Edina Digital Age Learning

Great Learning For the past 12 years, 9th grade Government students at South View Middle School have been involved in some type of Service Learning project. As you will see in the video below, the project, the product produced by students and the depth of learning that happens has evolved significantly. This year's iteration kicked off last fall in October, with a fair organized by Edina Service Learning Coordinator, Julie Rodgers Bascom, and media specialist, Cathy Heller. The students had a chance to meet with partner organizations that they might consider volunteering at, and to learn more about those institutions.  Once students were paired up with organizations, they spent the next 7 months volunteering time and talent, and documenting their learning on Websites and blogs. What was truly remarkable about this experience was to hear how it transformed students, and how most said that they would like to continue with some type of service into the future. ...

Miles MacFarlane made the trip to EdCampMSP from Winnepeg, and decided to share a session on his use of Minecraft with students . Started when his 9 year old nephew shared Minecraft with his 8 year old son. After taking a look, he saw some great applications for his classroom! He teaches in multiple subjects, and the first place he saw an application was math, applying equations to real world situations. In science students can create drainage systems. In language arts, students create dioramas simulating scenes. Plus, students can act out within the environment. In social studies, students researched the floor plans of Greek temples, created a scale model of it in Minecraft. Students can play with lighting and texture in the system, which gives them the ability to make daytime vs. night time, they can fly around and take pictures from different perspectives. Their last project was given a chunk of land to create their own fiefdom in the Middle Ages. He ...

Eric Simmons shared his experience in West St. Paul. Here are notes on the pluses and minuses of his experience... Staff had iPads last March, the students in September. He would definitely recommend staff have them sooner! Rolled out Google Apps for Education 1 month prior to 1:1. Hasn't helped due to difficulty w/ iPad using Apps for Edu. Wishes he had Office2 HD The Google App sucks for editing Simultaneous editing is an issue.Has to be on separate pages. Socrative has been great for student response. Questions ahead of time allows you to track student data They are using Schoology for LMS. Managing student work is the biggest issue. Initially by e-mail, and sorting was a nightmare. Posterus for authentic work has been ok. (One in the room said Posterus is blocked.) Schoology claims their app will allow students to submit work, but right now it can't. Staff are commenting on the student post in Posterus to provide feedback. Minnetonka uses the Office2HD ap...

On Saturday, June 2, I attended EdCampMSP , an "unconference" styled day of learning at Park Center Senior High School. While most of the day was user generated and facilitated content, they did open with a keynote by Bradford Hosak, the lead designer and member of the University of Minnesota Learning and Technology Media Lab . He has been working on developing the Eartheducation Project , and was the creator of VideoAnt , a video annotation tool. Prior to the keynote, people were able to post session topics that they either taught, facilitated, or wanted to learn more about. The title of Hosak's talk, was "My Story of Designing Effective Collaboration with Online Learning Tools." The Media Lab is like a "grant factory," where professors can bring their ideas and have people design digital content for them. The mission of the lab is to create, inspire and change the world! What is collaboration? Here are some terms that come to mind: t...