Monday night, October 27, was one of the great pay-off moments for CTRL-Shift. After two years of collaboration among Champaign Unit 4 Schools, MSTE, Computer Science, Library Science, local entrepreneurs, and community members, we had a chance to publicly demonstrate some of the great educational outcomes stemming from these efforts!

A group of Kenwood Elementary School students stood before the Unit 4 School Board and shared their computational thinking skills. They used the interactive whiteboard, their Chromebooks, and good ‘ole pencil and paper to show computer science – unplugged and on the computer. There were plenty of “ooh”s and “aah”s. And it may be the first time that anyone has described a school board meeting as “fun!”

Check out the pictures and videos below to get a sense of the palpable enthusiasm at the board meeting. If you were there, feel free to chime in in the comments section to let us know what you thought. And of course, we’re always excited to hear from you on Twitter! You can reach us on Twitter at @ctrlshiftCU.

Pictures from the board meeting:

A female student shows 2 board members her computer program on a Chromebook

A board member looks on as a female student shows her project on a laptop

3 board members and 2 students work on a project at a SMART board

3 board members and 2 students contemplate how to complete a coding challenge at a whiteboard

6 board members all down a long table work individually with students on laptops

Video from the board meeting:

Champaign Unit 4 released a new video highlighting their work with the University of Illinois, emphasizing the computational thinking project with Kenwood Elementary School. You can see some of the collaborators in the CTRL-Shift group and hear the excitement they have for this new dimension of education in our schools. Check it out and let us know what you think!

For more background information, you may want to read the Computing in the Elementary School post from April 2014 on the MSTE Blog.