I connected with Werner online and we begun to share our common passion for using technology in learning and teaching, became good buddies and when I was offered a scholarship by the Apple University Consortium (AUC) to visit Macworld some years ago he invited me to stay at his home. The offer was again extended for this trip, however Werner now has a new job at Valley Christian School (VCS) in the heart of Silicon Valley CA, he is, among other important things like being the Chaplian, the Students Satellite Tracking Station Team Leader and International Space Station Project Team Student advisor. I’m joking right …. NOT!
I connected with Werner online and we begun to share our common passion for using technology in learning and teaching, became good buddies and when I was offered a scholarship by the Apple University Consortium (AUC) to visit Macworld some years ago he invited me to stay at his home. The offer was again extended for this trip, however Werner now has a new job at Valley Christian School (VCS) in the heart of Silicon Valley CA, he is, among other important things like being the Chaplian, the Students Satellite Tracking Station Team Leader and International Space Station Project Team Student advisor. I’m joking right …. NOT!
This podcast episode has got to be one of the most exciting examples of authentic learning I have ever heard about. Researchers at the University of Adelaide eat your heart out …. 🙂 Just joking, but you are excused for being jealous. Students are working on the real deal they are designing research projects, gaining permission from NASA, building them to amazing miniaturisation specifications and meeting military-like deadlines. Once they are shipped to the International Space Station … yes the real one, they work with an astronaut to carry out the experiment in almost zero gravity, then formulate and report the findings.
Werner also tells how these students were invited to a HE Science research conference, made a presentation and received a standing ovation from all there and the convenor a senior officer in the US airforce offered them all a job after graduation. For a teacher it doesn’t get much better than that eh? 🙂 Now not only students from VCS are involved but 40 other schools and soon to be possibly 100 for next year. Werner is also looking for more schools willing to join the project. Please email him at VCS Werner Vavken.