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...

Michio Kaku was the opening keynote speaker at ISTE 2016 . Kaku, author of " The Future of the Mind " is currently the professor of Theoretical Physics at City College of New York and a popularizer of science.    He noted that he was listed among the smartest people in New York, but also noted Madonna made the list! Physicists developed the laser, the World Wide Web, radio, the microwave, the X-Ray, and the space program and GPS! They kind of have a leg up on what the future might look like! One physicist predicted that the Internet would become a place of high culture!  Kaku's talk was on a "world tour" of current thought on the future. He has interviewed 300 of the world's top scientists for his BBC program asking their thoughts on the future.  Is there intelligent life on earth? NO! Just look at the presidential election! His book on the future of the mind, h e asks the question, " Why do we have income inequality?" First we nee...

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...

Molly Schroeder at Superhero 12 My colleague, Molly Schroede r led this session on  "What Will Learning Look Like in 2017?" We began attempting to individually answer questions on the Google Doc about what learning might look like . In her experience as a Google Certified Teacher, she has visited many Google offices, and has seen many different cool work environments. In fact, at Google, they recognize that work does not have to always happen at "your desk." She recently had the opportunity to visit Albany Senior High School in Auckland, New Zealand. The school opened recently  with the philosophy that learning is an active 2-way process. Learning spaces today need to be flexible. We saw that here at the conference, where people gathered to share ideas. Albany has windows and spaces that connect the inside to the outside community.  The space is open and shared. They don't have bells, because they don't want to signify that learning has a beginni...