Digital Harbor students getting paid to think

Through an after-school web and digital media development club, students at Digital Harbor High School are getting “paid to think,” securing clients and booking jobs.

“There’s no reason that a high school student shouldn’t be making things of value to other people,” said teacher Andrew Coy, who started the iDev club.

The club developed after the school was awarded in 2009 a Carl D. Perkins Grant, a federally funded grant for schools with career and technology education programs.

The grant, worth more than $12,000, allowed the school to buy 20 MacBook computers and 10 iPods, said Rochelle Y. Skipper, a technology instructional support teacher at the school.

“Digital Harbor High School offers curriculum in web design and gaming, and we really needed a way to bring more students into those courses,” she said. “So we thought what better way to do so than exposing students to the world of Apple products.”

The addition of those products also provided the resources to start the club.

Though Coy, who came to the Baltimore school in 2009 as part of Teach for America, was teaching social studies at the time, he had a background in web development and volunteered to put the new technology to use.

Working with another teacher, who has since left the school to pursue a Ph.D., Coy started the club to get students “working on real projects in the afterschool hours,” he said.

Essentially, the students “get paid to think,” Coy said. “I want them to see that people value that. It’s not grunt labor. They’re getting paid good money.”

Typically, the students, who are outfitted with personalized “Junior Web Designer” business cards and “iDev” logo button-down shirts, get paid from $15 to $20 an hour for their work, he said.

More than 20 students are in the club, which meets twice a week after school.

“These experiences have led to employment opportunities directly out of high school and have also permitted students to enter college with a much greater understanding of the IT field,” Skipper said.

That experience is most important, said Craig Kahl, president and CEO of Adventure Web Productions, a Baltimore-based Internet development and web marketing company.

“In the web world, it’s all experience, the more you’ve done it, the better you are,” said Kahl, adding that the skill is comparable to painting. “Web design is more of an experience-based thing than an educational thing. The better designs are based on more experience.”

Coy assists the students by connecting them to clients and projects, including a “reverse-mentorship” program with Liberty Elementary School in Baltimore.

Once a week, four iDev club members come to the school to work with a group of teachers. Switching roles, the students provide technology training to the adults.

“They taught us how to create a web page,” said Alita Walker, a fifth grade teacher at Liberty Elementary. “That was just something that I never, ever thought I would be able to do, and with their assistance I was able to be successful doing that.”

The students have also taught the teachers how to blog and use Google Docs and Twitter, as well as exposed them to new iPad applications.

Liberty Principal Joseph Manko said the partnership, which started in the fall, came out of a conversation with Coy.

“The hardware doesn’t mean anything unless you train your staff,” said Manko, who has been investing in new technology for his school, such as laptop computers for fourth graders and iPads for fifth graders.

“At 20 bucks an hour, for good technology development, it’s a steal,” he said.

The opportunity helps his teachers, but also allows Coy’s student to “get a better understanding that ‘This is something I can get money from,’” he said, echoing one of Coy’s goals.

“So many of them, the world that they live in doesn’t value thinking,” Coy said. “They don’t see examples of it, they aren’t surrounded by people constantly encouraging them to be thinkers.”

When Coy finds a new job opportunity for the students, he asks them to apply for it in a way that will show their mastery of the necessary skills, he said. The four students who landed the Liberty job did so through designing a Google site.

One of them, senior Jean Carlos Cedre, has been in the club for two years, but said he wished he had joined earlier.

“I think it’s going to turn into something bigger,” he said, adding that there are a lot of freshman in the club this year.

“I think thanks to Mr. Coy, they’re going to go pretty far, whether it’s web development or programming, or whatever they want to do,” he said.

But Cedre isn’t behind by any means: He has started running a server and hosting websites he developed for clients, Coy said.

“That really is kind of what I want to see happening — this becomes a launch pad for them,” Coy said.

The technology jobs students gain through the club can help make college a reality, he said.

“Jean has his own server that he’s hosting clients on and generating recurrent revenue. Literally, he’ll be able to pay his way through college as he’s picking up clients,” Coy said.

Judson T. Frampton, a sophomore in the club, is also part of the Liberty Elementary job. He made his application site about the school’s soccer team.

“As iDev we are trying to have a lot of projects lined up,” he said, including developing a website for the school district’s athletics department that would provide live score updates.

The club, Frampton said, is “something to do to help spread knowledge that not everyone has,” but getting paid isn’t the best part.

“I like the job. It’s good to just help people. That’s just the best thing about it, to help people,” he said.