Edina Digital Age Learning

The following article was recently sent out to parents to share some of the ways teaching in Edina has "shifted" as a way to introduce our eLearning 2 Initiative. The Shift A recent post on the educational blog Mind/Shift captures a discussion educators around the world are having today. In the article, How Should Teaching Change In the Age of Siri? , the author points out that students can ask Siri (the iPhone/iPad voice recognition system) almost any “knowledge based question” and instantly get an answer. In order to stay relevant and provide students with the real world skills they need, teachers shift their instruction from asking students questions for the purposes of getting answers, to asking students to analyze, synthesize and create new meaning based on the answers they find. Fortunately, many Edina Public Schools educators are already making that shift in their instructional practice, modeling innovative and creative teaching that is not only fulfill...

Recently, I was sharing an opportunity for professional development that staff at our secondary schools will be able to participate in for teaching in a "Bring Your Own Device Classroom." One of the teachers asked a common question that I hear from colleagues,  "So you are telling me that now I will need to know how to use all of these devices, not just the ones that the district provides?" My initial response was, "No, it's the student's device, and they are the ones responsible for knowing how to use it." Part of our training is helping to identify the "Device Agnostic" tools that will work on virtually any device. Later that day, while looking through a great slide deck talking about Using Technology to Support Higher Order Skills created and shared with me by Ollie Bray , an educator from Scotland, I ran across this slide: I think it speaks to a growing understanding that in today's world of Web 2.0 and beyond, that...