Look Inside:Summer 2004 @ Shodor

Nothing is Better ThanWorking at Shodor

NCSI Summer/Fall 2004 Update

Shodor Interns Emeriti:Where are they now?

Team Interactivate

Every summer dozens of rising 8thgraders spend a week as interns at vari-ous businesses in Durham County,placed according to each student’s spe-cific interests. Youth Looking at theFuture Today (YLFT), created in 1992and sponsored by Durham PublicSchools and the Durham Chamber ofCommerce, aims to expose students topotential careers. On Monday, June14th, few students care to Shodor toexperience life as a Mentor Centerintern.

Shodor has participated as a businesshost for the YLFT program since 1996.

Every year we try to introducethe students to a variety of pro-jects from programming to graphicdesign to writing and beyond. Withthis variety, students are more likely tofind something of interest to them. Theresult is a win-win situation. We atShodor get to meet bright, young stu-dents who may be interested in becom-ing long-term interns, while the stu-dents can make connections for possiblejob opportunities in the future. As anexample, I was introduced to Shodor asa middle school student in the YLFTprogram in 1997 and began working as

an intern in 2003.This summer the YLFT stu-

dents began their week at Shodorlearning HTML. They used this

knowledge to create their own webpages. The students wrote about them-selves and their week at Shodor onthese pages. In addition, they learnedhow to add color, pictures and links,and make tables and lists for their web-sites. This was a weeklong activity thatreflected the students’ personalities aswell as some of the work we do atShodor. The other long-term projectfor the week was an introduction to the

program Flash. With this tool, each stu-dent made short, creative animations.This was the first year we attemptedthis project, but it generated so muchexcitement from the students that it willnot be the last! The students were alsoshown how to link these animations tothe web pages, connecting these twoprojects. To view the web pages theycreated, as well as their Flash anima-tions, please visithttp://www.shodor.org/ylft.

The YLFT students were also intro-duced to the idea of computational sci-

ShodorPartners withCountywideYouth Program

SHODOR EDUCATION FOUNDATION, INC.1994-Celebrating 10 years of Service in Education Reform-2004

The Newsletter of the

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NON-PROFIT ORG

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DURHAM, NC

PERMIT NO. 261

923 Broad Street, Suite 100 Durham, NC 27705Voice: (919) 286-1911 Fax: (919) 286-7876

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By Ellie Grano, Mentor Center Intern Junior atNC State University,

While most people haveto look for Shodor, I acciden-tally stumbled on to it oneday at breakfast with myneighbors. Originally aDurham native, a graduate ofNorthern High School, I wassurprised to learn about theexistence of an educationfoundation on Broad St. –having never before noticedthe squat brick building witha white sign out front. Whilediscussing Shodor, it turnedout that my present calculusprofessor, Holly Hirst, was amember of Shodor’s Board ofDirectors.

This interaction set me onthe path of exploring thepossibility of obtaining aninternship at Shodor since itseemed to me that we werea well-matched pair. Whileattending school atAppalachian State Universi-ty in the fall, I started doingsome work for Shodor viathe web. The followingsummer, while I was athome in Durham, I workedas an intern at Shodor. Thatsummer turned out to be thebeginning of a long, happyrelationship. Since 2000 I

have come back to internwith Shodor each summer.During my time at Shodor Ihave performed a variety oftasks ranging from webdevelopment to educationalcontent development.

Whether it is learning how toprogram in PHP or a newtechnique for teaching, everysummer spent at Shodorteaches me something new.

My favorite part of work-ing at Shodor, other than the

atmosphere and the people,are the summer workshops Iteach for middle school stu-dents. I often take the mater-ial I teach in these workshopsand modify it to fit into myclassroom curriculum.

I am currently teaching6th, 7th, and 8th grade sci-ence at Orange CharterSchool in Orange County.Having developed many les-son plans specificallydesigned for the SUCCEEDworkshops, it is really fun totry these lessons in my class-room. Shodor has helpedme gain confidence not onlyin my computer skills butalso in my teaching and mathskills as well. Currently I amplanning on teaching for onemore year at Orange Charterthen returning to school toobtain my Masters in Physi-cal Therapy.

