Edina Digital Age Learning

Ryan Cox at the Minnesota 1:1 Summit Ryan Cox , Director of Instructional Technology for Becker Public Schools , presented on "Rethinking Professional Development." His presentation notes are here . Cox shared his experience with his district becoming an Apple Distinguished School.  -Just because we're 1:1 and an Apple Distinguished School doesn't mean that we don't have problems/naysayers! Ryan shared an iTunes U course How to Lead Innovation: The Three Carriage Train .  "Focus and Simplify" is the montra he has followed, focusing on the "middle car" of those who are willing, but need some assistance to move foward. For him, that was Edmodo, Socrative, Showbe. They used the Apple Professional Development survey to see where their activities seem to be. For Cox, 90% were still at the substitution level of SAMR. He ran an Administrative Retreat looking at "starting with why," from Simon Sinek, looking at the vis...

Tami Brass , Director of Instructional Technology at the St. Paul Academy, shared some of her lessons learned in her experience with 1:1 Learning at the Minnesota 1:1 Summit . The devil is in the details... Don't be afraid to over-prepare Always have a Plan B ready to roll and be ready to implement Plan C if necessary Being prepared makes winging it easier! She started talking about device selection . The first question you need to ask, "What are your instructional goals?" What integration is already in place? What tools can't you live without? What CAN you live without? How much training and PD is realistic? Brass said that writing on the screen is important, thus they went with tablets. They are a PC school and do a lot of "inking" so having those devices made the most sense. They use the Classmate PC for Middle School, and tablet PC's at the high school. Based on the amount of writing their students do, they needed a keyboard.  ...

Aaron Doering Aaron Doering , Associate professor of Learning Technologies at the University of Minnesota, and co-director of the Learning Technologies Media Lab , gave the keynote address at the first Minnesota 1:1 Learning Summit . The Media Lab is looking at ways technology can have an impact on the learning environment. One of their latest products is FlipGrid . As a former Geography teacher, he wanted to find a platform to engage and excite students in the classroom. His "Arctic Transect: 2004" is considered by many the first MOOC.  Many believe this can't happen in education... Rather than try to do something new and transformative, we often try to pigeon-hole technology into what we are already doing. Today, we're looking at creating an esthetic learning environment.  His Adventure Learning project writes curriculum based on an adventure/problem that students can help solve. Components include: Find the Issue Design inquiry based curriculum ...

In response to requests from parents for resources to assist them in parenting in today's day and age, we have created an online course titled, "Parenting in a Digital World."  This course contains links to resources from a variety of Websites, which hopefully will provide parents options based on their parenting style and their families needs. We have also added a section on managing devices in the home, which we hope will be beneficial for our eLearning2 parents and guardians. Attempts have been made to find resources for parents of primary, intermediate, middle and high school age students. Parents and guardians should not feel obligated to look at every resource, but can pick ones that look appealing. At the end of each unit, there is a reflection opportunity, to write down key concepts to remember, and questions to spark dialog with your child.  To access the course , go to http://tinyurl.com/epsparent or use the QR code. Then click Log in as gues...