Funding for this program is made possible by the Grable Foundation.

[Music Plays] Oh, there you are!

Tell mommy about what?

Education is 24/7.

Do you have a night?

Young people are learning differently today.

It's not simply when you're in a classroom.

It's when you're at home.

It's when you're on your computer.

They learn in traditional buildings like schools, but also in tech spaces, innovation centers, even church basements.

They are learning new skills in this digital age.

Learning in ways that are relevant to them, in large part because of an effort to remake learning as we know it.

[Rooster Crowing] Remake learning is a movement in Pittsburgh to reimagine and re-envision the way education works.

It's an exciting and broad movement that's sort of taking over the region.

Hundreds of organizations and thousands of people are part of the Remake Learning Network.

It's happening in all types of neighborhoods, a network that's growin in cities far beyond Pittsburgh.

Big and small.

A network reaching many, not just a few.

Rich and poor, black and white network creating successful, lifelong learners.

Something different is happening here.

[Music Plays] I thin remake learning is understanding that the way that we provide an education about 50 years ago is very different than the needs that we have today.

Okay!

Let's take a look at our first cut script.

Biggest change by fa is the prevalence of technology.

It's everywhere.

And kids are very used to using technology from a young age.

We have to look ourselves in the mirror and recognize that the statu quo is not serving our students.

It's empowerment.

Changing the status quo has been a major focus of the remake learning movement.

Clear.

And that means unconventional educational experiences like learning the chemistry behind the cosmetics these teenagers are creating.

[Glass Clanging] It's deciding that three year olds can learn the science surrounding sound.

[Rubber Stringing] I have a book for you today.

It's loud, soft, high and low sound.

[Bells Ringing] [Toy Car Rolls] All right!

Good job!

And it's empowering young wome to consider careers in robotics.

Do you feel like you improved, especially because there are underrepresented in these fields?

Not only robotics, but engineering in general?

The airplane is where the robot would com and it would have a third motor.

You don't have a liver.

See the long lover?

Ten years ago, I was early in my tenure here at the Grable Foundation.

[Music Plays] The movement began when Greg Baer started meeting with area educators.

Part of his job as head of one of Pittsburgh' biggest educational foundations.

Just spending my time talking with teachers, talking with librarians, youth workers, others whom we hoped were helping in some way.

What they said alarmed him.

People said, I'm not connecting with kids the way that I used to.

These individuals who said it were themselves of different ages and have different experiences.

Greg invited a small group to meet teachers, librarians, engineers, and they decided on a goal to make learning more exciting and impactful.

Clearly, we're living in a time and in a world where learning is happening anywhere, anytime.

One of Greg's first partners was Cathy Lewis Long, who heads the Sprout Fund.

It's a nonprofit that supports innovative people and projects in Pittsburgh.

It's a world that's changing.

It's a world that's networked.

It's a world that's connected.

That group of about ten grew from a small core into a network.

Today, the Remake Learning Network consists of more than 250 organizations in schools, more than 3000 professionals who themselves are teachers, librarians and youth workers, but also gamers, roboticists, technologists.

It's really the overall work of a community to contribute to that learning journey.

And that community also includes the biggest foundations and the smallest neighborhoods, professionals in the media and stay at home writers, diverse places to like the Children's Museu and the Carnegie Science Center, and so-called makerspaces like a symbol and tech shop.

Then we changed it to five seconds.

[Music Plays] Inspired by this movement?

We see these eight year olds who are learning computer coding in the South Fayette Elementary School.

What do these wires do?

Why do we need these?

It helps close the stores and get its circulation in a rec center and shady side.

Third and fourth graders are designing their own video games to, like, make this.

It helps to play video games easier.

And over in store, rocks.

Teenagers are producing a morning TV show.

All right, Tyler, we're ready in five, four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning sir.

But not all schools have made the high tech leap.

Schools are still largely operating on an agricultural model that's over 100 years old.

Tom McKeever is an assistant professor in psychology and educatio at the University of Pittsburgh.

Children and youth, especially once they get to b in middle school or high school, most of them have the world's knowledge in their pockets in a phone.

Tom maintains that we haven't really found how to make learning and technology fully fit together.

We really cannot keep up.

In our in our schools o in our child and youth programs.

And so there's really a need for innovation.

So when you go out to preschools and the libraries and now to the elementary school, what struck you as similar across these settings when you do music business?

John Lee is one of the people who help educators navigate this new world.

He's the co-director of the Fred Rogers Center another remake learning partner.

Having vocalist going would be interesting because journals focus is on helping the people who work day to day with children.

[Music Plays Ultimately, it's the human being It's the teachers, the afterschool mentors, the child care providers who are making the difference for children.

And that doesn't change.

And another thing that doesn't change.

We know children learn from birth on.

Right.