SHODOREDUCATION FOUNDATION

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President & DirectorRobert M. Panoff, PhD

Mathematics EducatorBethany SnyderHudnutt

Engineering EducatorGarrett Love, PhD

AdministrationJoyce South

ComputationalScience EducatorKent Robertson

ComputationalScientistMatt DesVoigne

Computing ScienceMentorPatricia Jacobs, MA

Mathematics EducatorMatt Lathrop

NCSI ProgramAssistantDavid Hillman

System AdministratorMichael Stabosz

Visiting ScientistValerie DeBellis, PhD

International StaffCornelia Seiffert, MADiana Tanase, MA

Shodor would like to welcome newstaff members Patricia Jacobs and DavidHillman. Patricia, a graduate of NCState University, come to us from Norteland will be working on software qualityassurance. David, a recent graduate ofUNC-Chapel Hill, will be working onNCSI. We would also like to recognizevisiting staff member Pat Carstensen,Ph.D., who played an integral role inour programs this summer.

Shodor would like to say “GoodLuck!” to David Joiner, Diana Tanase,and Cornelia Seiffert as they “graduate”from being full-time staff to their newstatus as distant collaborators. Dr. Joinerhas accepted a position as the Asst. Pro-fessor of Computational Mathematics atKean University in New Jersey. Dianawill be pursuing her doctorate degree atthe University of Westminster in Lon-don. Cornelia, will be in England aswell, working for Earthwatch Europewhile her husband pursues his post-doc-toral work at Oxford University.

Elon University’s Computing Sci-ences Department was recently awardedscholarship funds from the National Sci-ence Foundation as part of the ElonNew Century Scholars program,designed to attract more women fromthe Elon student body into computingsciences. Shodor was an integral part ofthe proposal and will provide undergrad-uate internship opportunities for theNew Century Scholars.

Steven F. Austin State University hasbeen awarded a NSF grant to convertscience related ASL videos to 3D for-mats to improve deaf education in com-putational science. SFASU will be work-ing with Shodor staff, using materialsalready developed under Project SUC-CEED-HI.

Interactions is a regular publication of theShodor Education Foundation, Inc. To beadded (or removed) from our mailing list call (919) 286-1911 or email moreinfo@shodor.org

ence. Using the modeling program Stella,each student made a different simulation,including a model of the circulatory sys-tem and one of a restaurant business. Inaddition, they each sat in on one day ofour weeklong workshops, taking picturesand writing overviews of the days activi-ties, which were placed online on theworkshop webpage. At the end of the lastday, the students made a PowerPoint pre-sentation and presented their work to anaudience of Shodor staff and interns.

Through these activities the studentswere able to interact with many currentinterns, thereby gaining a better under-standing of what it might be like towork at Shodor. We hope that throughthis program the students learned notonly about Shodor, but also aboutthemselves and will now have moreknowledge to make informed decisionsabout their own futures.

Shodor Interns Emeriti: Where are they now?

By Allyson West, Teacher atOrange Charter School,Graduate of Northern HighSchool and AppalachianState University

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Allyson helps a student design an airfoil.

Shodor Staff

GreatDevelopments

Two YLFT students buildingtheir web page

Event Dates Times Grade WorkshopLevels Fee*

Saturday Explorations in Science & Math Oct. 9, 16, 23, 9am-Noon 6-8 $17530, Nov. 6, 13

Saturday; Explorations in Science & Math Spring TBA 9am-Noon 6-8 $175

* Full and partial financial assistance is available: no qualified student will be turned away for financial reasons

SUCCEED Fall 2004/Spring 2005 Calendar

Contact us: (919) 286-1911 • moreinfo@shodor.org

Countywide Youth Program

SHODOREDUCATION FOUNDATION

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Ten Years and CountingBy Robert M. Panoff, Ph.D. President and Executive Director

Earlier this year, I talked about how every day fromnow on will be the 10th Anniversary of something inShodor’s history. Many of the milestones have comeand gone and we are well into our next ten years withsignificant momentum. As you can read on thesepages, many of our interns continue to make greatstrides in maturing to be young scientists and teachers.This year we graduated two more high school teach-ers-Mike Thuente and Susan Edwards- who join Rob-bye Fielden and Allyson West among our illustriousInterns Emeriti in this noble profession. Others havegraduated from college and are working in a wide vari-ety of fields, and others are continuing in grad school.A measure of our success is the number of interns whocome back year after year, and who contribute somuch to the formation of their younger colleagues.

