Science Leadership Academy: A new model for schools

Students walk down the hallway in between classes at the Science Leadership Academy.

In partnership with Temple University’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, the university’s capstone journalism class, students Chelsea Leposa and Jared Pass will cover neighborhood technology issues for Technically Philly and Philadelphia Neighborhoods through May.

At the Science Leadership Academy the students are treated like adults, says junior Cody Nichols.

Built in partnership with the School District of Philadelphia and the Franklin Institute, the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) is a new student-oriented, project-based program. Put away your No. 2 pencil—at SLA, there are no standardized tests aside from the state required PSSAs.

Students work closely together and with teachers to create a variety of projects. Student projects even contribute to the school’s daily activities. SLA’s help desk, for instance, is one of the largest student projects, says Chris Alfano, tehe school’s system administrator and computer support specialist.

“We have about 12 students who are assigned to come here, and they pretty much take care of all the school’s repair needs,” Alfano says. All 10th and 11th graders at SLA are required to have an internship that meets once a week.

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Temple University launches ergonomic computing pilot

A wave keyboard and trackball mouse are among the new ergonomic devices that have been installed in the TECH Center. Photo by Kelly and Massa Photography

Computer keyboards can be so much more than flat and cramped.

Temple University, boasting among the city’s largest IT infrastructure, has launched a pilot program to introduce ergonomic computer equipment and accessories to their students, faculty and staff, according to the college.

“Project Ergo” has brought 100 joint-friendly computer pieces, including wave keyboards, trackball mice, arm rests and large monitors, to the school’s sprawling 75,000 square-foot Main Campus TECH Center.

Students, faculty and staff are asked to use the devices through the end of the academic year to provide feedback on what pieces would be most used and liked.

The details of some items being used to make computing a more comfortable affair on North Broad Street, after the jump.

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BarCamp indicates that Philly is ready for next step. But will it happen?

BarCamp's organizers address attendees in the morning. Photo credit: Flickr user MonkoPhoto

In what was an uncharacteristically warm Saturday for mid-November, roughly 250 BarCamp Philly attendees shuffled their way into an auditorium on the 16th floor of 211 South Broad Street in Center City, Philadelphia.

Standing before the packed room complete with attendees spilling out into the hallways, organizers J.P. Toto, Roz Duffy and Kelani Nichole took the microphone to kick off the event they had spent months tirelessly organizing.

“How many people are not from Philly?” asked Toto. Roughly 15 percent of the hands in the packed auditorium went up (most of whom turned out to be from Florida) to the sound of impressed whistles and nods of approval.

Toto continued: “How many people have never been to a BarCamp before?” Slightly less than half of the room raised their hands validating on what many had suspected previously: The Philadelphia tech scene is growing.

But with that growth comes a fresh set of issues for the city’s techies to tackle.

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TNT: Study shows two times as many U.S. science, engineering graduates as needed

A new study co-authored by a Rutgers professor shows a steady number of science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates, but a plummeting retention rate of highest-performing students. Source: Study "Steady as She Goes," linked below.

It’s a common refrain of politicians, educational advocates and many business leaders. The output of science and technical graduates in the United States is dangerously behind other countries.

But a new study [PDF], led in part by a Rutgers University professor, posits instead that the last 30 years has seen no significant change in the number of U.S. graduates in so-called STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — fields.

However, this new research shows the highest-achieving students in those majors are increasingly fleeing those fields at a higher rate than in the past.

“It’s a mistake to focus solely on boosting the number of science and math students,” says Harold Salzman, the Rutgers sociologist who teamed with B. Lindsay Lowell, a demographer at Georgetown University on the study. “Employers want more employment readiness, not more employees.”

That comes in contrast to a national dialogue in recent years.

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Shop Talk: Notehall, an ABC spot behind them and 65-college growth ahead

Notehall Chief Marketing Officer DJ Stephan and CEO Sean Conway on ABC's "Shark Tank" last night

The dining room is gone in this Manayunk rowhouse.

The living room, too, will soon be taken over by what will serve as desks and workstations for an expanding Web 2.0 startup that relocated from Arizona to the neighborhood in northwest Philadelphia that has attracted a steady stream of 20-something professionals for a decade or more now.

Sean Conway

“This is home,” says Sean Conway, the 25-year-old co-founder and CEO of Notehall, an online marketplace for study exams, class notes and other supplemental academic material that is already at 15 colleges nationwide and is due to expand to as many as 65 more by the end of the academic year — 20 to 25 this semester and 30 to 40 in the spring.

Students upload their own documents and take a 40 percent commission when sold to their peers, who are allowed to peek at a third of the document before purchase.

Notehall now has seven employees, including five in Manayunk and two executive staff in Arizona, and is looking for more — including a PHP developer — most of whom are being financed by their own revenue, though some investment capital remains. Last month, they debuted their Penn State marketplace and, they’re already generating positive revenue there, “it’s just soaring,” Conway says, though he declined to disclose just how high.

But now they go to work, fighting to get attention among the growing crowd of Web-based startups calling for college-aged attention. They’ve had a good start.

Last night, Conway and his chief marketing officer DJ Stephan appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank, which puts entrepreneurs in front of five investors on national, prime time TV to field offers. In fitting reality TV, there was drama, but Notehall came away with another investor.

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Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School expands

The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, an online-based school providing K-12 instruction, has announced that its Philadelphia enrollment has nearly doubled from 800 to 1,500.

