By KAYLA J. MARSH
Staff Writer
FAIR HAVEN – Chris Aviles, EDTech Coach for the Fair Haven School District, has been recognized for his work in implementing a variety of technological advances into the classroom and for transforming learning in the digital age.
The nonprofit International Society for Technology in Education has named Aviles as a 2016 Emerging Leader who is paving the way for connected learning.
“This recognition makes me feel like I’m going in the right direction,” Aviles said in an interview April 3. “My number one passion is providing the best education I can for students and this tells me to keep going, to keep trying new things.
“It make me feel like I am doing something special in Fair Haven and I want to come in and work twice as hard.
“I am very passionate about the scope and quality of work the kids are doing in Fair Haven and [the district] has been absolutely amazing in embracing me and letting me try these ideas I have and the community is very excited about the work the students are doing.”
As the EDTech Coach, part of Aviles’ day is spent working with district teachers to amplify what they do in the classroom and assisting them in ways to, “better use technology in the classroom to increase learning, engagement, and motivation.”
The other half of the day Aviles spends working with students in the district’s Innovation Lab.
“I help oversee our Innovation Lab, which is how we introduce students to computer science, design and engineering, the digital arts and entrepreneurship,” he said. “I think people need to start recognizing technology as a fluency. What the kids are using in school right now might not be around when they graduate college, but the idea is not being afraid to further technology, not being afraid to try something, not being afraid to look at different ways to do things.
“I want our students to be fluent in technology, to be able to embrace it and not be afraid of it.”
A former high school English teacher, Aviles said he found that by having kids make things, they were more engaged and more willing to learn.
And as the EDTech Coach, the classroom has quickly become a makerspace where students are making and showing what they are learning.
“Kids have the opportunity to be exposed … to these skills that are going to be critical to their success in the 21st Century,” he said. “My position is a new position, a lot of schools don’t have it, but Fair Haven is forward thinking and realizes that technology and STEM skills are important for kids to know.”
Aviles documents his success, and sometimes fails, of his evolving pedagogy and programs on his blog “Teched Up Teacher.”
“On my website is either where I talk about how I do this stuff or why I do this stuff because I really believe in sharing with a wider audience, whether that’s the school, the community, the state, the country or the world,” he said.
One skill recently introduced into the Innovation Lab was entrepreneurship.
“I basically built the students online stores where we can sell things that we create … and it teaches kids how to be entrepreneurs, teaches them about private ownership,” Aviles said.
“I think what makes my space unique is not everybody’s doing the same thing. The kids can come in and they can choose to work on coding or building websites, or they can choose to work on designing something like 3D pictures, so every kid kind of comes in and explores what they are interested or passionate about … and that is the key, it is something they’re interested in learning.
“A big thing we talk about in the tech field is student-centered learning. If everybody is doing the exact same thing, you kill the creativity and you’re basically giving them a recipe so the product is always the same and there is never any failure, and that’s not conducive I believe to learning.
“I’m competing with all of this technology and it doesn’t make any sense to me why schools can’t be competitive in engaging and motivating students to use technology as a tool and … so I try to bring those tools to school and redo and rethink and create new ways to educate these students.”
Aviles and his fellow award winners in different categories will be honored at an event taking place June 26 to 29 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.