Workforce Innovations Part I: @RITimagingsci kids know best #teachers -__-

Today was the big day: Youth Workforce Innovations 2012! This event brings together around 100 high school sophomores (and some juniors) from several area districts to participate in a day long conference at RIT. The morning begins with a keynote speaker, and then the students break off and go to one of six workshops: alternative energy, biotechnology, hospitality, information technology, imaging/optics, or microelectronics. After an hour, the students then visit a second workshop for an hour, after which they go to lunch at Gracie's. This was the 6th year for this event, and my third year participating.

As I was teasing yesterday, I decided to do something a little different this year. Ready for the big reveal??? Drumroll, please... I decided to integrate Twitter. Ta-da! (Maybe this sounds a little underwhelming, but cut me some slack - it's tough to generate suspense in a blog post that you can read at your own leisure.) You are probably either thinking, "Big deal..." or wondering how or why I did this; bear with me, I'll explain:

Yesterday I mentioned a paper I wrote about electronic communication and its applications to imaging science outreach and education. Much of the research I did for this paper focused on the shift in science communication from a deficit-based model (talking TO an audience) to a dialogue-based model (talking WITH an audience). I won't go into too much detail (if you really want to know, I can give you my paper to read...) but from my research I developed a number of recommendations for CIS to implement electronic communication into its outreach efforts. One approach I mentioned was to integrate Twitter into classroom discussions and presentations to more actively engage an audience and put my money with my mouth is with regards to following a dialogue-based communication model. As I was developing this idea in my head, I tried to think realistically how this could be done and how such an activity would go... And from this (and a little encouragement from Joe), I got my motivation to give it a shot at Workforce Innovations.

After all, it was time to try something new. Workforce Innovations is a unique event for me in that it brings together all these students from different school districts - for example, let's say that Rush Henrietta sends 10 students to the conference. Those 10 students are then divided up amongst 6 workshops, so an RH student in my workshop may or may not have a classmate in the workshop with them; and if they do, who is to say that classmate is even a friend of theirs. So my audience is made up of students who may or may not even know someone else there, and if they do, they may or may not even like them. This poses some major difficulties when trying to run an interactive workshop, because not only am I a stranger to my audience but most of them are strangers to each other. It is very hard to motivate a high school student to want to participate under such circumstances (and let's face it, if you were in their situation, would you? I know if it were highschool-me, the answer would be, "No way!"). With something like Twitter, students can still interact from the comfort of their seats with their phone (as so many are accustomed to doing) and interact in new ways not already possible. For example, if someone wants to ask or answer a question and isn't comfortable speaking aloud - tweet it. Shyness aside, Twitter is where it's at right now. It's about time that a technology school implement the latest technology, amiright?

Even though I wasn't totally sure how Twitter could come into play or how useful it would be, it seemed like a no-lose situation to try it out: it could either be awesome and really take things to another level, or, I'd just do the regular schtick I have without it. So, why not?

That's enough about background/theory... Again, if you want more justification, I can give you my paper to read. In my next post, I'll talk about how it went today. (Here's a hint!)

You win some, you lose some

So yesterday was the Youth Workforce Innovations Conference 2011. This is one of those events that is actually a huge amount of work, because we are also part of the project planning on top of doing the presentation on the day-of. So in preparation I had to secure 14(!) volunteers to help guide groups of students from one destination to the next. Each department is typically responsible for 5-7 volunteers, but we were also covering one of the other presentations as well as helping over a third one who was unable to secure volunteers. As you may guess, in a program as small as Imaging Science, it can be quite difficult to secure so many willing student volunteers. So, I bribed them with Dibellas. It worked, and I got all 14 that I needed. I then had to organize them all and assign them start and end points, and for each of them create signs and corresponding maps so they would all know where they were going. It was a lot of work, but so far as I know all of the walking around campus went smoothly, so I think all that preparation paid off.