That's why another partner is Pacey.

That's the Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children.

For us, we make learning is a lot about relationships and interaction, but it's also about it being child directed.

And when you think about how children learn best, when it's meaningful to them, they learn really amazingly.

We have to be quiet and listen to Lilly's message.

Hey, what did you take a picture of?

One collaborator is CMU Create Lab, which started message from me.

Children can take a pictur during the day, record a message and send it to their parents.

And the idea is to get parents and children talking about their day.

The children are using technology to do something simple and meaningful.

Communicate with their parents.

For me, children today we call them digital natives.

It's innate in them.

They're born to be able to pick up the iPad because it's just part of their world.

When made with your block, it's part of the remake learning network world.

Computer scientists working with early childhood educators on how best to use technology in a preschool setting.

Your eyes are looking back and forth.

Create lab took its technology here to.

Slowly Lanai!

This is on Pittsburgh's north side.

Pittsburgh public schools.

Allegheny K through 5.

And then she could point to the actual Melissa Butler and Jeremy Boyle teach the basics of electricity in kindergarten.

There's a button to push it up.

The children's Innovation Project started in 2010, when Jeremy was hired as a resident artist at the Create Lab at CMU, and we began work in my kindergarten classroom here at Pittsburgh Allegheny.

We work with children to think about their habits of learning.

We work with teachers to think about their practices of teaching and learning.

And so the project has become a partnership with many people in Pittsburgh who are thinking about what technology means and what learning means.

So the way children learn has changed and it hasn't.

Children still learn best in relationship with others.

And so I think you can't take out of the equation the role of the adult or other children in learning.

Don't really think about it.

We focused mostly on the technology instead of the interaction with the technology, and that's one of the major issues the folks at Remake Learning are tackling.

Technology can't be a replacement for a teacher, an educator, a mentor, a parent.

Take both prongs and put it into both.

Much of our work in Remake Learning Environment is trying to remind and support all the places in which human beings and actually supporting children, face to face.

Face to face is a key to the Remake Learning Network.

One of the Sprout Funds roles is to organize gatherings where people meet, shar ideas, and stimulate discussion.

Sometimes we do this as a one large network, bu often to meet as affinity groups where you have the maker or the early childhood educators coming together.

So these are in the forms of meetups or lunch and learns or affinity groups.

That's all in the in the sense of how to build community so that you can share, push and pull knowledge.

I think it's that sharing of knowledge that leads to cool classes like this.

On the last day of October, when dusk is falling, where middle school students use robotic kits in poetry.

These are like LED lights and this is a tricolor.

So hook up the colors that you want for the scene in your poem.

[Music Plays] So let's click.

And here where children mix art and high tech.

My students connected a circuit board to a computer, program it, and now they're sewing it into a shirt to get their shirts to light up using conductive thread.

Or in this high school where teens are using the video game Minecraft in English class.

The game becomes their source of material.

It's what they draw from.

It's what they're writing is based off of.

When we talk about innovation for students, teachers really need to be prepared to promote and provide those innovative practices.

Teachers need to learn.

Too many chances for that happen at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit in Homestead.

The AEW is part of Pennsylvania's public education system.

We offer professional development for teachers.

You can have fun and you're allowed to make mistakes.

You're allowed to fail, and there's always somebody there who can help you.

And wanted a place where teachers and other educators could come and learn about new technologies, or how to use existing technology in new ways.

Teachers and schools get help through the Aias steam Grant program.

Steam is a word you'll hear often in our schools.

It stands for science, technology, engineering, art and math.

We give out 25 $20,000 grants each year within Allegheny County.

At least one school in every district has received a steam grant.

And I can tell you it really has been this fabulous catalyst for change within our schools.

Make little keychains such as this and it can make iPhone cases.

Schools have used that money to create makerspaces, purchase technology, or create virtual labs where teachers and students can tinker and try new things.

It's one thing to talk about remake learning, but you can't remake learning unless you remake teaching and learning.

Morning staff and community members.

Welcome to the Pittsburgh Lincoln Children's March for peace!

[People Cheering] This march at Lincoln Larimer shows how a Steam initiative can differ greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood.

Many of our children have experienced the trauma of losing a loved one to violence.

These are students from Lincoln, pre-K through five.

My name is Kaisa Norden.

I'm a third grader here in Lincoln.

Where today, because we all make our neighborhood a better place.

Students used math to analyze crime statistics.

According to a recent public source article, 85% of Pittsburgh homicides have been a victim.

They used art to design these T-shirts, and music teachers helped them compose these songs.

[Chanting] Stop the killing!

Stop the crime!

Stop the killing!

Stop the crime!

They are the Steam initiative.

We have embraced The Maker Movement, to not just be things we create with our hands.

We have embraced the maker movement as an ability to be makers of change.

