Othello educators look to the future at Thinkabit Workshop

Introducing Othello students to 21st Century skills in a fun and engaging way was the theme of the Thinkabit Workshop held June 15 at McFarland Middle School.

Thinkabit is an education outreach program at Qualcomm in San Diego. It’s an engineering lab and classroom for students to make unique creations through the use of technology and art.

Othello School District Superintendent, Dr. Chris Hurst, opened the gathering of school educators by telling them what the aim of focus was.

“We are here today to discuss objectives to draw a connection between our goals for the district and how we get to those ends or our vision, and to simulate experience and participation in the instructional vision coming to life,” he said. “To put this into perspective; What types of skill development do we want for our students in the classroom?”

Hurst added his hope was to ensure every student achieve academic success in a mutually respective, culturally safe environment, and that students would exercise personal responsibility, develop integrity and morals of good behavior, and be on time to school every day.

And with that in mind, he gave way to Jessica Schenck, the district’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) coordinator who broke those in attendance into groups to introduce them to Design Thinking; a five-stage human centered problem solving process focused on the creativity of discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation and testing, and the Internet of Things (IoT)

Schenck began the morning session by playing a short audio recording in which the speaker asked, “Have you ever locked your keys in the car, left your oven on at home or forgot to set your house alarm?”

He then went on to say the Internet of Things is a global span of networks of connected appliances and devices that can help reduce those mindless mishaps.

Schenck then spoke to the group to explain what they were going to try and accomplish.

“Our goal here today is to experience the vision of 21st century skills first hand in a fun and engaging way, and to discuss how we can create and cultivate an environment where instruction is intentional, engaging and challenging for all students.”

During the first morning session, Schenck gave the teams 15 minutes to brainstorm ideas for apps that could be accessed through the Internet or cell phones, that could make the hustle and bustle of a busy life schedule a bit easier.

The categories the groups were given to chose from were cameras and drones, voice and music, home entertainment, smart cities, home control and automation and wearables. Some were quite creative.

Among those was an app that could translate platforms for any video game, a fish finder from shore for those anglers who did not own a boat, and a total lawn and flower care program that could remove weeds and grass and adjust gravel and dirt in flower beds, and mow the lawn and pick up pet droppings. The total lawn and flower care was the most popular idea of the morning.

During the second session the group was introduced to Ardunio circuitry and coding, where they built an electronic platform to read inputs – light on a sensor, a finger on a button or a Twitter message – and turn it into an output – which could turn on an LED, activate a motor or publish something online.

The third session was focused on robocrafting, which is a hands-on design combining technology and crafting.

“The point of this entire workshop was to get students to think about future needs of this world and problem solving,” Schenck said. “And that often requires team work and communication similar to what went on here today.”