Welcome!

This is a slide deck you can make a copy of, and then customize to run activities with your students! Note that the activities are listed first, and general ImBlaze info slides are at the bottom!

You can use these activities as stand-alones, or integrate them with your current curriculum. You can also iterate, and run them multiple times.

If you’re introducing ImBlaze...

Remember, we believe ImBlaze is best introduced *after* an activity -- as a way to generate next steps or real outcomes from a conversation (rather than ‘here’s another tech tool, no I promise it’s worth it!’).

Also - a reminder that 1) students must be *activated* to log in. 2) They can either set their password for the first time through the email ImBlaze sends them upon activation, or you can set their passwords yourself ahead of time.

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If you’re just here for tech slides...

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Please go to this google drive to find slides and videos for purely technical introductions.

Welcome!

1. If you haven’t already, please download the ImBlaze app on your cell phone. Then, check your email for instructions on setting up your student account (you can also provide them your demo account details)

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(2) Message me when you've logged in, and I'll send you to a breakout room for our first activity.

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First Look

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Activity 0 - Networking!

Scavenger Hunt

• Open this sheet.
• Coolest People you Know: In groups of three, attempt to fill out every line on this list. Do you know someone who has a deep interest in, or is a professional, in any of these fields?
• Round 2: Back in your groups, ask about someone on the list that you didn’t write. What’s that person like? How does your colleague know them?
• Round 3: Sending a quick text/email (all together). We’re going to write a script

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Debrief

• One person - who was the coolest Person You Heard About?
• How might this conversation have benefitted your students? You?
• What else came up for folks during this? Apprehensions? Moments of clarity? Anything else?

Activity 1 - Searching!

Who am I? Who are you??

In a breakout room, interview your partner around the following questions:

• What was your childhood dream?
• What activity/experience makes you feel like your favorite self?
• What’s something small that you think would improve your community?

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Interview time: 10-15 minutes

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Who am I? Who are you??

Part 2:

• Introduce ImBlaze (see bottom of the slide deck)
• Log in to your ImBlaze demo student account:
• Username
• Password

Review your notes from your interview and search through ImBlaze to find an opportunity that you think best fits your partner.

Present it to your partner - what made you think I’d be a good fit?

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Who am I? Who are you?? - Next Steps

Over the next week search the ImBlaze database and find:

• 1 reach opportunity (‘this one sounds tough, but I like it)
• 1 perfect fit (‘I have the skills to do this and it sounds awesome)
• 1 safety (‘I could do this easy’)

Be ready to present next week to discuss

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Staff Debrief

How might this database impact the way our students think about, or search for, opportunities?

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How might you, as a teacher, take advantage of this shift in curriculum or in support of students?

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What questions does this bring up?

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Activity 2 - Suggesting!

My Network is Our Network

One of the biggest pillars of ImBlaze is implication that schools aren’t just responsible for *what* you know, but also who you know, coupled with the belief that every student knows somebody.

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Next, we’re going to run through how the suggestion feature works.

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My Network is Our Network

In a breakout room, interview your partner around the following questions:

• Who is the coolest adult you know? What do they do with their time?
• What’s your favorite small business in the community and why?

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Total time: 10 minutes

My Network is Our Network

Part 2:

• Log in to your ImBlaze demo student account:
• Username
• Password

Use the ‘suggest a new opportunity’ button to suggest one of the businesses/people your partner described opportunity to your coordinator. They’ll follow up with your partner, and that person, at a later date!

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Staff Debrief

What do you think about when you imagine running this activity with students?

�What are some ways you could tweak this activity to either fit it to a current lesson, or to run it multiple times?

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Activity 3 - Attendance!

Before you run this activity - you need to: a) have your student accounts activated, and b) have them paired with an opportunity

What’s the Point (Attendance Introduction)

On a scale of 1 - 5, with 5 being ‘it’s changed my life’ and 1 being ‘I would pay you to let me skip it’ - what have your past LTI experiences been like in the following categories?

