Edina Digital Age Learning

Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting at the TIES 2015 Conference on the topic of "Stop Looking At Squirrels," where I spoke about the need to avoid the "squirrels," or bright-shiny tools that may look cool, but don't really align with best practice regarding digital age learning. The slide deck is here: During the presentation, I asked the question: "Is Google Classroom a squirrel?"  Don't get me wrong, I think Google Classroom is a great tool for organizing Drive files and managing sharing! Google opening it's API for others to access and share data between systems is a BIG deal! AND...as of today, you can't track students by standard within Classroom, you can't organize units of content without a lot of savvy with Docs and Drive, and there is no parent access.  Note: After sitting in Andrew Stillman's presentation today on Growing Wings on Google Classroom , it may not be long before these shortcomings are no lo...

George Couros , creator of ConnectedPrincipals.com was the Tuesday Keynote at the TIES 2015 Conference  talking about " The Innovators Mindset , the title of his latest book."  George's definition of the Innovators Mindset is the belief that abilities, intelligence, and talents are DEVELOPED, leading to the creation of BETTER ideas! How do you leverage strangers? For our wedding photos, we tweeted, "Does anyone know of a good photographer in Edmonton?" My mom is turning 80 and she's just now learning to read and write, but she's open to learning. She texts him with Emoticons.  His dad came to Canada in his 20's with a 2nd grade education, and raised a family and went from a dishwasher to owning a restaurant, yet we complain about moving from Word to Google Docs!" "Transformational leaders don't start by denying the world around them. Instead, they describe a future they'd like to create instead!"  -Seth Godi...

Sylvia Lebow Martinez , co-author of the book, " Invent to Learn ," was the Monday keynote at the TIES 2015 Conference .  Maker movement has gotten a lot of buzz lately.  She noted that she was a pretty good student, and got an engineering degree from UCLA. She was invited to be on a team that designed a GPS navigation system right out of college. She notes that our students today will be given opportunities to try things that are new and seemingly impossible.  The maker movement is giving students the opportunity to come in contact with tools that they will be seeing the rest of their lives. "Sure, I used a 3D printer in Middle School."  People all over the world don't have to wait for a company, they can design and problem solve the things they need without big infrastructure. We are in the "2nd Industrial Revolution!" As manufacturing changes the way the supply chain works, new jobs, skills and opportunities are arising. What does this say a...