As a result, the school’s administrative centers will moving into larger offices.  The school’s new Philadelphia branch, located in Ridley Park, will be having an open house today, from 4 to 6 p.m.

“In the past two years our office has added 10 professional staff members and 700 students. We now have more than 30 instructional and administrative staff and this year will serve 1,500 PA Cyber students in the Philadelphia region,” said Eric Woelfel, Director of the School’s Eastern Support Center in a press release.

Upon enrollment, students are provided with a laptop, a high-speed connection, a printer, textbooks and a supervising teacher. Though most instruction takes place online, each administrative center offers in-person tutoring and support.

As a graduate of a New Jersey high school, I think I can speak for the entire state in saying: We were gipped.

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Friday Q&A: Darlene Cavalier, the Science Cheerleader, on the700Level

It never seems fair when brains and beauty are so adeptly synchronized.

Yet, there is Darlene Cavalier, a former 76ers cheerleader, leading a science literacy movement, right from her Society Hill rowhome, while managing a beautiful family stuffed with four young kids.

Today, as a partnership with the700level.com, the best damn sports blog in all of Philadelphia, our Friday Q&A is running on their site.

Click over now to read what Cavalier has planned for her Science Cheerleader site and who won her poker game with Michael Jordan.

Below, some goodies from our interview with Cavalier that didn’t squeeze into the700level piece, including what synthetic biology has to do with NFL franchises.

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Technically Not Tech: Kendra Gaeta and KidsZillions on branding and allowance saving

Kendra Gaeta is facing branding issues with her allowance service for kids but remains bullish on the idea. Here she presents her concept at Ignite Philly 3 on May 3, 2009 in Fishtown's Johnny Brenda's.

Updated 3:02 7/20/09 for copyright clarification

It’s KidsZillions now and legal vagaries may force that to change once more, but that doesn’t make Kendra Gaeta any less passionate about the mission.

You may have seen her present at Ignite Philly 3 in Johnny Brenda’s on May 3 (where we declared her to have given the best performance), but the allowance chore management savings site for kids that Gaeta described was then called KidsMoney.

During her presentation, she briefly alluded to the possible name change then and made the move not long after, respectfully forfeiting the brand to a juvenile financial management author with a similar mission.

Her team is now dubbed KidsZillions, but some legal advice has left them feeling compelled to make another jump.

An e-commerce company called GiftZillions owns their similar trademark, and while it doesn’t appear to have anything near the same education mission as KidsZillions, Gaeta is getting more advice that branding may be a problem there, too. (Her company is tweeting at the far less distinctive @KidProject)

“I’ve been told we could have enough of an e-commerce edge that users would see us as a kids versions of GiftZillions,” she says. “It stings a bit, that we [could] have the copyright for a name we really like and yet are told we shouldn’t do anything with it.

“But I know building the project is more important.” So that’s what she’s doing.

While the name debate continues and their Web site’s interactivity features remain in development, the company, which is part of the second class of University City incubator DreamIt Ventures, this week launched the Allowance Project, a video blog that will feature interviews of a broad, diverse cross-section of people explaining their savings and spending habits as children.

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Friday Tech Links: Big Brother in Lancaster, girls still hate tech and More

Lancaster security cameras on the streets are monitored by civilians working for a nonprofit group. They pan, zoom and call police if they see a crime. Linda Johnson / For The L.A. Times

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

You’re probably being watched in Lancaster.

This city of 54,000 in the middle of a rural county of the same name just may be the most closely scrutinized place in the country, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times.

As many as 165 closed-circuit TV cameras that will soon bring constant live surveillance of very nearly every street, park and other public space. That would be more outdoor cameras than cities as large as Boston and San Francisco.

Two more things are unique about the camera network, as the L.A. Times story suggests: it was built and maintained by a private nonprofit group and few seem concerned about the privacy implications.

The group, which hires civilians to move and follow the cameras and dispatch police to suspiscious activity, hasn’t found much public outcry.

“Years ago, there’s no way we could do this,” said Lancaster’s police chief Keith Sadler told the Times. “It brings to mind Big Brother, George Orwell and ‘1984.’ It’s just funny how Americans have softened on these issues.”

There is some question as to the effectiveness of cameras, though. In what the Times report calls the largest U.S. study, US Berkeley researchers evaluated 71 cameras that San Francisco put in high-crime areas beginning in 2005. In December, they released a report that found “no evidence” of a reduction in violent crime, though it did note “substantial declines” in property crime near the cameras.

Hat Tip Philly Tech News.

After the jump, the continued spat over a state film tax credit, robot-loving high schoolers and eight more of the week’s tech stories you shouldn’t miss, including our best read story of the last seven days.

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Penn: Top IT workplace bringing tech-learning to Nicaragua

Photo of Optimus Prime prowling Penn's campus from SlashFilm.com, as linked at bottom.

Technology lovers at the University of Pennsylvania had at least two points of pride this week, a ranking and an act of good works.

Computerworld released its annual 100 Best Places to Work in IT list, naming Philadelphia’s Ivy League school No. 4, ranking it the best for benefits and second for diversity.

It comes near a university announcement that researchers from the school’s Graduate School of Education plan to introduce laptop computers and a technology-based curriculum to students and teachers in a rural community school for the children of coffee-farm workers in Nicaragua, beginning in July.

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