The presentations themselves were pretty much what I expected. We only got 9 students attending the first session, and more like 20 in the second. I actually preferred the first session greatly - maybe it was the timing, maybe it was the number of kids, maybe it was the caliber of the kids who had us as their first choice. Either way, my first presentation was a fabulous success, while on my second one I struggled. I actually had to call out a couple of girls several times over for talking through my presentation, which I have no patience for. They ended up getting split up by one of the teacher chaperons, and were not very happy after that. It will be interesting to see how the post-conference evaluations come out, especially because we have instituted a new online survey. We can't even be sure how much of a response rate we'll get, or whether the kids might be confused by what turned out to be a rather complicated process to fill out the correct surveys.

Workforce Innovations is always such an interesting event, because the dynamics of the audience can be pretty variable and unpredictable. In most settings, I present to a classroom, or an auditorium, or similar type assembly; in these cases, most of the kids will know and be used to each other. But for Workforce Innovations, there are around 10 kids from each school district total, who may or may not be friends, and who may or may not even be in the same sessions. So my audience is typically comprised of various kids who know maybe 1 or 2 other people with them, but often times are on their own. I remember attending events like that in high school, and I hated being without friends. It made me incredibly uncomfortable and unhappy to participate. So is it any wonder that I typically have difficulty getting this particular crowd to pay attention and/or want to participate interactively? I've come to accept and even expect it, but it is still a challenge.

"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative." -Woody Allen

So I know I've been quiet for a few days... Truth is, I have busy researching and writing a paper for an assignment. You might be thinking, "Hey, you shouldn't be doing that during work" but AU CONTRAIRE! This paper actually was written about my job (I planned it that way), researching and developing new and improved approaches to science outreach and recruitment (the official title of the paper was "An Exploration into STEM Communication Challenges and Opportunities in the Age of Electronic Communication - With Applications to Imaging Science Outreach and Education"). At any rate, one of the ideas I came up with as a part of this paper just seems SO GOOD that I'm actually going to try it - right away - tomorrow. I'm excited, can't you tell? But I'm also a little bit nervous.

I'm not going to give away any spoilers as to what my big new idea is (you'll find out soon enough, once I report back on how it goes tomorrow), but I can say it has the potential to either be really great or a super crash-and-burn failure. Either way, at least I will have tried something new. And tomorrow is the perfect venue - for it is Workforce Innovations 2012!

As you may recall, last year I had mixed feelings about how it went (I even titled my entry that day "You Win Some, You Lose Some"), and I was feeling a little down about the challenges posed by the way the event was organized. Well through challenge comes opportunity - and the types of challenges that come from an event like Workforce Innovations makes for a prime opportunity to try my new idea, which will hopefully help overcome some of the difficulties I had last year.

I know you're just dying to know what I have up my sleeve... Relax! You'll find out tomorrow. I'm pretty excited... fingers crossed it goes well!

Workforce Innovations 2013

Today was the 7th annual Workforce Innovations conference here at RIT (and my 4th - wait, really?! - time participating). The format was like any other year: upwards of 100 high school students descend upon RIT for a keynote, two workshops, and lunch at Gracie's. This year's Imaging Science workshop had a pretty good number of students signed up, with 16 in my first group and 19 in my second (second greatest numbers of any workshop, only behind Hospitality). I'll take it.

This year I went back to my usual presentation with the FLIR minus the twitter component I introduced last year. Even though it kind of worked, to be honest, I didn't have the energy for it this year; nor did I have a helper to monitor the tweets like I've had in the past. While it is unfortunate that our Twitter account didn't get as much attention this year, I don't think the lack of Twitter negatively influenced the experience had by the audience. Not only that, but I don't think that last year's inclusion of it had any lasting impact beyond the day-of. The students never interacted again, save for the one bright spot we had by way of a student saying he was going to apply for the summer internship - which in the end never panned out.