[Music Plays] The way we're making steam happen at Pittsburgh Public Schools could be seen as a deviation from people's expectations of steam.

We focus on things like computer coding when it's applicable, but the technologies never outward focus.

Our focus has always been around engaging the kids, not through the lens of technology, but through the lens of relevance.

[Children Chanting] You're going to start to build that code right underneath.

Some schools are successful in remaking their curriculum because of their access to funds and resources.

Can you explain to us how we have a computational thinking K through 12 strand that we've built at South Fayette?

We're doing three weeks of coding, and students are starting in kindergarten first and second grade.

One!

[Car Shoots Off] In some schools, entire spaces have been remade to give students access to the latest technology.

But schools in less affluent areas are often at a loss.

Remake learning is helping to change that.

And Pittsburgh city leaders are taking notice.

If we just give kids the tools and get them connected and increase their access, everyone can be connected to this new learning.

A trend of Leonard Cheryl is deputy chief of education in the mayor's office.

The City of Pittsburgh has a very different dynamic than a lot of schools surrounding the urban core.

A lot of districts.

So I think the connection with remake learning, it's demonstrating that all kids can be a part of this network.

One of the goals spur new ideas with limited resources, like converting existing spaces into learning places.

Remake learning is helping us think through a number of things.

So right now we're working with our rec centers to think through how do they become hubs of technology?

You guys want to already be on stage, and students from city schools are finding these recreational hubs.

A once unused space at Westinghouse High School is now a media hub.

Raleigh part of the YMCA lighthouse project.

James Brown is the youth development director.

We focus on four multimedia arts of graphic design, video, photography and music production.

That's another medium by medium close by kind of.

We believe the media arts have transferable skills so that they can be prepared for both college and career.

While James works with teens after school in Homewood.

Right there.

Yeah, just take that loop in homestead.

A mill cook is teaching full time.

You could select one of your drawings.

So that is a digital divide that exists.

Kids from disadvantaged communities.

We struggle to have access to technology, whether that's the hardware or the software.

Propel Andrew Street High School is an active remake learning partner.

The school installed a high tech studio for hands on learning.

[Music Plays] These are vector based images, right?

I work with students from ninth grade to 12th grade.

I help get them excited and learning about technology in the classroom.

We do graphic arts.

We do recording arts.

We do journalism.

We do some basic web design.

We do video editing.

We do photography.

What's the theme for this poem?

It's kind of about getting through a struggle, like a personal kind of thing.

They become immediately employable.

I mean, that's the main thing.

Some of my students, they have acquired a level of skill where they can actually begin their own production company, you know, begin their own graphic arts program.

These are essential skills that any business, any professional needs to have.

What do you see?

I see you then in black and white.

What's that?

So, Miss Ali, your latest creation, that you upload it to your web channel.

Contemporary, relevant and accessible.

These are three key words in the Remake Learning Network.

It's like, did you edit it?

This is the edited version.

We do that through our music studio.

We do that through our fully integrated arts curriculum.

We do that through our culturally relevant and socially justice driven curriculum that you can find taking place in any classroom.

[Music Plays] Education becomes the great equalizer.

If we're ever going to break cycles of poverty and look on a long term basis of how do you provide opportunity to everyone?

The foundation is a quality education.

We are hearing the voices of our youth and we are meeting the needs of the workplace, and that's important to unite the two.

What that means in a city is basically being able to understand where the needs of that education will provide the opportunity for employment to somebody who may be ten years old right now.

And then once you touch something else, it's flourishing.

You're going to put it inside of it.

It's important for them to make instant and early connections with resources in the area, so they can see themselves and their futures here.

So with this paper, what do you think we could be testing with that ready testing, trying and in this case, flying here in Lawrenceville and so many other places.

Learning doesn't have to happen during typical classroom hours.

Whoa.

In fact, that's Tom Akiva specialty, out of school learning!

After school in the United States has more than doubled in the last 15 years in terms of how many kids attend.

In Pittsburgh, we have about double the national average to these sorts of programs, programs that are incredibly diverse and involve all ages.

So you guys are ready to add your borax for me, but do you have an idea there's more participation at elementary age, and those often tend to be sort of multi-purpose programs.

They serve child care needs, but they also have enrichment.

They often have homework help.

When the educators have found that teaming up older students to mentor younge children is extremely effective.

These teens are tech warriors teaching Steam subjects to elementary kids.

Gravity is what centers us.

Gravity is what keeps us on the ground.

We work with the kids on conducting experiments and thinking like scientists.

They might not be so used to doing Stem and tech in school.

They usually get like 20 minutes to do it.

After school, we get like an hour.

[Music Plays] Not too long ago, after school activities meant sports, scouts and dance.

And then we're going to take it and put it in the bottom part here where it says Earth.

