Edina Digital Age Learning

Episode 2 of our "Safe for Work Podcast has me discussing Inquiry, and Sean reading a lovely poem!    I was inspired by the great work of our South View and Valley View Middle School 8th grade staff on incorporating Inquiry in their instruction, as well as Project Lead the Way Engineering teacher, Jodi Ramirez , who had her kids sifting dirt to learn about composition. This focus on inquiry has continued to evolve, after some great professional development from Diana Laufenberg a few years ago! Earlier that day, I saw a great article noting that fostering curiousity in students can have a huge impact on closing our acheivement gap with low income students. Incorporating inquiry in instruction can be a great way to make that happen!  Sean and I are having a blast recording these sessions. It really is an extension of the great conversations we have when we get together in the office. We hope it is meaningful for you. If you have suggestions for upcoming topics, ple...

The State of Minnesota Department of Education has a state-wide license for Geographical Information Systems . On September 27th, I had a chance to attend a training at MDE to learn more. Applications: In social studies, Substrand 1 on Geospacial Skills, have two standards where technology is embeded. Students are to formulate questions on topics in geography and use geospatial technology to analyze problems and make decisions within a spatial context. GIS is a great tool for this.  Authentic problems, like transportation and flooding can be addressed. In science, students are to use maps, satellite images and other data sets to describe pattersn and make predictions about natural systems in a life science context. Students could use GIS to use online data sets to compare wildlife populations or water quality within Minnesota. Sara Damon, a social studies teacher from Stillwater Public Schools talked about Spatial Thinking with Geotechnologies. Sheis a strong advocate fo...

Here are some key takeaways I've had here at Educon in no particular order: There are no public "AP intensive schools" that have moved to Project Based/Student Centered Learning because as Gary Stager said, "AP is the antithesis of a Project based Student centered curriculum. There are some private schools who have recognized that they were turning out students who were good at the Knowledge level but not beyond, and have made the switch, like the Cincinnati Country Day School. There are many programs out their that are working, but replication and scalability are not easy-human capital. The key to creating successful projects is to develop authentic Essential Questions that are standards based. Chris Lehmann is a tremendous educator, and tremendous host! The teaching staff at SLA are fantastic! And their pretty young too!!! There is a huge disconnect between what we believe education should be about and what it is about. Change will not be easy, but worth fighting...

Dr. David Thornburg , with whom I had a good breakfast conversation with, started with information from Mark Tucker ( about how in the US, creative work such as research, development, design, marketing, sales, and "Global Supply Chain Management" hasn't been outsourced as much as routine tasks done by people or machines which is done in less developed countries. Brazil, Russia, India and China has gotten much closer to us in GDP, despite the fact we have been growing. The way for us to stay ahead is to focus on Integrating STEM skills. Currently Math and Science are currently taught in traditional schools where technology and engineering are taught in specialized schools. They should be taught together! Thornburg lamented the fact that currently, 20th century mathematics is not being taught in our schools. The traveling salesman problem and the 4 color map problem, chaos theory are examples. Our task today: US economic recovery Energy independence Global Climate Change D...