So, back to the normal routine. And that's pretty much how the whole thing went - entirely normal. Just like in past years, I had a mixed experience. My first group was meh, alright; my second group was fantastic. It is strange how two completely different experiences can be had in the span of one morning. But like I've said before, the makeup of the audience presents a challenge (if you're not sure what I mean, check out some past posts). Although, I did enjoy seeing the niece of a good friend of mine, who had no idea what I do and it was total coincidence that we crossed paths today.

The good news is I didn't have anyone blatantly talking, texting, or sleeping (except for one of the chaperons... way to set an example) during my presentations. And the even better news is I did have one student who said he is already coming to RIT in the fall for Engineering Exploration, and he really liked what he heard today. I strongly encouraged him to ask about the freshmen class and he seemed excited about that, so hopefully we'll see him in the fall!

Looking forward, I think I will make the suggestion that we shorten the length of the workshops. One hour just seems to be too long for these kids... No matter how enthusiastic they start out, they seem to fizzle around 40-45 minutes. This makes sense, considering that most schools have class periods of about that length. I don't blame the kids at all. I wish I could stretch out the interactive portion of my workshop to fill more of the hour, but it too would get boring after a while. So I'm not sure what the ideal solution is, but I think shortening up the workshops would be great (for us at least). If you have any ideas, please, leave them in the comments!

All in all, I think the conference went well. (Oh, except for the one student volunteer who didn't show up to guide my first group to me from the keynote...)

Workforce Innovations Part II: @Ritimagingsci is creative & inspiring ;-)

SO... after all the hype, how did Workforce Innovations 2012 actually go? Well, I gave you a happy hint yesterday, but before the sunshine there was definitely some rain. (The kind of hint I was really looking for was a video of a bomb exploding and then a flower growing up from the ruins, but go figure, there aren't any videos like that already out there.)

Last year, my first group was small (< 1 dozen) and my second group was large (>2 dozen), and they were good and not-so-good, respectively. So, knowing that and seeing group numbers of 8 and 27, I was expecting something similar. Maybe it was the group, maybe it was the Twitter thing, but I was totally wrong!

My first group, as I knew to expect, was only 8 students - all boys, as it happened to turn out. And they. were. TIRED. Wow. I know it was early and all, but come on - doesn't your day normally start at 7:30? Shouldn't a field trip to a college campus on a school day be exciting enough to keep you awake? Apparently not. While these guys did have phones and they did have Twitter, that whole thing just fizzled. So, good thing I was prepared with my regular schtick. A couple of the students were getting into it, but overall the event felt very... awkward. I can think of a host of reasons why. I still wouldn't call it a failure, but it was not one of my finest activities. By the end of it, though, some of them were warming up to me and finally one kid posted something on our Twitter page. And through that, he won the distinction of "Best Tweet" for his group and took with him a coveted pair of CIS swag sunglasses. (I'm sure all 7 other kids were insanely jealous and regretful that they didn't show a little more enthusiasm! I mean, why wouldn't they be?)

So next comes the awkward 10 minutes when students from the other 5 activities that have Optics/Imaging as their second activity slowly converge here in CIS. I decided to take this time to start introducing the students who were there early to the whole Twitter concept - explaining that it was my first time ever trying it, that if it went well they would have been part of a groundbreaking experiment bound to change the way presentations are done, and - most importantly - how miserably it failed with the last group, and they had to prove that their second group was better. Ah, what greater fuel is there than a little friendly competition? Maybe it was that, maybe it was the greater number of students overall (29 this time), maybe it was the prizes I promised to the best tweets, maybe it was my own pure awesomeness - but this time, it totally worked! 

Yeah this seems cool!

While I still presented my usual "About Me" and the like, the kids were already getting into the whole Twitter thing. From time to time I would pause and read aloud some of the things they were tweeting, which were being projected on the side wall. Slowly, things were coming together and the audience was realizing in what ways they could make use of Twitter.

