Edina Digital Age Learning

Students in KC West's Mass Media course at Edina High School took a quiz recently to see "How Millennial" they were. They used the Pew Research Center assessment answering 14 questions on how they access and consume information. KC is teaching this course in a " blended " format, and has great reflections on that aspect on her blog . KC's work on blended learning is a great example of what's working in public education. After taking the quiz, she had them create a Prezi presentation to share how they consume media. It was interesting to see how they consume their news, music, and entertainment. Some were very "millennial," tweeting, texting , blogging, reading on Kindle's and iPads , while others were not. Here are a few examples of how the students see themselves: How millennial am I? on Prezi Millennial Generation on Prezi It was interesting to hear the students present. Some talked about how they read books on their Kindle and iP...

The districts that participate in Project Blueprint shared the state of Tech in their district. I've highlighted what I think were the important points. Edina 3,210 desktops and laptops (PC now, but may support other soon.) LCD in each classroom Fiber, 1 gig between buildings 50 meg connection to the Internet. (Buying roughly 10 meg per year additional.) Network (IP phones, digital video) Wireless: 90% coverage at Secondary, 20% coverage at elementary Aligned to mission and vision of the district, promotes curriculum and instruction, encourages innovation Improve efficiencies and effectiveness in the delivery of technology services ITIL framework Providing access Allowing personal devices Student Centric Learning: Cloud based, Universal Design for Learning, Easy wireless access, Anytime-Anywhere learning opportunities, rich multi-media content. Clayton, MO 10 gig between the building 1 gig within 50 meg connection for 2500 students, but seeing that be tapped out. Looking at 100 meg...

Edina is hosting Project BluePrint Schools this week. Comprised of districts that are suburban and of similar stature in their respective states, Project BluePrint consists of the school districts of Guilford , Connecticut ; Wayland , Massachusetts ; Cape Elizabeth , Maine ; Palisades , Pennsylvania ; Whitefish Bay , Wisconsin ; Clayton , Missouri and Edina . Curtis Johnson, co-author of the book Disrupting Class, How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns , was invited to speak to the superintendents, curriculum directors, technology directors and teachers representing the different districts. My notes on the session follow. Johnson began by asking those in the audience "Why would a 14 year old want to go to High School? His answer: Social Peer group interaction and to feel competent. Are our schools meeting those needs? He then told the story of a suburban Boston convenience store that had lines of people buying milkshakes between 6:30-7 a.m. Johnson sa...

I've seen Howard Rheingold present online, and was looking forward to seeing him live. First we looked at Bing and the photos that they use on their opening page. There is a Wikipedia tab whenn you search in Bing, along w/ related searches on the left. You can see the tone of the related searches as you search through something like "global warming." If you search "Global Warming," you will see "myth" or hoax, as you go further, you can see how the tone shifts in thinking on the topic. They now have a beta Social Search in Bing as well. And "microsoft.com/maps/apps.aspx Microsoft has a site for teachers around critical thinking here . Finally, Howard started talking and began by sharing the resources for the session . We used the hashtag on Twitter #istect and people also added resources on the wiki page. This allowed for the creation of this .pdf at the end with resources created by the participants. The resouce mining included a Diigo Group c...

Tim Stack and Jared Covili from the Utah Education Network presented on how to use Google Wave as a tool and how to put it into the K-12 classroom. Education in our generation has been force fed, and then...the info is gone. They then showed Arne Duncan video on Digital nation discuss the future. 59% of students online talk aobut educational projects 50% of students are learning online They want choice . Today they have 150+ stations They want control How can Wave help some of these issues? They created 2 waves for this presentation, one for the presentation: And one for the comments and questions like a back channel. Replies that people make create new "Blips" on the Wave. By Control-Clicking on the second wave in your list, you can have 2 waves open at a time, then by closing the minimize button on the search panel, you can see both Waves side by side. Issues: when waves are public, the creator can be deleted, and people can change content. In fact about 3/4 of the way t...

I stopped by to listen in on Chris Craft ( @crafty184 ), Jonathan Becker( @jonbecker ) and Jeremy Brueck ( @brueckj23 ) discuss how to use Twitter more efficiently. It was interesting to see these three educators from different parts of the country collaborate and share their perspectives on how Twitter can be used effectively. I've been trying to grow things grass roots in Edina the last couple of years, as it has greatly benefited me professionally, and I was hoping to gain some insights from this ISTE Bring Your Own Laptop session. They actually began their session last week, by inviting those registered a Google Form Survey created by Brueck to gather background information on the participants skill level and to attend a Moodle course on Twitter providing introductory lessons and a quiz. Brueck also has this Wiki site with great resources for every level of Twitter user. They created three hashtags which formed a backchannel for the session : #isteask for people to ask que...

This session featured Ian Jukes and Lee Crocket in a "drive by conversation" on Teaching the Digital Generation. The presentation material can be found here if you sign up. He asked us to step back from our exsisting world and get a "swift kick in our assumptions." The powerful new technologies are affecting todays students. Most of the change that our parents and grandparents experienced were incremental. Anyone under the age of 25 the changes are more rapid and Understanding the Digital Generation book Highlights: As parents, citizens and educators need to understand that on the inside today's kids are completely different. Not because of them physically maturing faster, their clothing styles, or what they listen to. Due to digital bombardment, primarily outside of school, their brains are adapting to these new technologies. They have developed a cultural brain. Because of this bombard ment their brains are physically changing. They are neurologically differen...