• Relationship -
• Relevance to my interests-
• Real skills -

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What’s the Point

Ok so it’s clear… it’s not changing our lives. Or at least it doesn’t feel like that.

Let’s pick one of those categories - say, relationship.

If the point of an internship was to (among other things) foster a relationship that changed your life…

What question could someone ask you at the beginning of your day that would help improve your experience?

What’s the point?

Part 2:

• If needed, introduce ImBlaze here (see bottom of this deck for materials)
• Log in to your ImBlaze student account and find the ‘log attendance’ tab, and select ‘check in’

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Activity 4 - Set Up Meetings!

This is a staff focused Activity

Activity 5 - Scavenger Hunt

Why attention to detail matters when searching for opportunities

Scavenger Hunt

*Educators: find three different unique opportunities in your system and come up with descriptive criteria that includes:

• Details about where it is
• Details about what the mentor
• Details about the organziation type vs profession

Offer students a two-part challenge: first, a race to figure out which ones they are. (Play music, have a prize)

Second: a reflection on how those things match their interests (too far/mentor sounds great/weird)

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Scavenger Hunt

Don’t be that person.

You know, the one who didn’t read the whole post before commenting.

Or, in this case, who didn’t read the whole opportunity before you pursue/apply for it.

The purpose of ImBlaze isn’t showing what you can and can’t do, it’s about helping you be as skilled as possible at getting where you want to go -- including places you’re ‘not supposed to’. Part of that is knowing …..

ImBlaze Explainer

It is our vision that all students live lives of their own design, supported by caring mentors and equitable opportunities to achieve their greatest potential.

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how does ImBlaze do that?

Making it easy to focus on the individual

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1. Creates a communal database, so students can better wield their voice and experience real choice, while the program track and build its social capital network.

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• Makes it easier to tap into student and mentor experiences, so both parties experience a more individualized, responsive

how does ImBlaze help me?

Simple. Quick. Amplify your impact

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• Provides a common database that students and staff own, search, and grow together
• Streamline and catalogue your set up meetings
• Improve yours students’ (and mentors’) experiences through daily attendance information + reflection

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demo

Looking ahead

What Next?

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• Facilitate an awesome introduction to ImBlaze using one of our activities, or synthesizing with one of your own
• Continue to run activities that involve ImBlaze, at least once a month, helping students to add their growing social capital network to the system

Monthly activities - Advisors to students

• Add more opportunities (My network is our network)
• Increase student engagement with the platform (who am I? Who are you?)
• Introduce attendance (

Quarterly PD Hour - Coordinator to Advisors

• ImBlaze as Assessment Helper / Exhibition Prep
• ImBlaze as

Monthly BPL Demos

End of term analytics / Reflection with ImBlaze

• Looking at your data and reflecting on goals

Draft Activities

• Outreach to students - from recruiting to intake
• Coaching current students to talk about how their interests and identity show up in school to potential students
• Intake - interviewing and home visits -- asking families what they’re interested in, what they love to do - what have you seen your child love to do (what do you love to do on your own, what would your friends say you love to do, what would your family)
• More interest + identity surfacing
• Who am I project - creating safe places for interests and identity
• Pick me ups
• Add split group (one google one on imblaze) to the activities
• Mid-Year PD’s
• Going on site visits with each other (to calibrate intention ahead of time), debrief how it went relative to intentions
• Individual student focused supports - brainstorming - focusing on one student at a time, norming ways of thinking
• Partially using imblaze data, partially using
• Project quadrant
• How do you fire a mentor gracefully, how do you help a mentor fire a student lovingly, gracefully
• How do you help people see the value and potential value in mentorships (recruitment)
• Forms
• Blanket permission slip (spontaneous low risk activities - info interviews)
• Shadow day permission slip
• Internship site agreement
• Background check forms