Tweeting a picture of Twitter... how meta.

I always start my explanation about what Imaging Science is by asking the audience what they THINK it is; this time around, I encouraged them to tweet their answers, and while I went on to explain it to also tweet where they see Imaging Science in their daily lives. I also challenged them to tweet their best definition of Imaging Science, and the best one would get a prize at the end. Again I interspersed my prepared parts of the presentation with the tweets and spontaneous questions and thoughts that would come up, which definitely affected how engaged the kids were and kept them on their toes.

Things really got good when we started using the thermal camera. Not only is this the most fun and interactive part of the whole thing anyways, but now more than just the one person in front of the camera at a time could have fun with it. Students were taking pictures of each other in front of the camera and posting them on Twitter, sometimes giving them captions. 

Oscar Herrera ‏ @oherrera53

@RITimagingsci #whysoserious? http://pic.twitter.com/hA5bupIh

amanda herko ‏ @amandaherko

In the end, the reaction from the students was that they thought Twitter was a great addition and it really upped the fun factor for them. Overall in my opinion, the whole Twitter experiment turned out great not only for the audience but also for us at CIS, since we now have a fun record of the presentation and what a great time the students had at it. Our Twitter page was given a relevancy it has not yet been able to attain, and it kept the audience more engaged - we were even able to continue interacting with them on Twitter after they had left. I think there is a lot of potential here to greatly improve the way presentations are done, especially with large groups.

Despite the rough start, I am convinced that using Twitter can be a very useful approach. There are a few things I could change though to make things run a little more smoothly. Foremost, there should be a moderator: in this situation a co-presenter; or in the classroom, a teaching assistant. This person can then read all of the incoming tweets and pick out the best ones to be read aloud. The main presenter can then defer to the moderator every couple of minutes to share the best tweets - important questions, interesting comments, etc. That way, the presentation as a whole isn't interrupted by having to wait for the main presenter to catch up with what's been happening on Twitter. Also, during the presentation the moderator can respond via Twitter in real-time with things that perhaps the main presenter did not get to, and/or can supplement the main presenter's answer/presentation with relevant links to more information. The other main thing I would change is I would encourage more use of hashtags - who knows, maybe we could make #imsci a trending topic (I'm trying to, at least).

Well I think this post is more than long enough... If you want to know more, use the Comments and ask away! Oh, and you can check out all of yesterday's tweets at https://twitter.com/#!/RITimagingsci/favorites. My favorites include "lesson of the day : Thermal Camera always wins!!", and, of course, "@RITimagingsci way better than hospitality #bethany<3" (it's real, go and see for yourself).

The day I put up a picture of a Mars Rover and someone excitedly yelled, "It's Wall-E!!!"

Today I participated in a college visit for a group of kids from Pennsylvania, whose day also included an admissions overview, tour of campus, and presentations on engineering, liberal arts, and art options here at RIT. Imaging Science was their last stop for a 45 minute demo with the FLIR. Having just done Workforce Innovations a week ago, I was all warmed up and ready to go today. Unfortunately, today was just not destined to be a slam dunk.

First of all, the group was supposed to consist of 50 tenth graders; however, we got an email notice that only 15 showed up. Everything was still to go on as planned, just with a diminished capacity. This didn't really have much of a negative impact on me (in fact 15 students are much easier to handle than 50, although they are not the best ROI effort-wise) other than that presenting the in huge Carlson Auditorium was going to look pretty silly now. The auditorium is exactly what you want for 50 kids, and exactly what you DON'T want for 15. But, no biggie.

I have no idea how the day went for them before getting here, though I can guess that they were pretty tired and worn out by the time I got them. They slowly and reluctantly filed into the auditorium, and were hesitant to sit near the front without some encouragement from who I can only assume was a chaperon. (In fact I couldn't tell who the chaperons or people in charge actually were, which always makes me very uncomfortable. I am happy to give presentations, but I can not fill the role of being the authoritative figure. I do not have the power to control kids when they are misbehaving, which luckily is not usually a problem... [spoiler alert!])