But today, after school, it's robotics and it's being taught by the digital literacy core, which puts young people together with adult professional mentors.

Right now I'm going to need some help from you guys to talk about making Mackie's.

Lewis Cappa has been wit the program since the beginning.

I volunteer because it's fun.

It's not just rewarding.

It's more than that.

It's grown into something even better.

More resources are available now.

More sites, more kids.

I can just.

And that's how the game will work.

When I see the kids do the things on their own because they want to do it.

When I have a kid like last week, tell me that he's having a good time and he's actually having a lot of fun.

That's what I'm here for.

When you touch this, the electricity flows through your body.

It's not going to shock you or anything.

And this is really about connecting mentors and youth with learning experiences that prepare them for success in the future.

So things like coding and gaming and making are all really important learning experiences.

This program called scratch, which mainly hooks up to and young people, are finding academic success through these new innovative programs.

Despite what some might consider being at a disadvantage in the Elizabeth Broad School District, nearly half the kids are on three or reduced lunch, and the dropout rate used to be higher as they've changed some of their environments and have introduced small labs and a dream factory.

They've seen a 4 or 5% increase in their math scores, a 3% increase in literacy scores, 500% increase in registration for summer learning.

They've seen a dropout rate that's gone from 28 kids a year to now zero.

[Music Plays] Remember when this is what went on at your neighborhood library?

I want common cats.

Now, you will find new spaces, new programs, and a whole new focus at the Carnegie libraries, the number of teenagers who walk through the doors has doubled in recent years.

A lot of times, the first time we see teens as they come to gaming, what do you guys have?

They'll come to gaming and then we'll see them at our other, like the labs, which is more like Stem based, and see them signing up for teens, summer reading kids, being with kids and helping their peers.

It's a successful concept and can start early.

Today we have some problems with adding!

WQEDs, Math IQ program pairs preschoolers and first graders with third grade mentors.

I usually help them, I ask them questions, and yeah, I help them when we are on the computer.

Parents are seeing a difference.

He's totally enjoying it.

Learning so much.

It's made math a lot more fun for him.

[Music Plays] [Toy Car Rolls] Maybe it's a robotics program and a distressed school district.

A video production program focusing on teenage challenges.

Let's say you had the power to change the student voice and how much students have a say in the classroom.

[Rooster Crows] [Music Plays] Or an agricultural science class with teens teaching little ones.

I want the baby one!

These programs are having an impact!

I see this work as being incredibly important to the overall transformation that we're experiencing as a community, and not just the Pittsburgh community.

What began as a regional program is getting exposur far beyond western Pennsylvania.

We have visitors coming in from other cities wanting to see what's going on in the children's museum, wanting to see what's happening in the teen space at the library, wanting to go into our school districts and talk to administrators and see the classrooms.

Let's hear yours first.

About two years ago, the white House Offic of Science and Technology Policy challenged us as a region to say, could you document what's happening in the Pittsburgh region?

And so the Sprout Fund created a remake Learning Network playbook.

It gives instructions and advice on how to start new networks everywhere.

So we've seen communities like Atlanta and now San Diego looking to create their own remake learning networks.

We've seen smaller communities like Huntsville, Alabama and Charlottesville, Virginia, Madison, Wisconsin, trying to think about how would they recreate the Remake Learning Network.

I was the chai of the National League of Cities Youth, Education and Families Committee, and one of the things we did when we brought the committee to Pittsburgh last year was to highlight remake learning, and I just was part of a conversation out in California with some national leaders of national organizations where ultimately the question was, how does America look more like Pittsburgh?

When I think about the incredible transformation that's happened in Pittsburgh, part of it is built on a history of ingenuity and innovation.

Partly it's we have a collaborative spirit.

Partly we're kind of that like gritty underdog community that really wants to succeed.

Let me hear this one.

On one of the biggest impacts that remake learning has had in the region is getting people to talk to each other about how does math play int teachers, scientists, musicians?

Is that the shot you want?

Artists, engineers?

Community leaders?

How's that happening?

What's happening right now?

All part of a movement that's become so much more.

At no point did we ever set out to create a network.

We are remaking learning, and we are doing it.

Whether you're in inner city school, suburban Pittsburgh, or in Fayette County, it doesn't matter to us.

Learning is lifelong.

It happens anywhere, anytime.

It's not contained to the school building.

You don't stop learning when the school bell rings at 330.

And as every remake learning partner knows, a network of success can get started with just one person in every single building, in every school, in every region of America.

There are always remarkable teachers doing extraordinary things.

And so much of remake learning is helping to find those people and then to give them the resources, the connections to partnership organizations.

It's incredibly surprising that we've come to this point, that ten years later, we've got thousands of people involved, hundreds of institutions.

But in the same way, it's totally Pittsburgh!

I love you mommy!

[Music Plays]