Getting Some Outside Help

A few weeks ago I was looking for an app that my students could use to prepare an "engineered" plan of a rain garden model as part of our study of watersheds.  The rain garden model is the summative project in our study and I wanted the students to experience the engineering process in the development of the model.  My search found an app called ArcSite that has elements of Computed Aided Design (CAD) but looked like it would be accessible for middle school students.  I downloaded the app and within an hour had created a functional, but not polished, design of a rain garden.  I thought students would likely do a better job unlocking the secrets of the app because they just seem so fearless with something new.  As I was using the app I noticed an occasional pop-up in the corner from a member of the app team that included some helpful hints about using the app.  Thought this was helpful but did not realize how interactive this feature would be. I had our tech department put the app in our school catalog and asked students to download it to the iPads.  It was at that point that I got an email from a person at the app company inquiring about our use of the app and could he be of assistance.  That was cool! We communicated over email for a day or so as the students were working through the challenges of using the app.  Students were also able to communicate directly with this person regarding specific questions.  Then I received an inquiry asking if I would like to have him conduct an online training session with students. Again how cool! We set up a plan for small groups of students in each class to Skype with him for a time period in each class.  The purpose was to go over features of the app and answer questions then have these students come back and teach their peers.  Each group reported that the training was valuable and I know they appreciated the opportunity to talk with someone familiar with the app.  This all happened on a Friday so there was no opportunity for students to come back an re-teach, but that can happen on Monday when a second draft of their design will be due.
One of my goals this year was to extend the classroom beyond the walls of the school.  Within this study and in previous systems studied this year many outside speakers and professionals have shared their time and experience with our students.  That was all planned out in advance.  In this situation a wonderful opportunity presented itself rather organically and an unexpected learning experience was realized.  Thanks ArcSite!

Launch

Joe,

Thanks for creating this shared space and for setting up a calendar for us to use to launch this science teacher informal network.  

I fully agree we should:  "run the blog/calendar as a public resource collaboratively.  The content would be generated from our community...we should set up something simple for the students to replicate our workflow."  Exactly my hope once we launch this thing.

In full agreement of this too: 

"Let's remember to have 10% or less be our voice,

and the rest to come from the other participants/students.  Piece of cake,  we just have to figure out the right questions to ask...  "