We have also “graduated” our first post-doc to a fullfaculty position as Dave Joiner is now an assistant pro-fessor at Kean University in New Jersey. I would liketo thank him for his significant years and service atShodor, and welcome him now as a colleague withwhom we will be collaborating for many years tocome.

Our work in the area of materials development andnational service is continuing to grow as well. Weexpect that this fall will see a significant jump in usagein schools and homes across the nation and world asmore and more districts and parents and studentsthemselves discover the value of our high-quality,interactive explorations and tools. We are currentlyworking with the Division of Undergraduate Educationof the National Science Foundation to bring our Com-putational Science Education Reference Desk(http://www.shodor.org/refdesk) into full partnershipwith the National Science Digital library(http://www.nsdl.org) as a Pathways Project.

We have had a busy summer as you can read in thisedition of Interactions. Besides the local impact of theMentor Center@Shodor, nearly 400 college facultysigned up for 18 workshops that our National Compu-tational Science Institute conducted across the country.In addition, Shodor staff assisted with the content andinstruction in workshops sponsored by other organiza-tions in California (parallel computing), New York(system modeling), Tennessee (agent modeling), NorthCarolina (mathematics) and Illinois (visualization).

Ten years and counting. And we are counting onyou. In the coming months, in order to put Shodor’sfuture on a more secure financial footing given the on-going uncertainty in grant-based funding, we will beexploring ways to grow and strengthen our board ofdirectors and the establishment of an endowment. Wewill also have to make decisions on where “Shodor willbe Shodor” as we look for additional space for all ofthe interns who want to be part of our dynamic learn-ing environment. All of this will require new thinkingand community support to provide a safe and appropri-ate place for Shodor to grow and put down roots. Ithank all of you and each of you for ten wonderfulyears (so far!) and hope we share many more to come!

By Mentor Center Interns OmarAwan and Leigh Phillips (enteringUNC-Chapel Hill) and TomasBarreto (entering Duke University)all recent graduates of Enloe HighSchool

As summer time rolls around,countless high school and col-lege age kids scramble to findjobs that will earn them a littlespending money as well as somevaluable work experience. For

the past few summers we, alongwith other programmers andcontent developers, have struckthe jackpot. Not only do weearn a significant amount ofmoney for college, but we alsoget to work with highly qualifiedscientists and professionals ongrant-funded projects.

As interns in the Mentor Cen-ter @ Shodor, young

programmers such asourselves have theopportunity to intel-lectually engage inprojects includingdynamic web pro-gramming, graphicalinterface develop-ment, and scriptingjava applets, allunder the insightfulguidance of Shodorstaff scientists. Thissummer the mainfocus of our team

was to make

sure the updated Interactivatesite (www.shodor.org/interacti-vate) was ready to go live by theend of the summer. The taskconsisted of going through manyof the applets to debug, imple-ment, and test many new fea-tures, as well as completelyrecoding some applets whilelearning to use new functions.With many problems arisingfrom on-going changes to Javaand web browers, we had towork diligently to meet deadlinesand come up with solutions.

Some examples of the prod-ucts that we have worked hard toproduce and debug this summerinclude Venn Diagram ShapeSorter (www.shodor.org/interac-tivate/activities/venndia), SimpleMaze Game (www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/pmaze),and Data Flyer(www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/flydata).

I came to Shodor for a job.It was that simple. I needed

money unless I wanted to trade inmy car for the equivalent of theFlintstone-mobile. Equally impor-tant was filling the ‘work experi-ence’ line-item on my collegeapplication. Some time at the startof junior year, your fantasticprogress on building a roundedcollege application seems to disap-pear in the middle of the night,since whatever you already havesuddenly isn’t enough to get youinto that college. So I applied toShodor. And what about a summerinternship? I didn’t especially feellike working through the summer

(who does?), but I also didn’t haveanything better to do.

Fast-forward a few months. I’meating with a coworker fromShodor on 9th Street, scarfingdown New York style pizza, talk-ing shop between mouthfuls andgenerally making my stomach wishfor a more responsible owner.Between bites, my friend pipes up.“You know, I can’t think of any-

where better to work than here.Well, Google. But nothing else.”

