The student tech team takes center stage
This middle school program builds confidence and tech skills.
Abril Contreras-Reyes and Paulina Martinez-Garcia deliver the morning announcements at Academia de Lenguaje y Bellas Artes (ALBA).
The tech team at Academia de Lenguaje y Bellas Artes (ALBA) isn’t your typical computer club.
For starters, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin school is the only one of its kind in the district. The PreK to grade 8 program was created so bilingual students (Spanish- and English-speaking) could attend a fine arts program.
In Spanish, “alba” means dawn. “This [school] was really the dawn of a new day in bilingual education in our district,” says Brenda Martinez, ALBA co-founder and lead teacher.
Many computer clubs focus on software and programming. The ALBA tech team has three main responsibilities: the members repair hardware and software problems on school laptops; create daily school announcements; and create a presentation that celebrates the school’s achievements during monthly student assemblies.
ALBA is part of Verizon Innovative Learning, where students are provided with devices and data plans that allow them to connect to the internet at school and at home, and educators are provided with professional development on how to integrate technology into school curricula.
The Verizon program also supports the creation of school tech teams that serve as student-run IT departments, and advise teachers and students on hardware and software issues.
Sonja Pupovac, the Verizon Innovative Learning Schools Coach, says that tech team activities foster skills that wouldn’t be taught in typical classrooms. “Working in a tech team, you’re researching, you’re finding the answer, and then you’re problem-solving,” says Pupovac. “So now the power lies within the student and not just within the teacher.”
Seventh grader Joel Lopez used to be unclear about what he wanted to do in the future. “Tech team has changed [my] perspective,” Lopez says. “It’s showing me a pathway I can go on, using more computers and technology.”
That perspective might come in part from the hands-on work the students do on the repairs team. Twice a week, they can be found opening up computers to learn how they function, researching solutions together on the internet or collaborating on physical repairs.
For most middle schoolers, delivering a presentation or a PA announcement to peers will jangle the nerves. Those experiences help build crucial life skills, says Pupovac.
“Being able to stand in front of an audience — in front of the entire school — or make an announcement builds confidence in the students. So they find out that they have great speaking skills, and they start improving their voice, and their posture changes, and their tone and their tempo of speaking,” Pupovac explains. “Their confidence level has just skyrocketed.”
Seventh grader Paulina Martinez-Garcia says overcoming her own nerves gave her the experience to better support others: She now helps other tech team members prepare for their presentations. “I’m helping them to be louder or speak more quietly or read more fluently — because I also faced those problems,” Martinez-Garcia explains. “I was nervous at first, but then I grew confident.”
Students on the tech team are thinking differently about what they want to study in high school and college or pursue as careers. “I’ve certainly heard more students talking about professional goals in technology,” Pupovac says. “They’ll say, ‘I want to fix computers. I want to be able to work in software.’ They want to come up with the next popular app.”
“That is a skill that you can’t teach,” she adds. “That’s something you have to experience. And so through that experience in the tech team, they’re years ahead of where other peers land because they have that tech team to work with.”
Verizon Innovative Learning is a key part of the company’s responsible business plan to help move the world forward for all. As part of the plan, Verizon has an ambitious goal of providing 10 million youth with digital skills training by 2030. Educators can access free lessons, professional development, and immersive learning experiences to help bring new ways of learning into the classroom by visiting Verizon Innovative Learning HQ.
