But as the ever-connected digital world approaches light speed, 21st century schools must be able to prepare students for jobs that don’t yet exist.
In December, Cambria-Rowe Business College welcomed the first class of aspiring web and app developers into its newly opened School of Technology – which reused Lockheed-Martin’s Industrial Park Road headquarters in Richland Township.
Administrators are touting tech and classroom methodology that streamlines coursework as well as plans for a refreshed Conrad Building – an early 20th century city landmark that will become a home base for 21st century technology entrepreneurs.
“I think Johnstown’s approach to (technology) is exactly where that future lies,” said college CEO Mike Artim. “I’m for economic development of any kind. I just know one avenue that can really work for us is technology.”
In September, Greater Johnstown School District announced it would put state bonds toward a new tech-centric academy. The district plans to refit part of its unused Decker Avenue middle school with laboratories, engineering classrooms and a competitive arena for robotics students to test their “metal.”
The academy is at the center of a new technological literacy initiative that will attempt to instill a passion for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields in young pupils.
“You’ll be able to take those skills into any future job,” said district Superintendent Gerald Zahorchak. “We don’t know the future jobs, but we do know the skill sets that can be used at any job in the future.
“If we can set kids up for the future that is undefined and will remain undefined forever, we’re giving kids way beyond the ‘Go work for someone for life and don’t think,’ industrial kind of plan that we used to have.”
An ‘innovative academy’
In September, Greater Johnstown was awarded $5 million in Qualified Zone Academy Bonds, which are “virtually interest-free, depending on the marketplace,” Zahorchak said.The bonds will cover the cost of retrofitting the three-story auditorium inside the old Johnstown Middle School, and payments toward the principal balance can be structured across the next 20 years. But to nab those funds, the district had to demonstrate to the federal government that it is developing “a rather innovative academy,” the superintendent said.
The district is looking to open the academy in 2017, after an 18- to 24-month construction period set to begin this fall.
That’s also the year the district will realize “full execution” of a comprehensive curricular discipline overhaul, Zahorchak said – at the center of which is the new academy’s hands-on STEM offerings.
Pupils from kindergarten through eighth grade will be rotated through the academy. Just as every student must have basic math literacies such as Algebra I and II, the district wants students to start developing familiarity with 21st century skill sets early on, Zahorchak said.
“In one sense, we’re trying to dispel the anti-intellectual norm,” said Zahorchak. “Another way to say that is we want everybody to say that developing yourself as a sort of nerd-scientist is a good thing.”
Students will be diving into hands-on STEM modules launched in 2006 by then-Gov. Ed Rendell, called “Science: It’s Elementary.” An engineering version that will be on tap at the academy was developed in the past few years, Zahorchak said. The materials used in the modules will grow with the students’ competencies and are replenished by the state from term to term.
“Some of the modules have Popsicle sticks and Q-Tips. Some are tiny robots,” Zahorchak said.
Computer programming curriculum and a “suite” of advanced language or math courses – such as Mandarin Chinese or multivariable calculus – will also be supplemented by the district, he added.
For years, Greater Johnstown students have participated in the Vex Robotics Competition, an objective-based contest that tests students’ engineering chops in a competitive arena.
“The robots really go after each other – they’ll try to sabotage one another,” Zahorchak said.
The district uses any available, wide-open space for the Vex competitors’ trial runs, but the new academy’s plans include a dedicated robotics arena. Even kindergarten pupils will get a chance to battle bots.
“We’re going to bring up, by design, a lot of kids that would be ready for programming or engineering by the time they hit high school,” Zahorchak said.
21st century classroom
Misti Smith, director of education at the Cambria-Rowe School of Technology, “air-drops” worksheets to her students’ iPads. They screenshot the assignment and “Skitch” notes, underlines or circles with their iPads. Then, they share screens with the class. The digital lingo might be foreign for some, but the savvy students in CRBC’s first web and Apple development course are right at home, she said – even though they’d never used an Apple tablet before.“There was never really any training on ‘here’s how to use the iPad,’ ” Smith said. “It was, ‘Let’s just do it and they’d learn.’ And they did, quickly.”
