Tales of a Technology Omnivore

I had the opportunity to visit the Bergen County Technical School to see an exemplary use of technology in education.  What I saw was the best I’ve ever seen of how technology can motivate, inspire, and set teaching and learning on fire (in a good way).  They had a culinary program that fed us the best lunch I’ve ever eaten at a school with the best mushroom soup I’ve ever eaten period!  Their television studio produced a high-quality live broadcast to share about the program while we ate.  So remember, this is a high school, right?  Well they have a stem cell research lab, nanotechnology lab, digital music lab, industrial arts lab (with the 3D materials printer), and an SAP Academy teaching students to use the industry standard SAP program.  The students were brilliant as they described the projects they’re working on:  developing stem cells to regrow hair (something that I’m interested in), creating a biotechnology company (collaborative project spearheaded by the SAP team), and studying protein synthesis in an attempt to thwart viruses.  Yes, the students are gifted.  Yes, the local college with which they partnered asked the school to stop sending them students because they were embarrassing the college kids.  Yes, the students do internships at JP Morgan, Rocawear, Columbia-Presyterian Medical Center, and Fox5 News. 

I discovered HippoCampus in an USA today article entitled, “Free online material could save school billions“, passed on to me through a colleague.  It’s a free high quality tool to assist high school students with subjects like Algebra, American Government, Environmental Science and more.  It’s an interactive review tool that is unusually well done for a free product.  What I like about it is that it’s a comprehensive coverage of those topics aligned with most high school textbooks so if a student likes it, he or she can use it to digest all the content for that topic.  This could serve as a jump off point for an international project comparing how US History is taught in different countries.

Hippocampus.org:  http://hippocampus.org/