Edina Digital Age Learning

January 26th, Educators in Edina met for an "Engaged and Inspired Student Summit" with the purpose of: To create the ‘Edina definition’ for ‘21st Century Skills’ AND Ask staff to identify where such skills are currently in place within our students’ learning experiences AND Share a common understanding for use in communication and curriculum/instructional design AND Consider what technology has to do with it Dr. Dressen started off our discussion today, asking us to cross out 21st Century skills on our packet and replace it with 22nd. Students in our classroom will be living in the 22nd century, and our discussion today needs to reflect that. He noted that learning is no longer linear, and we need to embrace that fact. Dr. Jenni Norlin-Weaver then led us in a discussion, where each of us had a piece of art, and we were asked to identify how it might be used in the classroom. We then viewed the following RSA Animate video, on Sir Ken Robinson's ideas. Dr. Bruce Locklear, E...

This fall, 29 teachers from Edina embarked on a Teaching and Technology Certificate program through Hamline University . Funded through a grant from the Edina Education Fund , the teachers started the program in a course called, Creating Community for All Learners . Through the course, they worked to form their own community, gained understanding of the importance of sharing , and how technology can be used to connect and collaborate. We created a hashtag on Twitter ( #edinatt ), and invited participants to share with one another. The course was delivered in a "blended" format of face to face and online, and the participants described their learning experience as: One of the activities involved creating their own metaphor for educational technology. The examples cohort members came up with ranged from a steamroller, an 8th grade boy and running a marathon to a rainbow, rain on a farmers field and a tapestry! A definite highlight was the final face to face session, where gro...