Marco Antonio Torres is an internationally recognized teacher and filmmaker who uses the movie-making process to make his classroom projects explode with empowerment and enthusiasm. Working along side the exceptionally talented Alas Media Team, this phenomenal workshop will take you through the entire movie making process.
This two day event will be a practical, hands-on session where teachers will learn not only valuable and practical tips on how to make a great movie, but also how to plan and manage such projects. Teachers will also find out how to market this program to their communities and also learn how to share the projects with the world! See how movies have a place in your content area classroom/ new studio. Lights, Camera, LEARN!
Attendees are encouraged to bring their own laptop with either iMovie or Photo Story, and a video or photo camera.
Ewan McIntosh, CEO, Edu.blogs.com, Edinburgh, Scotland
Project-based learning has been let down in too many instances with “fake”, academic, theoretical problems that need solving. The learning processes involved are at best fuzzy for most educators: what is “collaboration”, “student-designed” and “student-led” learning?
Do you love stories? Do you want to learn how to create your own interactive digital stories? Join members of the Scratch Team at MIT Media Lab for a hands-on introduction to storytelling with Scratch. Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy for young people (ages 8 and up) to create their own interactive stories and share their creations online with others. As students program and share with Scratch, they learn to think creatively, reason systematically and work collaboratively, while also learning important computational ideas.
In this hands-on session, participants will be introduced to Scratch, create interactive stories, view examples of stories created by young people and hear how Scratch is being used by educators for storytelling. No prior experience necessary.
Marco Antonio Torres is an internationally recognized teacher and filmmaker who uses the movie-making process to make his classroom projects explode with empowerment and enthusiasm. Working along side the exceptionally talented Alas Media Team, this phenomenal workshop will take you through the entire movie making process.
This two day event will be a practical, hands-on session where teachers will learn not only valuable and practical tips on how to make a great movie, but also how to plan and manage such projects. Teachers will also find out how to market this program to their communities and also learn how to share the projects with the world! See how movies have a place in your content area classroom/ new studio. Lights, Camera, LEARN!
Attendees are encouraged to bring their own laptop with either iMovie or Photo Story, and a video or photo camera.
Getting to the Park Plaza early? Consider EduBloggerCon. This event is a “collaborative conference” where attendees help to build and create the experience. At the start of the day, attendees will work together to develop sessions based on the submissions that attendees have indicated they are willing to facilitate or would like to learn about.
This event is free, and you can attend even if you are not registering for the full BLC conference. More information is available at http://www.edubloggercon.com/ebcEast2011.
Screencasting is a fun and exciting way for students to take an active role in their own learning. Student-created screencasts can be used for authentic assessment, tutoring and sharing concepts with a global audience. This workshop will start with the basics of how to get started with screencasting. With hands-on guidance and demonstrations, participants will learn how easy it is to record, edit and share their screencasts using Camtasia (a free copy of Camtasia Studio or Camtasia for Mac will be provided to each attendee).
Participants will learn to create, organize and present crisp, professionally-pleasing screencasts. Other topics to be covered include:
As well as a practical skill developing session in the classroom, all delegates will take part in an outdoor learning adventure in Boston Park Gardens using a variety of tools and approaches including QR codes, RFID tags, Near Field Communication, overlays in Google Maps along with simple finding the clue activities. All delegates will be left with a toolkit that will help them build and share their own learning adventures.
Focused on middle and high school teachers (all subjects), this interactive workshop will show participants how to get students enthused about writing through peer commenting (authentic audience), multimedia (images (flickr and vuvox) and podcasts (Audacity and ipadio)) and publication (publisher/pages and scribd). Participants will see what other teachers have done, experience multimedia writing from the student’s perspective and feel the compelling power of peer-to-peer commenting. This workshop will change how you view teaching writing in digital spaces. Participants will leave with a clear understanding of the power of writing in spaces where peer commenting is key and with a strategy to create student-empowered online space (solutions and link packet). Participants should bring laptops and cell phones.
Side-scrollers. Quizzes. Mazes. Simulators. Young people are using Scratch to create and share a wide variety of interactive games. In the process, they learn important computational concepts (for example, using variables for keeping score and conditionals for making game decisions), while also developing general problem-solving skills and design capacities.
