Edina Digital Age Learning

Edina High School Chemistry teacher, Gavin McLean has begun incorporating student devices into his instruction. Last year, 9th grade students were given the option to participate in our eLearning2 initiative . Last spring, McLean recognized that those students would be coming to the high school with devices, and began brainstorming ways that he could incorporate them. Early on, he worried about student devices in his lab space. He saw potential for students to enter their observations electronically, but worried about devices getting damaged if they were on the lab surface. He took it upon himself to build stands that students could use in the lab. Color coded for each station, they provide students with a stable platform to set their Chromebook, laptop or tablet on. 4 Chemistry classrooms are now outfitted for students to bring devices. I had a chance to stop by a lab to see students in action. They have been were doing some identification and entering in data into a shared G...

Edina Public Schools Mission Statement states: The mission of Edina Public Schools is to educate all individuals to be responsible, lifelong learners who possess the skills, knowledge, creativity, self-worth, and ethical values necessary to thrive in a rapidly   changing, culturally diverse, global society. Today, French Teacher, Kim Caster helped her students meet the last part of that mission through a video chat Skype session with students in Montpelier, France .  Caster spent a year teaching in France a few years ago, as part of a Fullbright grant. Two-thirds of the students in Caster's class were students in the Edina French Immersion program. Caster's students spoke in French in their questions and responses to their pen pals, and in turn, the French Students spoke English.  Here are some of the questions that the French students were curious about: Which part of American History do you prefer? Why? Do you think the Amendment which allows peopl...

As part of the Edina Staff Kick-off, Candace Doerr-Stevens, a facilitator in the Minnesota Writing Project , and doctoral candidate at the University of Minnesota , spoke to staff about Tinkering Towards Fluency: Digital Literacy for All. The talk was timely, as this year, staff will begin implementing new language arts standards into science, social studies as well as language arts curriculum. She has been looking at how technology can be used to tell stories.  She began with a story of a boy who loved to write, and wrote an 8 page story. He loves to create, but doesn't love to read as much. She asked us to think about... Tinkering -to play or fiddle with things Taking risks and trying things is an important thing to be able to do, and creating space for ourselves and our students to take risks is very important.  Technology can give us tools to tinker and create and explore students. What is something remarkable that happened to you in 1995? (For me, it was get...

On August 29, noted education author and speaker, Will Richardson spoke to our staff at the district kick-off event. His talk, " Learning In A Networked World: For Our Students and Ourselves ," is one I have seen a few times, but his message was new to staff here in Edina. Prior to his talk, our Superintendent, Dr. Ric Dressen, shared many of the positive things that have been happening in Edina. Our district has been recognized by many National and International organizations for excellence in education . Our district administers more AP exams than any district in a 5 state area, and graduates saved over $2 million in tuition costs through their success on those tests. The word of the day was: AWESOME ! After a brief story about how his children learned how to use a program via Skype from an 11 year old in Scotland, Richardson asked a question of the audience: How do we define learning? Richardson shared this definition from Seymour Sarason: The great thing is.." We...