{"id":3309,"date":"2018-06-28T14:05:27","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T18:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=3309"},"modified":"2023-01-09T11:29:36","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T16:29:36","slug":"from-tech-to-teach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/from-tech-to-teach\/","title":{"rendered":"From Tech To Teach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After a successful 20-year stint as a software engineer at Bellcore, Nick Gattuso &#8217;88, &#8217;90M shifted gears and became a teacher at Point Pleasant Boro High School.<\/p>\n<aside>\n<header><span style=\"color: #005699\">The Power of Technology<\/span><\/header>\n<p>While at Bellcore, Gattuso pitched and developed a converged network application called VICI that was used by the Department of Defense.<\/p>\n<p>Because the program runs over the internet and not a telephone network, the Pentagon was able to use the system as a secondary communication channel on 9\/11.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>It was 2002 when he launched the school\u2019s computer science program, teaching students skills such as coding and programming at a time when many schools were still focused on typing. Today, his program is considered one of the best of its kind nationwide and has become a model that other schools want to emulate.<\/p>\n<p>Gattuso\u2019s teaching style is project-based learning: His students develop apps that can help solve real-world problems. PALS (Panther Assisted Learning Software), which he launched in 2013, partners his computer science students with special education students to develop apps that can benefit the latter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we asked the students if there was any way we can help them, a river started flowing. There really wasn\u2019t anything out there for special needs students,\u201d says Gattuso.<\/p>\n<p>The suite of software tools his computer science classes have developed can help special needs students learn to do anything from navigate the school to grocery shop.<\/p>\n<p>One app, Lunch Buddy, which helps special needs students find a classmate to sit with in the cafeteria, won the 2017 Congressional App Challenge. With a click of a button, a message goes out to students who have signed up for the app, notifying them the student would like a friend to eat with.<\/p>\n<p>Other apps are focused on solving a problem at the school or for the town. One sends an alert when a bridge is going up within a mile to help drivers re-route and avoid traffic. Another notifies students and parents in case of an emergency, such as a school shooting.<\/p>\n<p>Gattuso is working on a licensing agreement so that other districts can have their own versions of this app. Once his students graduate, they can take their projects with them and continue to build them out, says Gattuso.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, the program\u2019s alumni are now at Monmouth University and other top schools, and are employed at such companies as Google, Twitter, and Lyft, which has created an invaluable network to help his students succeed.<\/p>\n<p>Gattuso, whose program was featured on NJTV\u2019s \u201cClassroom Close-up,\u201d in a segment focused on innovative education in the state, says he\u2019s now beta-testing the program at other high schools.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhether students become programmers or not, they need to learn to problem-solve,\u201d he says. They need to know how to \u201cunderstand complexity and simplify it, and go through the steps to solve a problem. They need to know how to work in a team and be held accountable. \u201cThese are the ingredients for success,\u201d says Gattuso. \u201cOur courses are prepping them for college and the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nick Gattuso &#8217;88, &#8217;90M is taking the lessons he learned as a software engineer into the classroom. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":3310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":45,\"y\":24}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-back"],"thumbnail":"<img width=\"212\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-212x300.jpg\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-3310 wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" role=\"presentation\" style=\"object-position:45% 24%\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-212x300.jpg 212w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-768x1089.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-722x1024.jpg 722w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-1120x1587.jpg 1120w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-560x794.jpg 560w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-280x397.jpg 280w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-320x454.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-640x907.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-2800x3969.jpg 2800w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-2048x2903.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-1536x2177.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-1400x1984.jpg 1400w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-1024x1451.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-828x1174.jpg 828w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-360x510.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007-9x13.jpg 9w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/06\/44-Nick-Gattuso-TINA-COLELLA-007.jpg 3000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 212px) 100vw, 212px\" \/>","catString":"The Back","issue":"Summer 2018","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3309"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16683,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions\/16683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}