Edina Digital Age Learning

The title of this post was inspired by a conversation lead by David Jakes this past weekend. I'll write more about that presentation in a future post. It's Not About the Tool! This fall, Will Richardson kicked off our district back to school gathering challenging the staff in our district to " Redefine Awesome !" He pointed out that, " The great thing is.." We now have an easy connection between one's passion to learn and the resources to learn it." "Unleashing student passion for learning" is one of the cornerstones of our district technology plan , along with "Empowering great teaching! Even the wording speaks more to educational philosophy and pedagogy, rather than " let's get some cool tools! " To me, the focus of this document, and for that matter the National Educational Technology Plan , which I'm a big fan of, is on LEARNING , not on the tool! The learning is the most important part. If it can be done ...

It didn't recognize my camera on the USB, but the memory slot worked! On January 30, I attended a Google Chromebook event at the University of Minnesota. The presenters, Jaime Casap and Dana Nguyen  talked about the "paradigm shift" that the Chromebook represents. Here are some of my notes. For today's session, I was using a Samsung device. Jaime noted that as new manufacturers start developing Chromebooks, they will continue to have a screen, keyboard, and camera. This device had 2 USB 2.0 ports, a 4-1 memory card slot, and a mini-VGA port.  Note: This post is not an endorsement of the product, just my notes on the presentation! Boot in 8 seconds (They are working on it to be faster!) 8 hour battery Wi-Fi w/ optional 3G Everything in the Cloud Management is easier, as Web based console for users Automatic Updating Integrated Security 3 Year extended warranty After 3 years, schools get new devices, plus get to keep the old... The Web has come a LONG Wa...

Today I was invited to speak to a group of parents about "Parenting in the Digital Age." Principal, Dr. Beth Russell and I had a great conversation about Online Safety, Cyberbullying, and developing a positive digital footprint. The parents asked some great questions, and Dr. Russell provided examples of cases of cyber bullying at South View, and how the administration has handled them.

Today I received this e-mail from Peter Grimm , one of our Project Lead the Way teachers at South View Middle School : Mike, Wanted to share a cool “cloud computing” moment from class.  My students are writing scripts for a video they are shooting in my class.  A young lady was sick today, and she had all of the work saved in her google docs.  Before the cloud, the girls in class would have been sunk, as the sick girl had their rough draft as well.  Anyway,  From home, she and the other girls in her group who were in class did a conference session on google docs, while using their cell phones on speaker phone.  It was kind of cool to watch –  they were very productive, and they didn’t lose a work day.  They had the google doc on 1 computer and their video footage on another, and they were editing and re-writing, and working virtually.  It’s fun when it all works! Peter It was a great example of: a) Teacher Reflection b) Anytime/Anywhere...