I started out by trying to make some small talk and ask some questions to better understand my audience. Turns out they were from grades 9-12, not just 10th grade. They were from the same school, however. They had ridden in to Rochester on a bus that morning, and were driving back down after my presentation (sounds like a long day). The chaperon-ish guy thought he was really funny by saying they had "walked" when I asked how they got there. Thanks, man.

And with that encouraging start (though I didn't let it get me down!), I went ahead with my presentation. It wasn't long before some girls in the front thought it would be okay to get chatty. The stare down technique didn't work, nor did cleverly hiding the fact that I knew what they were doing within the context of my presentation work. Finally I had to completely stop what I was doing and ask the girls to please stop talking, it's really not cool. The chaperon-ish guy then kind of took note and reminded everyone there to be respectful.

Clearly this was effective, as after a few minutes one of the girls shifted gears to texting on her phone. So, when I needed a volunteer to get in front of the camera, I called up "my texting girl here in the front," to which she replied, "What? Who's texting?", and tried to cleverly slip her phone into her sweatshirt pocket. Seriously? "You, I watched you texting and see you slipping your phone into your pocket right now. Come on, don't try to pull one over on me like that." And she just giggled as if the whole thing were just silly and she wasn't actually guilty of anything. I wasn't angry, but I did want her to feel a little embarrassed about acting rude and childish. I think it worked... Either way, I was able to at least embarrass her (harmlessly) in front of the thermal camera. So, win.

After this the chaperon-ish guy was more vigilant about observing the kids' behavior. He tried to call out another girl for texting but she said she was taking pictures of the thermal camera on her phone. Well.... okay. Some of the kids were interactive and good players, but for the most part I wasn't feeling much interest from them. Still, I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume their lack of enthusiasm had to do with being tired and it having been a long day. I got through the rest of the presentation cheery as can be, but inside I was struggling. Most of the time my job is an absolute joy, but this time it was more like hard work. I put my heart and soul into every one of these presentations, so it stings a little when I can't get through to a crowd. Am I to blame? Is there something I could have done differently? How much of it is my fault?

The strangest part came at the very end, when it was time for them to leave and I quickly wrapped up. I gave concluding remarks, told them how to get in touch with me, and even announced, "The end!" And they all just sat there... Was I so good that they all wanted to stick around and hear more, or was I so bad that they were all more or less unconscious? Never mind, don't answer that.

Don't get me wrong - I will never give up, and sometimes the toughest audiences are the ones who need this the most, or really appreciate it just without expressing as much. Also, I truly appreciate every opportunity I get to speak with high school students, and I'm still very glad I was invited to participate in this visit. If anything I said today inspires someone, amazes someone, surprises someone, or excites someone about science, then my work was a success. Bring it on.

@RITimagingsci Im hungry

Today was our annual Career Exploration Day for Greece Apollo 8th grade accelerated science and math students! This is my third year representing Imaging Science at this event, and today (just as in the past) the kids did not disappoint. This event continues to be one of my favorites all year!

The game plan was essentially the same as last year, with a few notable changes: due to scheduling conflicts, the hospitality/nutrition portion was replaced with IT; there were fewer students eligible to participate (~50 instead of ~80); the girls had not previously seen me (this year's NTO event isn't until next Friday, and is for Athena girls instead of Apollo); I was presenting in the new classroom (2155) instead of in the auditorium; and the weather today seems perfect if not a little cloudy, so hopefully the kids won't be complaining in their surveys about having to walk outside in the sun and heat (which was an overreaction in my opinion, but hey that's just me). Oh yeah, and like in Workforce Innovations this year, I incorporated Twitter into the presentation.

Another classmate [accurately] tweeted that this particular student pictured here was having too much fun.

