Edina Digital Age Learning

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...

Last week, I attended the Solution Tree Standards & Assessment Conference in Phoenix. As I reflect back on the three days of learning, I decided to put together my top 10 take-aways. Here they are: 10. On Retakes-Do you want to be a school that picks the winners, or one that creates the winners? Tim Brown  In her talk, Cassie Erkins echoed the theme stating:   We have a moral obligation to set students up for success! 9. "Grading is not essential to the instructional process. Teachers can teach and students can learn without grades!" - Thomas Guskey Guskey identified three keys to moving toward standards based assessment: Begin with a clear statement of purpose. Provide accurate and meaningful descriptions of student learning. Use grading and reporting to enhance teaching and learning. Get rid of % grading and you get rid of problem w/ 0's!! 8. Phases of Professional Development from Eric Twadell Twadell, the Superintendent at Adlai Stevenso...

Last week, Valley View Middle School Government Teacher, Erik Anderson found out that he had been selected to "live tweet" President Obama's State of the Union Address, from the White House. For the last 5 years, Erik has used Twitter to connect his students with other educators, and to connect with fellow teachers around the world. Over the weekend, he was interviewed on local radio and television stations, and on Tuesday morning, boarded a plane to fly to Washington for the event. I loved in the audio of his WCCO Radio interview that he talked about his use of social media in the classroom, and how his use of Twitter has made him a "connected educator," and the benefit it has been to his students. During the State of the Union, students watched the speech and "live tweeted," their thoughts, using the #SOTU and #vvmsgov hashtags. It was fun to see teachers participate as well, as it gave students the opportunity for an authentic experience,...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting at the TIES 2015 Conference on the topic of "Stop Looking At Squirrels," where I spoke about the need to avoid the "squirrels," or bright-shiny tools that may look cool, but don't really align with best practice regarding digital age learning. The slide deck is here: During the presentation, I asked the question: "Is Google Classroom a squirrel?"  Don't get me wrong, I think Google Classroom is a great tool for organizing Drive files and managing sharing! Google opening it's API for others to access and share data between systems is a BIG deal! AND...as of today, you can't track students by standard within Classroom, you can't organize units of content without a lot of savvy with Docs and Drive, and there is no parent access.  Note: After sitting in Andrew Stillman's presentation today on Growing Wings on Google Classroom , it may not be long before these shortcomings are no lo...

George Couros , creator of ConnectedPrincipals.com was the Tuesday Keynote at the TIES 2015 Conference  talking about " The Innovators Mindset , the title of his latest book."  George's definition of the Innovators Mindset is the belief that abilities, intelligence, and talents are DEVELOPED, leading to the creation of BETTER ideas! How do you leverage strangers? For our wedding photos, we tweeted, "Does anyone know of a good photographer in Edmonton?" My mom is turning 80 and she's just now learning to read and write, but she's open to learning. She texts him with Emoticons.  His dad came to Canada in his 20's with a 2nd grade education, and raised a family and went from a dishwasher to owning a restaurant, yet we complain about moving from Word to Google Docs!" "Transformational leaders don't start by denying the world around them. Instead, they describe a future they'd like to create instead!"  -Seth Godi...

Sylvia Lebow Martinez , co-author of the book, " Invent to Learn ," was the Monday keynote at the TIES 2015 Conference .  Maker movement has gotten a lot of buzz lately.  She noted that she was a pretty good student, and got an engineering degree from UCLA. She was invited to be on a team that designed a GPS navigation system right out of college. She notes that our students today will be given opportunities to try things that are new and seemingly impossible.  The maker movement is giving students the opportunity to come in contact with tools that they will be seeing the rest of their lives. "Sure, I used a 3D printer in Middle School."  People all over the world don't have to wait for a company, they can design and problem solve the things they need without big infrastructure. We are in the "2nd Industrial Revolution!" As manufacturing changes the way the supply chain works, new jobs, skills and opportunities are arising. What does this say a...

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...