact it has on student instruction.”
Google representatives have traveled all over metro Atlanta to bring APS teachers the essential tools they will need to feed the malleable minds of their elementary school students: ASUS smartphones, a tablet for the teacher, router and viewers that turn phones into virtual reality headsets, and Google Cardboard. APS sites such as Dobbs, Boyd, Hope-Hill, and Venetian Hills elementary schools received the opportunity to test Google’s virtual realities early. But Google’s Expeditions have even stimulated the interest of district S.T.E.M. teachers, as well.
APS’ Venetian Hills S.T.E.M. teacher, Nichole Jones, is absolutely elated about the excitement Google is bringing to her classrooms. Not only have these expeditions given her the opportunity to observe student’s growth in knowledge, skills, and attitudes first-hand, but they have also greatly motivated her with the strong sense of technology that is replacing how students learn and interact.
Dr. Emily Massey, APS Associate Superintendent for East Region, and Venetian Hills ES students experiencing simulations from the Google Expeditions Pioneer Program.
“The virtual field trip experiences that Google Expeditions provides has set an exciting precedent of the capability that technology has to bridge the gap between the classroom and the world,” Wilson said.
Now that beta testing is coming to an end, it will be up to APS schools whether or not to adopt this new form of classroom teaching. Again, Google will try to make that decision easier. By January 2016. Google announced that the Expeditions Pioneer Program will release an app for Android. This way, teachers and schools can easily access virtual experiences for their classrooms.