Edina Digital Age Learning

Adam Garry , a former elementary teacher who is now Manager of Global Professional Learning at Dell shared a conversation on how Information is Changing Learning: Meeting the Needs of 21st Century Learners. It happened to be at Target Field! There were folks from South Washington County, Mounds View, Chaska, Duluth, Centenial school districts represented. The focus was not about Dell, or technology, but more about learning . He used a tool called Today's Meet for the backchannel, but no one participated. The first question he posed was " How are you defining 21st Century Learning? " One participant said, "I don't think we are defining it, it's being defined by the students!" Adam mentioned another conference where a participant said "It feels like we have 19th Century teaching techniques done by 20th Century Teachers for 21st Century Students." He then showed the Simpsons Cell Phones at School episode it's no longer available for viewing...

Today, the New York Times ran an interesting article regarding the use of PowerPoint in the military, We Have Met the Enemy and He is PowerPoint . It was a fairly damning critique of an organization that gets most of its information or lack of information through PowerPoint slides. Here are a few quotes from the article: “PowerPoint makes us stupid" - Gen. James N. Matti “It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control...Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.” -Gen. H.R. McMaster And the following comment that I think has a great impact for us as educators: " Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making ." And this... "Commanders say that the slides impart less information than a five-page paper can hold, and that they relieve the briefer of the need to polish writing to convey an analytic, persu...

How many of you have found a Youtube video you wanted to use with your students, but only wanted the 30 seconds somewhere in the middle to drive home your point? Here is video of Chris Lehmann , principal at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, presenting at the TEDxNYED conference on March 6, 2010. I used a Web 2.0 tool called " TubeChop " to slice off the first minute of the video. (It's such a good talk, I'd recommend it for the content! As a matter of fact, a great PD activity would be to watch one of these great talks a day!) TubeChop allows you to enter the URL of the video, and then simply slide the bars to select the beginning and end of the video and click Cho p! You then have the option of selecting the URL of the clip or the embed code as I did here. Unfortunately, Zamzar did not recognize the URL for download purposes.

Why 1:1 Programs Are Not Living Up to Their Potential The final session I attended at the Iowa 1:1 Institute was facilitated by Dr. Michael Gielniak , Program Director for the One-To-One Institute He gave an Overview of Key Success Factors Systems approach to change pedagogy. The One-to-One Institute started as the Freedom to Learn Program in Michigan Of the 200 districts that started only 25 still around, and only 23 doing 1:1 well. "We learn as much from the failures as well as successes." A rural district in Michigan started an Arts and Sciences magnet academy in a student centered environment. Students from districts around the area can participate. 2 days a week, just in time direct instruction, the rest of the time is free for students to work on research projects. The program was expanded to the middle school level through a federal grant. The technology is ubiquitous, but not obvious. Use it only when they need it. Laptops, desktops, and design labs...

In this session, Jim Casey, CAM High School and Middle School Network Manager presented information about his district's experience with 1:1 over the last 2 years. He is a strong advocate for 1:1, especially Apple! He started by sharing a little about himself. He went to college to be a teacher and found out he couldn’t do that, but ended up in IT and his own business. Now he runs the IT at CAM . Jim was very self-depricating, but in fact he is a great educator! It was evident in his session that he really understands the importance of creating a system that allows students enough freedom to fail, and learn from those failures in a positive way. They are in the 2 nd year of 1:1 with 6-8 and 9-12 buildings. He feels that 1:1 has leveled out the playing field in smaller districts. Everyone is on the same device. Surprised him that not only did it help the students but it also helped the teachers. All in the same boat. When planning, the last thing you want to do is roll s...

During session 3 at the Iowa 1:1 Institute I decided to move from presentation to conversation mode. I joined Dr. Scott McLeod , Dr. John Nash , Dr. Jeanette Westfall , Dr. Michael Gielniak and a few other educators to share our experiences both positive and negative with 1:1 learning. Sustainability I was curious as to how all of the districts represented here today in Des Moines could afford to be moving to 1:1 learning. How were they sustaining it? It turns out, Iowa has a 1 cent sales tax for education that can be used for capital and technology. If a district has all of their buildings in good working order, they can focus those dollars on technology.This is how they are funding all of the 1:1 initiatives on display here in Des Moines I shared our struggles with how we might expand or even sustain our 1:1 initiative. McLeod mentiond that a Means test model could work, where the district provides laptops to those that can’t afford them. He also mentioned a model being used by t...

Superintendent Jeff Dicks and High School Principal Alynn Coppock from Newell-Fonda School District in Iowa presented on their 1:1 program. I was extremely impressed with the fact that these leaders understood and had bought in to the work their district is doing! They showed their Twitter ID's on the title slide. They use it to connect, network and learn with/from their peers. They are in the second year of their 1:1 initiative. There are problems, most small, every day. In 1996, President Clinton had this to say about technology in education. We're still not close! All teachers in the nation will have the training and support they need to help students learn using computers and the information superhighway. Upgrading teacher training is key to integrating technology into the classroom and to increasing student learning. All teachers and students will have modern multi-media computers in their classrooms. Computers become effective instructional tools only if they are readi...

Angela Maiers offered a look at how the Web is changing through her Keynote presentation. She gave a great look at how we've progressed from Web 1.0 Read-Only, to Web 2.0 Read-Write, and now to Web 3.0 Read-Write-Organize! She started showing Gary Hayes Social Media Count. How many live there? Today, it's Not about being on the Web, it's about being OF the Web! That isn't the Web we were introduced to 15 years ago! Web 2.0 is transformative technologies supporting human needs. Sharing and connecting. It changes us. However there is so much information out there, it's overwhelming and is causing challenges with keeping up! By the people, because of the people it needs to change again. There is evidence of Web 3.0, but it's not here yet. We need to organize and structure the information a little bit better.It seeks to structure information in general and the information that is personally important to them. The new Web search of the future i...