Exploring Bauhaus with VIVE for AR Experience for German and Art Field Trip

Our German and Art Teacher will be taking a field trip to Boston next week to see the Goethe-Institut presents Virtual Bauhaus,  they were given the opportunity to borrow the equipment for students to try out prior to the trip.  We setup the desktop and equipment after school yesterday in order to test out with the german classes today. The Bauhaus centennial, an exhibition on the German school of art and design using innovative Virtual Reality technology that will allow the teachers to prepare for the German class & field trip.  The equipment is Vive Pro which we were allowed to borrow and test out!
Below are some pictures below from our class today.

This also makes me realize the are many new and upcoming opporttunites to explore AR/VR in education.  There are some low cost solutions along with very high end opportunities.

This month I have seen advertisements on twitter Oculus the date has been revealed a release date for their Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S headsets: May 21st.  

The Oculus Quest is a much-anticipated standalone VR headset that Oculus announced last year. It works without external tracking cameras or a separate computer, using a Snapdragon mobile chipset. The Oculus Rift S is a refresh of the 2016 Oculus Rift; it’s not a “Rift 2,” but an upgrade that replaces the old Rift’s tracking cameras with more convenient inside-out tracking. Neither one is a definite must-buy, but we’ve been impressed by the new Insight tracking system, and Oculus consistently backs some of the most ambitious VR games. There appears to be several education experiences for Oculus along with Oculus and YouTube VR here is a recent post.  

I plan to have students research more on the the role of AR/VR in the job market. Here is an interesting article and video https://youtu.be/Zy9mVWHvaos  Bring immersive technology resources to your district and conference with ARVRinEDU training. Get more resources at ARVRinEDU.com and on twitter #ARVRinEDU  So much to learn!

Other companies discussing and posting about AR/VR such as @PTC and PTC in Education 
We celebrated our move from Needham to #Boston's Seaport Innovation District with the official grand opening of our 250,000-square-foot headquarters. Check out the coverage of the event via

@BosBizJournal :

(link: http://ptc.co/RN9C30oF7Fi) ptc.co/RN9C30oF7Fi #lifeatPTC

@lifeatPTC READY FOR THE AUGMENTED WORKFORCE? Learn how emerging technologies like IoT and AR are reshaping the future of your work.

I will be looking for resources for next fall!

Innovators Compass - Design Thinking

This week we had Ela Ben-Ur from Innovators' Compass  check them out on twitter  #innovatorscompass visit our school to kick off our Phase II of our Design Thinking Project, "Collaborative Learning Spaces" with a group of 9th grade english students from Ms Foley-Procko's class and Ms. Grigas Business Class.  The Innovators' Compass is a 
powerful tool that helps people move forward in any challenge, big or small—in one usable, shareable picture.

Thi is the passion work of Ela Ben-Ur, MIT alumna, former IDEO coach, Olin College Adjunct Assistant professor teaching courses from product design to life design, and parent - Here is an article on the process. I met Ela at MassCUE last year when she visited us in the Poster Section of the conference when we showcased our Design Thinking Project - Classroom Redesign.  I then had the privilege of connecting with hear at the SXSWedu conference in Austin last March, where she presented The Innovators Compass to a large group of educators.  I reached out to Ela to join us and we kick off the project and to introduce to the  the high school leadership team.  Prior to Ela joining the class we showed two videos. Innovators Compass About and Examples (5 minutes) along with the INNOVATORS’ COMPASS 2: GETTING UNSTUCK This 2-1/2 minute video walks how we find breakthroughs for our challenges in each Innovators’ Compass question—and will answer your questions about compass design, too!

Students came up with a few challenges to work on during our time together.  One group focus on being hungry, another tired during long block as they do not eat until fourth lunch which can be a very long stretch for them! They came up with several "experiment ideas" to pitch to the teacher.  One was to allow for a break during the long block to allow for a snack, walk or just some downtime before lunch. It was great to see the teacher allow for the experiment and reflect on the results.  It was amazing to see, if given a short amount of down time, the students were more focused during the rest of the class.


We invited administration and teacher to visit and observe us while working on the compass. As you can see from the Jamboard setup we had student and staff ideas to work on .  The important piece was to let the participants pick a topic they cared about.















We the introduced the model to the leadership team that afternoon and they had the opportunity to experience the Innovators Compass as well.




 Next month we will be designating two days for leadership to learn more about Design Think.ing and apply to leadership topics in order to move forward.

Both faculty and students left the session with using and exit ticket about what they liked about the session and ideas to improve. Imagine if we did this with students and made them reflect on their learning and provided them with a opportunity to suggest new ideas.

Each time I see Design Thinking from a variety of consults and websites I am humbled to see how much more there is to learn about the Design Thinking process/ steps (The five stages of Design Thinking, according to d.school, are as follows: Empathise, Define (the problem), Ideate, Prototype, and Test. 

We are discussing with staff and students how design thinking is a skill set to be used by all!  It's been a great way to kick off the project and I am so grateful that Ella brought her passion to our school and shared her expertise!

Senior Projects and Choice Boards

What is a Senior Project?

A Senior Capstone Experience/Senior Project is a student-selected exploration of a topic which results in a research paper, a project or a product, and a presentation.

This approach is one which allows students to use a variety of skills in the areas of writing, speaking, research, and documentation.  I will be working with a teacher this month to review choices for presentations options and will be suggesting a Senior Project Choice Board. 

It will be interesting to review the options with students and guide their thinking!

Using Design Thinking to empathize with the Assabet Collaborative.

Last month the Assabet Valley Collaborative hosted a two hour workshop on Design Thinking.  The director Cathy Cummings has been trained an an organization and hopes to pilot sessions at the AVC.

We brainstormed on a session around the Innovators Mindset theme and spent a large amount of the time framing the question, using the HMW, How might we model.  We started out focusing on How might we insprire/encourage teachers to try innovative practices in their classroom.  Initially, I thought the empathy model was the teacher, but turns out it's the student.

We were give the following homework to complete this month.

For those of you who missed it - we'd like to catch you up because we'd like to continue our Design Thinking work next month.  So please do read over the notes and then do your homework - see below.    (Those who were there - please feel free to add your insights in the notes or in response to this email.)

HOMEWORK for next month's meeting:

Homework - Empathic Interviews

Each group member will conduct at least 5 short in-person interviews - of students, teachers, and administrators using the following 2 questions:

1.  Describe the most positive, lasting learning experience you’ve had.

2.  Describe a negative learning experience you’ve had.

Probe for:  what was being taught, how, why it was positive or negative, what the teacher was doing in that experience; what the interviewee and other learners were doing during that experience, etc

Take notes during this interview and share/upload in our google folder in time for our next meeting!  

We will work with these qualitative data points at our next meeting to better frame our problem with the actual “users” in mind.  I'm thinking we can have one group try on using a “journey map” or “service blueprint” using these data and the other group try doing some root cause analysis using “5 whys” - but, like we did today, we will pivot based on where we are then....  

I conducted interviews with student in my school today.  Here is the link  http://bit.ly/DTempathyinterviews 

I am particularly excited to push myself in the area and hope to bring  more back to our school.

Our district will be exploring more design thinking in June and hopefully as part of the PLT for next year!