Ron Brumbarger, President and CEO of Indianapolis Web site development company, BitWise Solutions, asks some interesting questions of Josh Cunningham and his father Brady.  Josh is the founding President of BitWise Fellows, a BitWise Solutions subsidiary comprised of high school students.  Josh is beginning his college career at Purdue University this fall and shares in the interview some of the challenges he faced while President of the Fellows as well as some of the things he learned along the way as well.

The Indiana Department of Workforce Development provides a grant that gives teachers in Indiana a very unique summer experience through the Future Workforce Connections Intern Program, and I am lucky enough to have been one of the teachers selected.

This month I am getting some intense "training" as a BitWise Solutions intern in Indianapolis. BitWise is not new to the intern experience (BitWise Fellows), but I am their first visiting teacher. The tentative schedule has me helping with the development of a Web site, participating in Web Camp classes, meeting and brainstorming with BitWise Fellows, observing all positions represented by the company to take back to our careers class, and sharing my methods of developing lesson plans. It promises to be a very interesting June. I certainly won't be an expert at any of the tasks I try or observe, but I will know a lot more about Web design than I did before!

This experience is a wonderful opportunity for me to learn about the real world of Web design from start to finish, and will allow me to bring back hands-on lessons and examples to North Putnam high school classrooms this fall. The lessons I develop will be available from the Department of Education, as will lessons from all 47 interns placed around the state with various businesses.

--Patricia (Gayle) Hendrich

May 30^th – a special day all around for me.  Annual significant vacation and my anniversary!  Every year at this time, we are deliberate about experiencing God’s creation – first hand.  Cindy and I educate our two boys (Tanner  - 13 and Hudson – 11) at home.  We seize nearly every opportunity to “teach” them every step of the way.  As we are currently touring the west (New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota / Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Yellowstone, Black Hills, Badlands, etc.), you can imagine the endless opportunities for learning.  I am abundantly confident our boys are learning each and every hour of every day we are on our vacation.  Even with our intentionality for learning, we are cautious as to never declare “A Learning Moment”.  In doing so, we would rapidly diminish the depth and breadth of the opportunity to learn.  We call this experiential learning.  It is quite powerful.  The scary thing is, I get to learn the most!  Very exciting. 

So goes our upcoming Web Camp.  We have reformatted Web Camp and are calling it: “Get Your Hands Dirty”.  This new approach is not unlike our approach to education for our boys.  Okay, as much as we would like to, we cannot take all Web Campers to the Grand Canyon to get their hands dirty (although I could be persuaded to consider such if we have enough clients interested in doing so…?); however, we can most definitely provide a learning experience for our clients in a much more experiential fashion.  Listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher drone “wah wah wah” for hours on end just isn’t cutting it in today’s multi-media, multi-input, hyper-absorption culture.  Our minds simply wander too far afield within minutes of the traditional lecture-based education model. 

As I write this, we are on day 8 of our 19-day vacation.  I’ll admit, yes, I do have to work daily while traveling.  It’s just not an option; however, we have assembled the most talented staff imaginable and I can rest on vacation knowing our firm’s business is in great hands.  Day 8 is a “turn” in our vacation as we now leave northern Arizona / southern Utah and head north.  Our next stop is Bryce Canyon (www.nps.gov/brca).  We *will* be getting our hands dirty here – guaranteed!  The exploration is as much for me as it is for my boys and I would challenge you to, within your daily routine, find your own Bryce Canyon for exploration.  There truly are “learning opportunities” at every turn if we keep our eyes open

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