Edina Digital Age Learning

Jaime Casap , Education Evangelist with Google was the Monday Keynote at the 2018 TIES Conference .  Jaime helped launch Google Apps, Chromebooks and helped found the Phoenix Coding Academy. He also teaches Communication to 10th graders.  He authored the book, " On Our Street ," a children's book about poverty. He grew up in Hell's Kitchen in the 70's, so he knows a little about the topic. Education disrupts poverty!  All of the milestones he has achieved were based on Education. He was invited to speak at the White House to help launch Michelle Obama's Reach Higher initiative . What we sometimes forget is that the impact we have on students goes on for generations! Since he went to college, her daughter just assumed that she would go on to college. The life his children have comes from the educators that impacted Jaime. The State of Education Casap doesn't think education is broken, because it worked for everyone in this room. AND it has changed...

Dr. Yong Zhao was the Monday keynote at the TIES conference. His latest book, The Big Bad Dragon, The Myth of Chinese Super Schools , reviewed by Diane Ravitch, here , discusses what we really need to focus on with education reform today. Zhao started talking about Nokia phones, looking at how they used to be the most popular. Who killed Nokia?  Nobody killed Nokia, but Nokia itself. It tried to make a dumb phone smarter, Apple tried to make a smart phone! In education, are we modifying existing school, or are we trying to invent something different? He's been looking at developing language software for a long time. We have done a lot of work. Technology and other reforms have failed. "Progressive education" No Child Left Behind Race to the Top Common Core All of these "reforms" really haven't transformed, or solved our problems. Obama and Bush's reform efforts have been about the same. Once you get to the top, you fall down off t...

Andrew Vanden-Heuvel , a former astronomer turned educator shared his thoughts on the future of learning. He currently serves as an online educator in Michigan. Cosmic issue: Solve the poverty problem Education can do that. Purpose of school is to help kids find their passion. The problem is that "school is boring!" How can we make school engaging? Too often we think that technology is the answer for technologies sake. The real question is how to make LEARNING engaging? Gamification It's everywhere. Reward cards, video games, etc. The reason they are interesting is that they can be fun. What kind of gamification do we want at school? Target cashiers get a score for the speed of checking someone out, with tracking of score and number of sales. Would this work in school? One mentioned the importance of clear learning targets. Identifies those not scoring well and allows the teacher to differentiate. I see similarities with this and the tool, Kahoot! It provi...

This fall, Stanford University hosted a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) called, " Designing a New Learning Environment. " Lead by Dr. Paul Kim, the course invited participants to interact globally to design learning environments  of the future. I saw a post from, Brendan Murphy , a former grad school colleague, and thought that it might be a good learning opportunity paired with the Secondary Academic program study that Edina Schools has been working on. I forwarded this on to our Teaching and Learning Coordinator, Randy Smasal, who then contacted Stanford. Smasal wondered if Dr. Kim would like to use our district as a case study for groups to consider as a design project. Ultimately a couple of groups developed projects based around Edina , and we are working to incorporate some of their ideas.  Additional projects from the course can be found  here . When Smasal shared this with building leaders, our high school principal, Bruce Locklear , and assistant principa...

In this session, Aimee Bissonette  focused on aspects of cloud computing for school districts. Her slides can be found here . She asked how many districts were using it, and most said they were, and that most were free. Many were Apps for Education districts. After discussing the attributes of cloud computing, why schools are interested in using it, and how it works, she focused on the implications. The disadvantage to free services include, "It might not be there tomorrow," Advertising, and "It might not be free anymore!" How much leverage do you have regarding terms of service when something is free? She pointed out benefits, but also raised concerns regarding privacy, security, data integrity, intellectual property, etc. The student data that you collect and store involve many laws, FERPA, FCRA, HIPAA, etc. E-Discovery It is important to understand how data is stored in the vendor's system, and how you can access it Free services typically have limite...

Next week I'll be in downtown Minneapolis, for the 2011 TIES Conference . I'm really excited this year, because our district will have a large presence at the conference, both attending AND presenting! We were fortunate to have 14 staff get accepted this year, including many from our Teaching and Technology Cohort ! I'm proud to see how that group has stepped up and taken a leadership role within the district, as well as outside! It's great to share ! When I attend a conference, I try to strike a balance between: Attending sessions (Ones that "sound good" and Speakers I'm interested in learning from) Networking with colleagues face-to-face (As opposed to Virtually Here ) Visiting the vendor area to explore trends Here are some of the highlights and sessions that I'm looking forward to. This year's strands include: Personal learning and digital-age learning experiences Personal growth and leadership practice for educators Personal respons...

Last summer in Philadelphia I had the opportunity to attend Edubloggercon 2011 , an "un-conference" where participants can suggest topics for discussion, and then anyone interested can attend and participate in the sharing/learning. That's me in the middle! After the lunch break, the following session, proposed by Scott Meech, caught my eye: Why isn't education on the front page of the news? Posted By smeech With as much discussion taking place online about education, why isn't it on the front page? Let's talk about strategies to push this important discussion to the forefront in a positive and meaningful way. Just like Scott, I too had been frustrated by the education bashing that seemed to permeate the media landscape. I was glad to hear that I wasn't alone! During the session, he shared some of the work that he and other educators have been doing at EdReach.us , a site devoted to sharing what is working in education. As we were talking, Meech brought...

Last spring, our district developed our 2015 Technology Plan . Using our district mission statement as a foundation, we identified 4 goals in the plan: Unleash student's passion to be lifelong learners Empower and enhance excellent teaching Engage families in a partnership for education Demonstrate excellence in service, operation, and productivity On Monday, we will have our yearly district kick-off event, and the tech plan will be one of the key components. I will have a small roll in the morning session, sharing an "Aha!" moment from my experience as an educator.  We will also showcase members of our Edina Teaching and Technology Cohort , a group of 25 educators who spent the last year in a job embedded, professional development experience where they earned a Teaching and Technology Certificate from Hamline University . Cohort members will conduct poster sessions , showcasing how they transformed their instruction this past year. I'm proud to have had th...

Hillary Goldmann, Director of Government Affairs with ISTE presented on Educational Technology Advocacy issues. The session was attended by Technology Directors, teachers, educational consultants, administrators interested in advocating for curricular and funding needs. State Level Carol McFarland , a Minnesota State Representative from White Bear Lake, Minnesota, came to share her thoughts on educational advocacy issues at the state level. Before she became a legislator, she was a parent volunteer and school board member. She reminded us that democrat or republican, you can not pigeon hole legislators, as they are all individuals. It is important to talk to both parties. Education is NOT about partisanship. She is on the Education Policy committee, and believes that there needs to be better alignment between K-12 and post secondary. What are issues regarding collaborating. Currently, cities, counties and townships do not have to go to the voters regarding expenditures. Schools do. Thi...

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...