With all of that, how did the test scores hold up?  How about maybe our best year ever!  How's this:

• 9th Grade Language Arts End of Course Test (State test):    LHS pass rate is 93%,  CDAT is 99%
• 9th Grade Biology End of Course Test:   LHS pass rate is 87%,  CDAT is 93%
• 10th Grade Science Gateway Test        LHS pass rate is 80%   CDAT is 92%
• 11th Grade Language Arts End of Course Test:  LHS pass rate is 96%   CDAT is 100%   
• (LHS Exceeds rate is 38%   CDAT is 50%)
• 11th Grade Social Studies End of Course Test:  LHS pass rate is 87%   CDAT is 100% 
• (LHS Exceeds rate is 55%   CDAT is 70%)  Did you see that, 70% Exceeds!!!

The agenda will be simple:  our rooms will be open starting at 7pm for students to show off what they've been doing.  Then at 7:30pm will move into the Theatre for our main event, the DATty awards!  We anticipate these awards running until about 8:30pm, maybe a bit earlier.

We've had many things to celebrate this year, it should be a very fun evening!  AND, we will reveal our new space as well (we're not moving far, just getting bigger and better!).

(Note: we won't be having food/beverage due to the large size, so please eat ahead of time.  Also, dress is casual.)

Questions?  Email Mike Reilly - mreilly@lanierhs.org

CDAT was buzzing this morning, with many cameras and reporters around!  Young Guru, sound engineer for Jay-Z, was in the CDAT room to visit with our students.  Our CDAT 9th graders are piloting a new curriculum for computer programming, written by the Georgia Tech Earsketch program, and supported by Young Guru.

The programming concept of Earsketch is simple and effective: teach programming to students using music.  That is, their computer code actually generates music.  The logic and mathematical parallels between music and programming just make sense!  So, our CDAT students are the pilot group for this National Science Foundation project, and it was just a surprise treat to meet one of the greatest sound engineers of our generation.

Young Guru spoke so passionately about the need to pursue studies in technology, that music is fun and good, but we need to push ourselves to learn software development and/or technology.  The demand for programmers is so strong, and software controls so much of what we do in the world.  The students who can get a head start on software development or other engineering at an early age will have a huge advantage.  Thanks Georgia Tech and Young Guru!

For those who applied to CDAT's new 9th grade, you're in!!  We are lucky to have a few more seats than applicants, so we can take you all!!  

Here's what will happen next:  in the next week or two, Lanier Middle Students will receive confirmation sheets. If you have been listed as a CDAT student, the confirmation sheet will list "Placeholder" as a class.  This is just a way to identify a CDAT student, not a name of a class.  

If a student is listed with "Placeholder", but does not want to participate in CDAT, they can drop this during the add/drop period, before March 28.  

If a student would like to add CDAT, we only have about 10 seats left.  To be added to our roster, the student needs to email a CDAT application (see below) to mreilly@lanierhs.org.  The next 10 applicants will be accepted.  You should also add this during your add/drop period on your official paperwork, once you receive confirmation from Mr. Reilly (I will usually respond to your email application within the hour, I'm online too much!).

If we have more requests/applications than seats, we will start a waiting list and notify people right away about that status.

Questions?  Email mreilly@lanierhs.org

Due to some ambiguities, we have extended the CDAT app date until Wed., 2/20.

If you are interested in signing up for CDAT, here are the steps to take:

Timeline:

Some folks wanted our presentation placed online.  Here it is below, as well as a presentation that is more "data-centric" about our test scores and other details.

In December, we presented at STEMGeorgia as one of 3 model programs for STEM education in the State of Georgia.  That was one week after we presented our model at the Autodesk University conference in Las Vegas. 

Academically, we wrapped up the semester in usual fashion, with scores in our core classes above the school and district averages.  This was not completely surprising to us, but we were a bit nervous since we doubled in size this past year!

And some of our students began some very innovative projects, which should come to fruition soon.  Walter Biscardi, owner of Biscardi Creative and a well-known figure in the video editing world, took a chance on our kids.  They are modeling a 3D animation for an upcoming documentary, which should air this March (sorry, can't tell you more yet!).  We will also be in numerous competitions, and many of our CDAT students are also part of our inaugural FIRST Robotics team, the "Mechanical Bulls".

Registration will be here soon, and we anticipate continued growth in the program.  Therefore, we have written our first application which will be posted on this site, and other locations.  To be very clear:  students will NOT be judged on grades or any other filter.  The application will be available very soon.

Okay, so we launched our YouTube Channel ForgotToStudy and were using it as a tool to teach US History, Language Arts, and Entrepreneurship through technology, with TONS of 21st century skills built in.  We had about 300 views almost immediately, even earned $10 in ads to spark excitement!  Then, Google shut us down.  They claimed we performed "click-fraud" or some other violation, no ads allowed anymore.  After 4 days!

Did we?  Certainly not intentionally, unless one of our kids/supporters got overzealous.  The most frustrating part is that this is a learning opportunity for our kids in so many ways, and Google's refusal of our appeal is a refusal to learn from mistakes. Even more frustrating is that I can't get in touch with a living Google person to understand this educational project, to help us teach this lesson.  AND, they claim their data points to click-fraud, but they don't have enough data to tell me why.  You have enough data to make a decision, but not enough to tell me why you made a decision?!

So, we will dust ourselves off and take a look at our options, like any good business would do, which is a lesson in itself.  Perseverance!! (Can you feel this turning more positive?)  

Also, starting off the Thanksgiving Break, we found out that Brayan Byrdsong won GaTech's Fall Scratch Programming Contest - Individual Game Category (see his game here: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/blbbrayan/2893230)   Brayan is a very smart, high-energy individual, and decided to do this all on his own, and won out of 23 entries.  Amazing skills!

And finally, it's off to the Autodesk Conference to present the cool things our kids are doing.  I will be at au.autodesk.com and share at their Education Conference on Monday, along with some really cool people in the educational technology world.  Our use of the Autodesk software to teach non-technology subjects is of high interest to Autodesk, a unique technique that's only found in CDAT!

So, we're very thankful for all of our cool tools, our space and freedom to create and learn at Lanier.  While we've had a setback in our YouTube channel experiment, it's just so cool that we're even doing a YouTube channel as schoolwork!!  There's only more great things to come the rest of this year, in 2013, and in our long-term future.  Enjoy the week, and be sure to keep the NYC/NJ area folks as well as other needy people in your thoughts and prayers.  You don't have to look far to see people in need.  Hmmm, maybe CDAT should do something about that....