I’m hard pressed to argue withhim. One of our interns did justget an internship with IBM, andthat sounds pretty cool, but I can’tthink of anywhere else I could doall the things I’ve done at Shodor.

What happened in those fewmonths? I taught myself a newprogramming language, PHP, pick-ing up a generally useful (and mar-ketable) skill that I’ve already hadseveral chances to use outside ofwork. I helped teach two week-long workshops for middle schoolstudents and then took an interntraining course to further developmy teaching skills. I took a differ-ent class on scientific program-

By Adam Playford, Mentor CenterIntern, Senior at Riverside HighSchool

Nothing is Better ThanWorking at Shodor

All of the above is because ofthe effort of those who’ve

carefully and caringly planned afantastic working environment inwhich teaching and learning are

intertwined.

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Team Interactivate

Try your hand at the Simple Maze Game:http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/pmaze

SHODOREDUCATION FOUNDATION

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ming, taught by a staff member whoused material from the college coursehe’ll be teaching next year. While Ispent the morning learning. I taughtin the afternoon helping with a classfor interns who wanted to learn aboutdynamic web design. To me, the laststands out as the embodiment ofShodor’s atmosphere. At the start ofthe summer, I struggled to learn PHPby myself; by the end, not only was Ifluent in the language, but I also hadthe opportunity to help Shodor’s otherinterns so that they did not have tostruggle quite as much. Many havenow gone on to PHP projects of theirown that amaze me, discovering inweeks what took me months.

I’d like to say that all of the aboveis because I’m a super-intern, but thatwould be a lie. All of the above isbecause of the effort of those who’vecarefully and caringly planned a fan-tastic working environment in whichteaching and learning are intertwined.

Shodor is a job, first and foremost– at some point, you have to sweepfloors (literally as well as metaphori-cally) – but the genuine effort put intodeveloping and teaching interns sepa-rates Shodor from other organizations.Sometimes I wonder if I’m an employ-ee or more like another customer, sim-ilar to the middle school kids I taught.Perhaps it’s a bit of both.

In a few weeks, I go back to school,and I haven’t gotten to spend quite asmuch time chillin’ or shooting hoopsor working out as I wanted to. Nomatter – I wouldn’t trade the last fewmonths for the world. I don’t know if Iwas a good deal for Shodor. ButShodor was surely a steal for me.

One important factor in the successof the team concept, which Shodorstresses, is the ability to work togeth-er effectively. We have been able todevelop our collaboration skills bynot only working with each other,but with other members of the Inter-activate team, such as Jacob Fraimow(Durham School of the Arts), EllieGrano (NC State University), GregRubinstein (Chapel Hill HighSchool), Wendell Wilson (NorthCarolina School of Science andMath), Susan Edwards (recent gradu-ate of Meredith College), BenPhilbrick (recent graduate of JordanHigh School), Ryan Niedzialek(UNC Chapel Hill), Emily Mitchell(Meredith College), and AllysonWest (teacher at Orange Charter

School). We have become a groupof friends with individual skills thatwe share with each other. Togetherwe can combine our analyticalthoughts and tenacity, which enablesus to expand our own skills while atthe same time finishing projects in atimely, efficient manner.

Overall working at Shodor hasbeen an invaluable experience thathas enriched us in many ways. Wehave learned the value of technologyin the area of teaching and as wellhave had an opportunity to con-tribute to the learning process formany younger students. The skillswe learn as interns at Shodor willhelp us in building our future as wellas helping others in the field of sci-ence and education.

If you are interested in being an intern at Shodor, then contact MentorCenter Director Matt Lathrop by phone at (919) 286-1911 or by email at

moreinfo@shodor.org, or apply online athttp://www.shodor.org/mentorcenter/

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Team Interactivate

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Nothing is Better Than Working at Shodor

If you are interested in being an intern at Shodor or attending aSUCCEED workshop, then contact Matt Lathrop by phone at (919) 286-1911 or by email at moreinfo@shodor.org

Adam assists a student during the Forensic Scienceworkshop this summer.

In an active example of coorperation, students link hands before attemptingto untangle themselves.