"We know that the nation that goes all-in on innovation today will own the global economy tomorrow. This is an edge America cannot surrender. " – President Barack Obama, State of the Union, 2014
According to Vince Bertram, President and CEO of Project Lead The Way: "In order to go all-in on innovation, we must start by equipping our students with the critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration skills necessary to become the next generation of innovators, creators, and entrepreneurs. The President is right. This is an edge America cannot surrender. But it doesn’t start with adults already in the workforce. It starts in our nation’s classrooms."
The truth is, many of our teachers have already started to innovate and are engaging and equipping students to be globally competitive. Leslie Aaronson, for example, works in an inner city low income k-12 schoolin South Central Los Angeles, that is very focused on getting kids into college and on stable career paths. Every student has a resume and online digital portfolio that highlights their work in web design, programming, graphic design, and more.
Leslie is currently hosting the Academy’s first ever Internship Fair, working with Douglas Sellers, the Chief Technical Officer at FitOrbit, to find a few companies to participate in a Career Fair and Internship Program for her juniors and seniors. Leslie’s innovative idea is to find a few companies in Los Angeles to participate in the Career Fair and Internship program for the summer of 2014. The Career Fair would be a day-long event which would work like a College Career Fair, there would be booths and kids walking around talking to the different company representatives and handing out resumes. There will be time in the day for Q and A and for company representatives to narrow down their favorites and then they would conduct one-on-one interviews. The internship would be a paid position (minimum wage is fine, more is great) where companies would assign mentors to the kids and give them technology projects to work on over the summer. The students can do real office work or be assigned a project. Leslie, you are a great teacher-leader! Thank you.
Erik Amerikaner, a Microsoft Certified Professional who teaches at Oak Park High School in the Oak Park Unified School District is getting fantastic results with student certification. Last year I reported to you how one of Erik’s 9th grade students was one of the youngest persons in the world to attain the Microsoft Office 2010 MASTER student certification. Now Erik has two more students who have achieved this certification! Erik said his students are motivated by "Lots of prodding from me" and from exposure to the lessons in the digital textbook (McGraw-Hill iCheck 2010, moving to Pearson Office 2013). Students then train in web-based G-Metrix- both at home and in the lab, and then take the MOS exams. Erik takes time to honor the students when he presents them with the certificate at the school board meeting. Erik, this is a "world class" act! Thank you.