Artim said Cambria-Rowe chose to focus on app development for Apple devices, instead of Android. With more than 500 million users browsing the Apple App Store, the platform holds the “best potential” for the school’s future programmers or web designers, he said.
The school partnered with Pearson Education to draft the new curriculum.
“If you tried to do both Apple and Android (curriculum), you would produce someone who was OK at both but not good at either,” Artim said.
Smith said her passion is finding creative ways to embed technology in the classroom. It was the focus of her master’s degree in education. She previously worked at Mount Aloysius College, helping faculty do just that. She said she felt it was her “calling.”
“I see these kids who can do nothing but entertain themselves with technology,” Smith said. “They don’t know how to search for an information source or create something.”
The School of Technology classroom employs specially crafted desks with iPad docks that are attached to a movable gooseneck stand, so students can easily collaborate with others. Any student’s display can be mirrored on any other screen in the classroom, along with a TV at the head of the classroom.
“It’s much more the type of environment you would find in a workplace,” Artim said.
At the center of the learning process is the technology the students will be handling throughout their new careers.
Smith uses an app called Socrative, which allows instant teacher-student collaboration, to administer short, daily quizzes based on the previous night’s readings.
“I think sometimes, schools think that just getting technology is going to be enough, and they don’t put a whole lot of thought into how to use it,” she said, referencing stories from acquaintances at schools that have tried to make classrooms more digital-centric.
She said it’s often difficult for educators without a technology background or those with only a passing interest in technology to integrate tablets or apps into the workflow. In many cases, it’s “piggybacked” onto the traditional classroom, she said.
“The iPad should just meld into the classroom,” Smith said. “It should be the way you’re getting or interacting with the content.”
The gadgets on hand at CRBC’s new school allow educators to “flip” the classroom, Smith said.
In a flipped classroom, students work through assignments alongside teachers during class time, instead of simply sitting through lectures. The approach helps students grasp the curriculum’s practical usage before they read course materials, skim infographics or watch a lecture video as homework, she said.
Artim said the school’s focus is in developing what he calls personal learning networks for each enrollee – a way to create industry contacts that can guide students and help hone skills outside the formal education, almost like shadowing.
“We don’t want the teacher to be their sole source of information,” he said.
“You could be reaching out to hundreds of people to get information and learn from.”
Those contacts will be crucial for the students when they transition into their final semester, and the second phase of the college’s plan, he said.
A community’s creativity
Both of the new programs will focus on intercommunity synergy, administrators said.Greater Johnstown’s academy will invite all community members to its “Makerspace” – a burgeoning DIY movement that makes industrial tools such as sawbands and kilns available to anyone who has an idea they’d like to realize. Zahorchak said there are at least 15 such spots in Pittsburgh. Makers can apply for access to the space, even without any starting capital.
It’s all about making something that can kickstart a business, or grow jobs.
“(It gives) opportunities for the community members to access space and equipment to make things in the hope it will create and inspire entrepreneurialism by and large in the community,” Zahorchak said. “It brings Johnstown to where many, many other emerging cities are.”
CRBC’s plans include extensive interior and exterior renovations to the city’s Conrad Building along Franklin Street, with help from a $2 million grant awarded by the Johnstown Business District Development Corp.
The Conrad will become a six-month incubator for outgoing School of Technology grads’ tech startups. Students will spend their last semester at CRBC’s new school working on projects for various local nonprofits, after which the college will help them transition into downtown business space.
“The goal there was to find ways to bring more people downtown and bring more business downtown,” Artim said.
“There’s a lot of opportunities we could capitalize on if we had more reason for our young people to stay here.”
Although the city is no Silicon Valley, Artim said the college’s web- and app-development graduates – whose business will be largely virtual – will be able to reach a global market out of the gate.
The college expects renovation work to begin in October, with a move-in sometime around June 2016 – an “aggressive” schedule, Artim said.
“This is certainly one of the big wins we’ve been looking for in Johnstown,” city Economic Development Coordinator Josh Summits told The Tribune-Democrat in October, adding that luring an education center into downtown Johnstown has been a top priority.
©2015 The Tribune-Democrat (Johnstown, Pa.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
