Edina Digital Age Learning

Last month, I shared about some work I was doing around Student Podcasting ( Giving Students Voice & Choice Through Podcasting ). This month, my colleague, Sean Beaverson and I are launching our own podcast! Safe for Prep is a short but sweet look at the great things we see in our roles in Edina Public Schools. As the name implies, it is something you can listen to, in the background during your prep! Below is Episode 1! We highlight some great work the 8th grade teachers at South View Middle School shared with staff last week, and Sean's efforts to help some students. Have a listen!

This February, I shared with staff the value of giving students pathways in how they demonstrate learning by creating podcasts. I was inspired by an ISTE presentation by Rabbi Michael Cohen and Jeff Bradbury  last summer, and a presentation that Glen Irvin Flores gave in November.  A few staff were interested and so I put together this presentation for students. I shared how I still remember my 6th grade project where I recorded myself as a 12 year old in Moscow, and my dad interviewed me to demonstrate what life was like in the Soviet Union. (Yes, I'm that old! The collar above gives it away! In addition, I cannot remember any of the multiple choice tests I took to demonstrate learning...)  I also shared with students that NPR was sponsoring a Student Podcast Challenge , inviting students to ask their teachers to submit their audio file that spoke to one of the following prompts: Tell us a story about your school or community: about something that ha...

Virgil Hammonds , chief learning officer with Knowledgeworks , was the day 2 keynote at the 2018 Personalized Learning Summit.  Changing the culture of education through personalized competency-based learning. Knowledgeworks has 3 main focusses: Forcasting the future of learning Transforming policy Growing Educator Impact What is your spark?  It is important for you to know yours as well as your colleagues. Hammonds had us do a "Magic Number" sorting activity using the numbers 1-9 and trying to sort them between 2 jars, where no number could be created by adding other numbers in the same jar. We found that given those constraints, it isn't possible. His point is that sometimes we sort our students into jars in much the same way. He shared how there is a movement nationally to get to proficiency based learning.  There is a transformation from school districts to learning communities.  By 2020, over 40% of the US workforce will be independen...

Ravi Hutheesing,  who bills himself as a cultural catalyst and keynote speaker was the keynote at the 2018 Personalized Learning Summit.  Shared the story of his Uber driver, an immigrant from Laos. Cultural competency is one of the most important skills today. He learned more in the 40 minute Uber ride about world history than in any classroom.  Education is no longer about providing knowledge, it's about inspiring students to absorb the lessons of the world! He shared stories of working in Iraq with people who had just escaped ISIS, and a trip to Lebanon, where he visited a city that was in a dangerous area, but then he received texts from his hometown of Charlotesville during the racial protests last year. Core Beliefs: He believes world peace is possible...How: Make it profitable! Cultual Competency is the MOST important skill for the future Education is the means of solving all the world's problems Huthseeing shared that he is a relative of Nehru, I...

David and Jonah Stillman were the "Father-Son" keynote on Day 2 of the Minnesota Personalized Learning Summit. David is a generational expert, and co-author of " When Generations Colide. " They have teamed on a new book called, " Gen Z @ Work ." They have developed a company GenZ Guru , designed to interact with those born between 1995 and 2012. They are concerned that educators are not focused on "GenZ" and assume that they are Millennials.  This is similar to when society treated GenX'ers like Baby Boomers. David shared a story of when he and his son were supposed to go to a meeting, and Jonah showed up via Skype, when David thought he would be there in person. Using the Genz.guru tool, they polled the audience. 51% thought David was right. In order to get to know GenZ we need to look at key influences: Parenting- GenZ kids have a tight relationship with their parents, but they were raised differently than Millennials. Millennia...

Pernille Ripp , educator and author of Empowered Schools, Empowered Students , was the opening keynote at the Edina Learning Institute .  She started by inviting the participants to connect with her, as she  If we were in school right now... Don't choose who we sit with Don't have food and/or drink Don't use the tools you might want to She fell in love with the building, staff and school that she works in. Teaching 7th graders has been her greatest challenge, but also most rewarding. Her students are the reason she is here, and why she advocates for changing education. Growing up in Denmark, her first english words were "yes, no, and bathroom!"  "I used to think that when students were disengaged, it was their own fault!" Then someone told her, "You cannot change the students, but you CAN change the way you teach!!" Would you want to be a student in your own classroom? Her daughter on the 5th day of Kindergarte...

Disclaimer ; These thoughts are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer. This post has been ruminating for a few months. Glad to finally get all my thoughts down. What is Personalized Learning? Last December, Pernille Ripp , educator and author of “ Passionate Learners: How to Engage and Inspire Your Students ,” posted on her blog about 5 Tenets of Personalized Learning . This post resonated with me, as I believe she really hit on a key aspect: Start with the STUDENT! Here are the 5: Student Voice Student Choice Student Planning Student Reflection Student Action My Take Giving students voice, and REALLY getting to know the students, fits in perfectly with our district’s embrace of Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Instruction , along with Doug Fischer’s work on “really getting to KNOW your students! Student Choice does NOT mean everything is a free-for-all. The idea is to give them choice in What they learn, How th...

Modified from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/ At the start of the school year, Burnsville Tech Director, Doug Johnson had a great post, titled, " Getting To Know You As More Than A Number. " In it, he shared the work of Mark Barnes and Jennifer Gonzalez in  “ Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes For Every School ”   The post resonated with me, because for a long time, I feel like the focus on data in education has been about knowing the standardized test results, instead of REALLY getting to know the student, their likes, dislikes, passions, values and dreams. It was just after our district kick-off workshops, where I heard about trying to be respectful of students who are either trans-gender or are questioning, and starting the year by asking the students what they would like to be called as they're first name. In addition, Sharocky Hollie had opened our district-wide staff development on Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Instruction . He...

Michelle Ament, Director of Technology and Learning in Eden Prairie and Terry Nealon, CEO and Co-Founder of Fishtree , shared their work on personalized learning. iLearn @EP is their 1:1 initiative, where students at elementary and middle school receive an iPad, and high school students use a Macbook Air for their learning. Ament shared the process they went through for choosing an LMS (Schoology), and that they realized they needed a way to personalize learning with Fishtree, and how they integrated the two together to make Fishtree an App inside of Schoology. Scoology is the one-stop-shop for single sign-on to get into both systems. Nealon's vision for Fishtree is to align resources for any standard for any subject, personalize the resources for the learner, and adapt to every learner in a simple interface.  The name of the company comes from this Einstein quote: Learning relationship management involves personalization, Curration, collaboration and learning manageme...