One thing that definitely did NOT change from last year was the kids' enthusiasm and how much of a blast I had interacting with them. In fact, I think the Twitter integration even helped take things up a notch. It especially came in handy in the second group where some of the students were more shy and not interacting so much with me directly, but as it turns out were tweeting up a storm. Overall with both groups we had a lot of great interactions both personally and virtually, and I think the presentations also benefited from having Joe there to be the Ed McMahon to my Johnny Carson (and also, more literally, my tweet moderator). To check out the day's tweets, which include a ton of user-submitted photos, click here. Some of my favorites include:

• @RITimagingsci This is so weird http://pic.twitter.com/pWoG7Yki
• @RITimagingsci Bye bye Alexis http://pic.twitter.com/opDSRVVK
• And, of course... @RITimagingsci I may have to try out this "imaging science" in the future :D

If you ask me, I had a fantastic time and think the event went really great! But I don't have survey results from the 8th graders yet, so we'll have to wait and see whether this event really was as much of a win as I think it is ;-). But, if the looks on these kids' faces are any indication, I think they had a good time:

Check out that one kid's reaction!!! You know which one I'm talking about.

Just look at all those smiling faces.

Except maybe this girl, who didn't want to go in front of the camera so instead I turned it on her.

But see, it turned out okay!

Group 2 had a blast, too.

Some of our top tweeters.

Obligatory picture illustrating that I was doing something #1

Obligatory picture illustrating that I was doing something else

To view a bunch more images, click me!

And that's about it for this blog entry - It's Friiii-day, Friii-day - so I am about ready to pack it up and call it a day. Especially since I will be right back here all day tomorrow - FOR IMAGINE RIT, woohoo!!!!! But hold up, one last thing- 

BAHAHAHAHAHA inadvertent Joe Pow photobomb

I'd like to thank the Academy, Mom and Dad, the Center for Imaging Science, umm...

So the other big event this week besides Workforce Innovations was the annual slew of summer intern interviews! (*cue fanfare.) For the first 4 days of this week, Joe and I facilitated the whole process (though on Tuesday and Thursday I got the ball rolling, as Joe was teaching). Each day, 6 interviewees, and in some cases their parents, would come in by 3:15. On every day though at least 1 candidate, if not several, were here 15 minutes early! But with the way parking is around here, I can't blame them. Anyhow, an overview session would take place until 3:30 when the interviewees were cut loose to get started. Most candidates were done and out of here by about 4:30 each day. While they were interviewing, the parents could choose to stick around or to roam around campus. Those that stuck around were subjected to my "What Is Imaging Science?" animation, and then could ask us questions. Some parents even got tours of the freshmen lab. All of the interviews seemed to go really well (no crying, at least) and hopefully the parents had a good time, too. It was interesting to meet and interact with so many people. But, I am glad to get those 1.5-2 hours of my day back next week... ;-)

The whole interview process then culminated in today's "Intern Draft"! This is always a fun thing to witness. Head shots of all the interns are posted up and lab leaders get to duke it out over who gets which interns. It is generally a friendly exchange, and everybody walks out with some fantastic interns that should do a great job over the summer.

I love the summer intern program, and obviously owe a lot of myself to it. But every year it stirs up some mixed feelings in me. There are so many bright kids out there, and we only have the capacity to take 14 or 15 of them. So there will be 40 or so applicants that end up disappointed. And typically not for any fault of their own - there are so many factors that go into selecting interns. All of the applicants are fantastic students with great potential. I'd hate for any of them to feel in any way discouraged against Imaging Science or RIT as a result of not making it into the intern program (for example, if they feel miffed). I think some of my bleeding heart tendencies come from the fact I'm a cancer (the crab - if you believe that mumbo jumbo); but I think generally it has to do with how much of myself I owe to the internship experience here. What if there's another Bethany trying to get in... Where would I be today if someone hadn't taken a chance on me 10 years ago???