Edina Digital Age Learning

Gabe Zicherman , the author of the Gamification Blog and books like Gameification by Design was a last minute fill in for Keynote speaker, Jane McGonigal, who was ill and unable to attend TIES 2011. Zicherman got the audience hooked, with pics of Atari and Oregon trail (Jane has Dysentary!) In 1987, Carmen San Diego was the most important game. "Civilization took up about 8,000 hours of my life in grad school!" A game that teaches something without intending to. The dominant narative today is divided into "Games/Screens are Evil vs. Games can Fix the World!" Is it possible both are right? Who NEEDS the help games can provide? NYT article on kids being too hyper . Zicherman argues that maybe it's the adults! Doesn't teach kids to be patient and wait, de-habituated to how the real world works! "Do our kids have ADD or are our schools too slow?" Students do a lot of reading still, but the modality is different! Multitasking to the Max ...

Chicago teacher, Jennifer Magiera wrote a grant for 1:1 iPads in her 4th and 5th grade classroom said that rather than Automating, you have to demolish what you've been doing in the classroom and start over. One transformative lesson far outweighs She focussed this talk on Differentiation and Assessment Assessment Who has to do state tests? District wide Common Core State Standards Bubble tests are now on the iPad Slate routines-RTI with time stamped images of student work Fluency Snapshots-She uses audio and picture along with Dibles with more evidence. Students can also do self checks. Google Tools for Formative and Summative Assessment! Her Website has much of her work. (It includes a "Mood Checkin" so she knows whether their ready to learn! She has her form set to automatically color code on assessments students complete w/ Google Forms. Differentiation How do we have accountability for the kids. She has been able to get the kids to connect with each o...

Mike Slowinski , from West De Pere High School in Wisconsin shared how he is integrating social media collaboration in his session on " Creating Student-Centered Mobile Learning Networks Using Facebook, Twitter, and Cell Phones." He used the analogy of Frutios vs. Fruitloops to demonstrate that students prefer using certain tools, and while "walled garden" type products may look and taste like more popular sites, when push comes to shove, students want to use the tools they're comfortable with. He started in their district with Facebook Dual Identitiy (Social-Social vs. Professional-Social) Professional Account (WDP-FirstnameLastname) Symbolic Picture Limited to School Activities  Students were asking questions outside of class all the time. Facebook message/Inbox was used a lot. Students didn't have to put out perceived "dumb questions" in class, and allowed organic questions. Also posted on Wall. Twitter Integration Some students m...

Bernajean Porter, an internationally known shared her work on Digital Storytelling , shared   i-Imagine , a project she has been working for the last few years to work on student engagement with telling their story. If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a TRUE leader-John Adams 77% of students report being bored at school. Only 14% report having "Hope." She asked, what is the role of IQ in a persons success? 4-8% EQ-the Emotional Quota, of dreams and aspirations are much more important! This CAN be instilled in students, but it needs brains on fire and hearts alive! We need to go to "higher ground" to get at what kids really need. She gave an example of a kid who was given the assignment of "drawing a city." He chose to use MineCraft to design it instead, and narrated over it.  He gave a virtual tour of the emersive world that he had created for the assignment. What the student created is simil...

Joel Rose Presenting at TIES11 Joel Rose , the co-founder of School of One . Started as a summer school program in 2009, moved to after-school and in school in 2010. Last year, 1500 students in 3 schools mostly for math. He says right now that it is 40% baked. School of One students showed an extra 1/2 to full year of growth. He taught for 3 years in Houston Horace Mann trip to Prussia Today 33% graduate and go on to college, 33% graduate but need remediation 33% drop out Teachers high turn over Satisfaction, 40% disheartened Why is the job so hard? Look at the plate! Who donates to public education? (Zuckerberg, Walton Family, Gates, ) All of the top donors don't add up to the unpaid hours a week that classroom teachers donate every year! And it's NOT tax deductable! The challenge of differentiation....Huge amount of time to personalize assessment. If we're serious about personalizing learning, we need multiple modalities to view instr...

Next week I'll be in downtown Minneapolis, for the 2011 TIES Conference . I'm really excited this year, because our district will have a large presence at the conference, both attending AND presenting! We were fortunate to have 14 staff get accepted this year, including many from our Teaching and Technology Cohort ! I'm proud to see how that group has stepped up and taken a leadership role within the district, as well as outside! It's great to share ! When I attend a conference, I try to strike a balance between: Attending sessions (Ones that "sound good" and Speakers I'm interested in learning from) Networking with colleagues face-to-face (As opposed to Virtually Here ) Visiting the vendor area to explore trends Here are some of the highlights and sessions that I'm looking forward to. This year's strands include: Personal learning and digital-age learning experiences Personal growth and leadership practice for educators Personal respons...

Last summer in Philadelphia I had the opportunity to attend Edubloggercon 2011 , an "un-conference" where participants can suggest topics for discussion, and then anyone interested can attend and participate in the sharing/learning. That's me in the middle! After the lunch break, the following session, proposed by Scott Meech, caught my eye: Why isn't education on the front page of the news? Posted By smeech With as much discussion taking place online about education, why isn't it on the front page? Let's talk about strategies to push this important discussion to the forefront in a positive and meaningful way. Just like Scott, I too had been frustrated by the education bashing that seemed to permeate the media landscape. I was glad to hear that I wasn't alone! During the session, he shared some of the work that he and other educators have been doing at EdReach.us , a site devoted to sharing what is working in education. As we were talking, Meech brought...