Welcome to "Ask the Tech Coach," a podcast for Instructional Coaches and Technology Integration Specialists. In this episode of “Ask the Tech Coach,” Jeff welcomes Greenville K-8 Virtual School educator Emily Strickland and Kelli Recher, from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) onto the podcast to discuss Ignite My Future in School (IMFIS) program. If you would like to be a part of future podcasts and share your thoughts, please contact the podcast. We would love to have you join the show.

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In This Episode ...

Welcome Emily
- About Emily’s School
- Leadership Council for Discovery Education
- Learning Leader for Ignite My Future
Welcome Kelli Recher (RECKER)
- About Tata Consultancy Services
Ignite My Future In Schools Program
- Ignite My Future in School (IMFIS) was created in partnership with Discovery Education to empower educators to teach computational thinking, which are the critical skills that help students solve real-life problems and challenges by expressing them in a way that computers can solve.
- Program Goals
What is the Ignite My Future in School Program?
- Created in September 2017
- Empowering 20,000 teachers and 1 million students
- 353 school districts
- 50 States
  - California, Texas, New York, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey
- The Importance of teaching students about computational thinking.
  - What is it?
  - Why is it important?
    - Makes up 67% of all project new STEM jobs
    - More than 500,000 open computing Jobs in the US
    - Unfortunately, only 45% of high schools currently teach computer science
  - What do beginning lessons look like?
  - What grades should we begin teaching computational thinking?
  - Examples of computational thinking
  - What resources are available to educators to support the curriculum?
- Once a student is fluent in Computational Thinking … what could their next learning pathway be?
- Why should school districts partner with the Ignite My Future In Schools Program?
  - IMFIS combines the best of digital content, lesson plans, career vignettes, and professional learning to help teachers prepare students for future careers.
  - The program offers educators instructional resources and year-round curriculum support.
- Ignite My Future In Schools Learning Leaders Network
  - 246 Educators
  - Free Teacher-Driven community of like-minded individuals
  - Sharing Resources
  - How did the Learning Leaders Network start?
  - The importance of having this community as a teacher
  - The Global Innovations Program
- The Pandemic
  - How to teach Computational Thinking while hybrid learning
  - Creating a community during a pandemic
  - How to keep Ignite My Future alive during the pandemic?
    - How to keep students engaged?
    - How did activities change?
    - What is this year going to be like for you and your students?
  - What is the future for computational thinking curriculum and projects?
  - What should the role of a coach be when supporting teachers who are working with edtech companies and programs?

About our Guests

Emily Strickland is an educator for Greenville K-8 Virtual School in Greenville, SC as the Middle level Math Interventionist. Through this role, she helps motivate students to love mathematics and bridges the gap between skills that have been lost throughout students’ education. She has 24 years of experience in middle school math in South Carolina. She serves on the Leadership Council for Discovery Education and is a Learning Leader for Ignite My Future in Schools program through Tata Consultancy Services. Twitter @estrickteach Kelli Recher works for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as the North America Program Lead for Ignite My Future in School (IMFIS). Through this role, she helps to bring free, high-quality, computation thinking lessons to educators across North America. Additionally, she has 18 years of teaching experience in middle school science in Harrisburg, PA. Twitter @kellirecher

About TCS

Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that has been partnering with many of the world’s largest businesses in their transformation journeys for over 50 years. TCS offers a consulting-led, cognitive powered, integrated portfolio of business, technology and engineering services and solutions. This is delivered through its unique Location Independent Agile™ delivery model, recognized as a benchmark of excellence in software development. A part of the Tata group, India's largest multinational business group, TCS has over 488,000 of the world’s best-trained consultants in 46 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of US $22.2 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021, and is listed on the BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) and the NSE (National Stock Exchange) in India. TCS' proactive stance on climate change and award-winning work with communities across the world have earned it a place in leading sustainability indices such as the MSCI Global Sustainability Index and the FTSE4Good Emerging Index. For more information, visit www.tcs.com and follow TCS news at @TCS_News.

Links of Interest

www.ignitemyfutureinschool.org

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Instructional Coaching through Computational Thinking 28:17 Share

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Instructional Coaching through Computational Thinking