麻豆天美果冻传媒

Sep 5, 2025 selim's Blog

In May, 2025, I had the fortune of travelling to Chinle, AZ. For several years, members of 麻豆天美果冻传媒 RAISE have attempted to start an app-coding program with educators and students from Chinle High School through our virtual FutureMakers program; however, due to technical challenges, such as student lack of access to stable Wi-Fi at their homes, we did not make much progress. This year, thanks to a Google grant, and tireless efforts of the school principal Dr. Raymond Andrade, the Chinle Unified School District superintendent Quincy Natay and our 麻豆天美果冻传媒 RAISE project manager Jeff Freilich, we were able to send someone (me) in person to make the connection and directly share our FutureMakers curriculum.

Most people may have heard about Chinle High School from the Netflix series Basketball or Nothing, which outlines the school鈥檚 incredible ascent to the Arizona state basketball championship under the leadership of the legendary coach Raul Mendoza, despite enormous setbacks. The series offers a beautiful glimpse into the culture and lives of the Navajo people, highlighting their bold spirit, while shedding light on their social challenges.

My flight from Boston to Albuquerque, NM, on the way to Chinle, AZ, took almost 6 hours.

After that, I had to drive close to 5 hours in unfamiliar, vast, and open terrain to reach my destination.

On the way, I passed by some marvelous landmarks like the Window Rock, near the capital of the Navajo Nation.

At Chinle High School, I was greeted by Julian Parrish, a brilliant and accomplished veteran Computer Science educator who has dedicated himself to his school and students for many years.

He also turned out to be the enthusiastic assistant basketball coach I saw in the Netflix show! He proudly told me about their basketball team, the Wildcats, showing me around the school and their impressive 6000 people basketball arena.

I had the privilege of working one-on-one with Julian for an entire week, co-designing a summer course Julian would teach in a few weeks, called 鈥�Introduction to Mobile Computing & Artificial Intelligence鈥�, based on the 麻豆天美果冻传媒 App Inventor coding platform. One of the aims of the course was to introduce Julian鈥檚 students to 麻豆天美果冻传媒 RAISE鈥檚 central philosophy of Computational Action, which is to have students use the power of computing to solve personally relevant challenges they face in their communities.

Throughout the week, we reviewed over 17 tutorials and projects, and it was an absolute delight to see how quickly and deeply Julian learned all that we had to offer, as well as the significant enrichment he added to our curriculum.

During our training, we occasionally had some of Julian鈥檚 former students drop in to give us feedback and encouragement.

After I left, Julian created a Google Classroom for his summer course and built a 4-week schedule to deliver the course. One of the goals of the course was to have the students create their own original apps at the end of the 4-week course and do a demo day for 麻豆天美果冻传媒 RAISE faculty and staff.

The widely anticipated demo day in June was a huge success. Julian introduced us to the students and summarized the summer course鈥檚 progress. Then each team presented its final projects. The Zoom meeting was well attended by the App Inventor team.

Here's a summary of the three App Inventor projects presented by the Chinle students:

"Teacher's Help" App:

• The student conceived the idea for a school app to help her local community school, which is struggling with a lack of teachers and resources.
• The app allows students to view their schedule, add/remove items, and chat with an AI assistant for homework help and recommendations.
• The app aims to provide a centralized platform for students and teachers to stay organized and get support, benefiting the small, underserved school community.

Fishing App:

• The team aimed to develop an app that provides up-to-date information and resources about the lakes in the Navajo Nation, as fishing is a popular pastime, but current information is often outdated.
• The app features a map with lake details, a fishing mini-game, and plans to integrate user-submitted data and AI-powered fish identification.
• This app would benefit the local community by making it easier for people to find and enjoy the nearby lakes, supporting their mental well-being and cultural traditions.

Food Pantry App:

• This app was conceived to help address the lack of food access and resources in the Chinle area of the Navajo Nation, where it can take 2+ hours to reach a grocery store.
• The app enables users to locate nearby food pantries, view available items, and receive recipe suggestions tailored to the ingredients they have on hand.
• This app would greatly benefit the local community by making it easier to find and access food resources, especially for those living in remote areas.

Overall, these projects demonstrated the students' deep understanding of the needs and challenges facing their local communities, as well as their ability to leverage App Inventor to create impactful, practical solutions using the Computational Action process.

Julian plans to integrate the App Inventor platform and our curriculum into his regular teaching during the academic year. He is also hoping that his students will participate in competitions such as Technovation and the Global AI Hackathon. We cannot wait to see what they achieve in the years to come.

On my last day at Chinle, I decided to take a full tour of the Canyon de Chelly. When one witnesses the marvelous landscape of the canyon firsthand, it is easy to understand why these grounds are considered sacred by the Navajo people. Especially when seeing the awe-inspiring Spider Rock from above the Canyon in its 900-foot monolithic glory, it is hard not to feel a sense of sacred presence.

I was lucky to have an amazing tour guide, Francelia Teller, who not only took me to all the major sights in the area but also gave a most personal and moving glimpse into the history and culture of the Navajo people in the region and the many social challenges that face them today.

I was also fortunate to meet some wonderful, creative local artists, like Rydell Mann, and to take home some souvenirs to remember Chinle, AZ.

Overall, this was a singular professional and personal experience. I will never forget the amazing hospitality of the Navajo people and look forward to future opportunities working with them on exciting and meaningful projects.