On August 29, noted education author and speaker, Will Richardson spoke to our staff at the district kick-off event.
His talk, "Learning In A Networked World: For Our Students and Ourselves," is one I have seen a few times, but his message was new to staff here in Edina. Prior to his talk, our Superintendent, Dr. Ric Dressen, shared many of the positive things that have been happening in Edina. Our district has been recognized by many National and International organizations for excellence in education. Our district administers more AP exams than any district in a 5 state area, and graduates saved over $2 million in tuition costs through their success on those tests. The word of the day was: AWESOME!
After a brief story about how his children learned how to use a program via Skype from an 11 year old in Scotland, Richardson asked a question of the audience:
How do we define learning?
Richardson shared this definition from Seymour Sarason:
The great thing is.."We now have an easy connection between one's passion to learn and the resources to learn it."
Soon there will be 2 billion people connected on the Internet. This represents 2 billion predators, or...
The next day, at our high school professional development training, several staff commented on that slide.
They understand that "It's not 1985" but they were uncomfortable thinking about connecting students to these "potential" teachers. I reminded them that Richardson didn't say that there were 2 Billion teachers. The key word is "potential!" I think one of our new roles as educators is to assist students in connecting with the good content AND good teachers who can assist students in the learning process. I've used this video in the past to illustrate this idea of "connectivism."So how do we redefine "Awesome?"
At the evening talk with parents, Richardson mentioned the inquiry based approach used by the Science Leadership Academy of Philadelphia as an example of a school that is being successful at this.
Then yesterday, during a Twitter conversation, Richardson referenced this school:
I think this story illustrates a student following his passion, collaborating with others, and having a truly authentic learning experience to redefine "awesome" here in Edina. I would venture to guess this is an example of what Richardson is talking about.
So, how do YOU redefine "AWESOME?!"
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I had the pleasure of working with them in two classes last year, and they were instantly excited about the possibilities offered by collaborative tools such as Google Docs.
I remember one day in particular when we were working on a service-learning project in the computer lab. Peter and Caroline were working in a small group with another student (Lydia R.), writing digital stories for our district's French Immersion school (a 2nd grade classroom). They had their Google Doc open on two machines as they edited the story and annotated illustrations with Picnik. As I peered over their shoulders, I saw that they were using the "comment" feature of Google Docs to indicate various errors that needed to be changed, or suggestions for reworking the storyline. I saw things like: "Why are you opening comments? We're supposed to be working!" and "I AM working. I'm going to tell you which mistakes you are making," followed by "I'm not going to make any mistakes," to which was replied "Yes you are, you just forgot to put an s on the end of that plural noun, and you need an extra e on that verb." You can imagine how thrilled I was to see students talking IN FRENCH about FRENCH WRITING on their own.
This is just one example of how I saw student enthusiasm and motivation grow as they found ways to use technology as a learning tool. Way to go Peter and Caroline!