Delaware students meet celebrities, scientists online
Delaware students have talked to some pretty important people recently.
Last week, kids at Gunning Bedford Middle School talked with Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder, philanthropist and one of the wealthiest men in the world. Days later, students at Milton Elementary School talked with pop star Usher.
It’s all thanks to the Internet.
“It was really great for our kids to be able to connect with somebody like Bill Gates, who, you know, they might not otherwise be able to interact with,” said Sarah Cuje, the teacher who organized the event there.
Last week’s events were set up through Hour of Code, an international event designed to give students an hour to try basic computer coding. The goal is to show students, regardless of race, gender or income status, that they are capable of programming.
The effort is necessary, organizers say, because programming jobs are becoming increasingly common and important, but too few students – especially women and minorities – are training to fill them.
The two schools participated in Hour of Code, which entered them into a drawing to participate in the web chats with celebrities, which is how they were connected.
You might not expect a pop sensation like Usher would have a lot to say about computers and programming. But he talked to the Milford Elementary students about how the music industry has gone digital, and computers play a huge role in recording and producing his songs.
That was music to computer lab teacher Sandy Coleman’s ears.
“I’m a big geek and I want to make more geeks,” Coleman said. “I think his message was that you don’t just want to be a consumer of technology, you want to be a producer. By knowing how to code you’re able to produce and put out your creations, like Usher does.”
Bill Gates, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of person you’d expect to talk about the importance of knowing how to program. Cuje said he told the students that the key to his success was picking a dream early and sticking with it, even when big projects fell apart.
“The students were so cute about it,” Cuje said. “They hung onto that dream part. If he was able to follow his dreams, and he started around their age, then maybe they can follow it too.”
Early next month, students at Bunker Hill Elementary School will talk with a retired astronaut and NASA scientists, discussing what it’s like to leave the atmosphere and how scientists hope to get to Mars.
The school is one of the first to be selected in a program the Johnson Space Center in Houston has started in which they pick one school a month.
The students will get a virtual tour of Mission Control, and learn some of the engineering that allows the space program to function.
“It’s really amazing that we can use the technology to bring the experts to us. We’re no longer limited to what’s nearby,” said principal Laurie Wicks. “I’m envisioning somebody from Bunker Hill maybe one day working for NASA, and maybe this helped push them in that direction.”
Contact Matthew Albright at malbright@delawareonline.com, 324-2428 or on Twitter @TNJ_malbright.