Edina Digital Age Learning

Earlier this week, I was working with our Teaching and Technology Cohort, a group of educators from Edina and Hopkins. At one point, I asked everyone to close their laptops. My point was twofold: I wanted them to really pay attention to what I had to say I wanted to model for them good teaching practice in a 1:1 environment, that when you DO have something important to say, you should have the screens closed, so that you have more of the student's attention. Despite three requests at one point, some of the adults in the room either didn't hear me, or ignored my request. It reminded me that for this group, I hadn't worked as hard at setting up norms with them, and practiced those norms as we were developing our learning community. This year, our district has moved from encouraging all students to have a device for their learning to requiring that all students have a device for their learning. To help staff prepare for this, we put together this planning guide , ...

On September 23, I took a random walk around classrooms in our secondary schools, 4 weeks in to our eLearning2 Digital Age Learning Initiative . Here is what I observed...

Collaboration at South View MS-Courtesy @lakesmpls Earlier this week I sent out a survey to our students, getting feedback on our eLearning2 Digital Age Learning initiative . As outlined my post from yesterday, we have moved to 1:1 this year through a hybrid BYOD system, where students are encouraged to bring a device from home, or check one out from the district. One of the questions I asked in the survey was: How has using your device impacted your learning this year? Most students responded positively, with stories of "being more organized," appreciating accessing content in our Moodle learning management system, collaborating on Google Docs, and creating projects for a global audience. I was pleased to see all aspects of our digital age learning framework being addressed.  There was one response, from an 8th grade student named Annika, that stood out from the rest. She graciously gave me permission to share it in this post.She began by mentioning things that mo...

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.  ...

Chicago teacher, Jennifer Magiera wrote a grant for 1:1 iPads in her 4th and 5th grade classroom said that rather than Automating, you have to demolish what you've been doing in the classroom and start over. One transformative lesson far outweighs She focussed this talk on Differentiation and Assessment Assessment Who has to do state tests? District wide Common Core State Standards Bubble tests are now on the iPad Slate routines-RTI with time stamped images of student work Fluency Snapshots-She uses audio and picture along with Dibles with more evidence. Students can also do self checks. Google Tools for Formative and Summative Assessment! Her Website has much of her work. (It includes a "Mood Checkin" so she knows whether their ready to learn! She has her form set to automatically color code on assessments students complete w/ Google Forms. Differentiation How do we have accountability for the kids. She has been able to get the kids to connect with each o...

October 14th, I met with 52 parents and students at Valley View Middle School, where I presented our plan for year 2 of our "Go Wireless" laptop learning pilot. I've written before about our initiative and the ups and downs we have incurred, and as we move in to year two of the pilot we are looking at a " Bring Your Own Laptop " model. Go Wireless Update: Bring Your Own Laptop at Valley View on Prezi I shared details from our Frequently Asked Questions document , discussed what they could and should use the laptop for, and their responsibilities. After assisting students with connecting to the network, I had them complete a short survey to gather some data on their hopes and dreams for using their personal laptop at school. Parents and students asked some great questions about when they could use the laptop, whether they could charge it in classrooms if need be, and whether they can use their laptop at home for Facebook or G-mail? (That's up to your par...

In this session, Jim Casey, CAM High School and Middle School Network Manager presented information about his district's experience with 1:1 over the last 2 years. He is a strong advocate for 1:1, especially Apple! He started by sharing a little about himself. He went to college to be a teacher and found out he couldn’t do that, but ended up in IT and his own business. Now he runs the IT at CAM . Jim was very self-depricating, but in fact he is a great educator! It was evident in his session that he really understands the importance of creating a system that allows students enough freedom to fail, and learn from those failures in a positive way. They are in the 2 nd year of 1:1 with 6-8 and 9-12 buildings. He feels that 1:1 has leveled out the playing field in smaller districts. Everyone is on the same device. Surprised him that not only did it help the students but it also helped the teachers. All in the same boat. When planning, the last thing you want to do is roll s...

During session 3 at the Iowa 1:1 Institute I decided to move from presentation to conversation mode. I joined Dr. Scott McLeod , Dr. John Nash , Dr. Jeanette Westfall , Dr. Michael Gielniak and a few other educators to share our experiences both positive and negative with 1:1 learning. Sustainability I was curious as to how all of the districts represented here today in Des Moines could afford to be moving to 1:1 learning. How were they sustaining it? It turns out, Iowa has a 1 cent sales tax for education that can be used for capital and technology. If a district has all of their buildings in good working order, they can focus those dollars on technology.This is how they are funding all of the 1:1 initiatives on display here in Des Moines I shared our struggles with how we might expand or even sustain our 1:1 initiative. McLeod mentiond that a Means test model could work, where the district provides laptops to those that can’t afford them. He also mentioned a model being used by t...

Dr. Robert Marzano , led off the second day of the TIES 2009 Conference with a keynote desscribing his research on Interactive White Boards . (IWB) His research was funded by Promethean , and they were a major sponsor of the event. That said, here were some highlights of his talk. Overall, he was less dry than what you see on the ASCD videos . He started with a general impression of research and looking for the “Silver Bullet.” It doesnt' exist, but we may find “silver beebies!” IWB's may be one of those. "What will revolutionize education is when we start using what we know works . " IWB, Student Acheivement, and Engagement Marzano started by talking about Seymour Pappert and " Mindstorms ." We’ve come a long way since. Papert often asked the question, "If Rip Van Winkel had gone to sleep in 1880 and woken up in 1980 if he walked into an operating room, it would look different, but "What about a classroom?" Not so much. Marzano asked, ...

Last night we had Open House at South View Middle School , home of our first year 1:1 Laptop Learning pilot . We had a nice turn out and parents asked lots of good questions. They received the policy guide and forms they will need to bring with them next Saturday, when students will be coming to a final orientation prior to taking them home. Next week, students will be going through training on Acceptable Use, Proper Care, Personal Safety and File Management, then taking a "Driver's License Assessment" to earn the privilege of 24/7 access. Below are the presentations for each of the units. I'd love some feedback! Acceptable Use Proper Care Personal Safety

The fog is starting to clear! This week we continued on the journey of 1:1 learning with the imaging and testing of student laptops, delivery of teacher laptops, developing our "Driver's License" curriculum and training with the teachers involved in our pilot . The fact that this project is really going to happen is starting to hit home! In the training, we further clarified our timeline, reviewed and edited policies, settled on the " essential questions " of our student training, reviewed Google Apps and Moodle , and clarified our expectations of students and consequences for misuse. A lot to do, in 2 days! During an exercise in which I had the teachers explore some of the presentations from this year's Building Learning Communities Conference , science teacher Nicole Nuckley had this question: How do we balance the time it takes kids to learn the basic information about a subject (information already known and established) with the time we want to give th...