Join members of the Scratch Team at MIT Media Lab for a hands-on introduction to game design with Scratch. Participants will be introduced to Scratch, learn to create games, view examples of games created by young people and hear how educators are using Scratch for game design. No prior experience necessary.
Bring your digital camera and join us on a walking tour of downtown Boston to explore night photography and to change the way you view Boston Harbour.
We will explore global projects engaging students to paint their city, home and themselves in a different light. We will investigate ways we can offer to depict stereotypes, such as inner city locations in inspiring ways.
We will be going on a photo safari around downtown Boston at night and will look at ways to investigate the how we frame our photos (what we focus on, what we edit out) as a starting point for reflective practice, for writing, art and critical thinking in the classroom. Learn about night photography and painting with light to ignite imagination and create highly dramatic photos to render the familiar a little strange.
In this four hour session you will learn the basics of information literacy, plus have the opportunity to work with members of our team as you explore how to build a blog, create a podcast or start a wiki. Learn how to integrate all of these tools together in meaningful and effective ways. Our team will show you how it all fits together and will be available during the course of the conference week to work on projects and integrate new ideas. The results will be expanded opportunities for authentic work, global audience and your students making a knowledge contribution.
Learn how to tap Google’s free online toolset and knock down the walls of your classroom, engage students and make connections in new and exciting ways. During this pre-conference session you will build robust learning solutions that you can immediately apply in your classroom. Develop a custom search engine based on your particular subject area or unit of study. Create an interactive map for your literature, history, math or science class. With these and other open-ended tools, the options are endless. When you return to your classroom in the fall your students will be stunned at what you did on your summer vacation!
Data can be fascinating, and it is not something that is just for math or science class. Since 2010 we have never had so much publicly available data about the way our lives are run, the environment, our geography, our history… But most of us do not know how to tap into the PDFs, tables, geocodes and charts to dig out the meaningful stories hidden in there. Learning how is one of the key new literacy skills our youngsters will need if they are to be fully participative members of society:
Collaboration is one of the most sought after skills in the 21st century. How do you transform your classroom into a collaborative community where each student is empowered to contribute and to take ownership of their learning? How do you become the conductor of an orchestra full of “unique instruments and musicians”?
This session will share examples from the classroom where students take on “jobs” to become part of that orchestra. We will look at and play with different “instruments” that are uniquely tailored to encourage collaborative work. Participants will explore how they can use classroom time as rehearsals in order to prepare their students for a 21st century concerto.
In a world of rapidly developing technology, are you having a difficult time finding a jumping off point? In this four-hour session you will take part in a hands-on learning adventure that models an immersion process you can use with your own students. You will interact with a powerful learning community as you explore a variety of Web-based tools and learn to integrate these same tools across the curriculum in meaningful and effective ways. The results will be expanded opportunities for developing a personal learning community, authentic work, global audiences and concrete ways that your students can make valuable contributions to their learning community.
High powered, low-cost smartphones now afford us the opportunity to learn on the go. With these devices, students can perform research, collaborate, interact with experts, and produce creative works all from a phone! But which one is best for supporting student learning? In this session, we will examine the Android and iPhone mobile platforms, unique features of each that support student learning, and applications and activities that support differentiated mobile learning.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own smartphone to this hands-on session as interaction will be built into the session using online polling websites, Google Forms, and other means of mobile interaction.
Do not miss out on this innovative workshop. Most content also applies to iPod Touch and iPad users. Teachers, administrators, IT professionals and technology coordinators are welcome.
How can leaders maximize student engagement and academic achievement? How can leaders encourage teachers and students to collaborate with peers and professionals around the world?
The goal of this session is to provide you with maximum capacity for effective leadership in the 21st Century. This session will outline essential skills for leaders and offer practical guidelines and creative solutions for building accountability into the planning process. Articulating vision and managing change will be emphasized, along with the following:
How can photography be used in the the narrative reflective processes to improve writing? What can be learned from the images, videos and narratives we create when taking or making pictures? What does our point of viewing in the images we record tell us about our point of view? We are storied people, living storied lives. To know who you are, to make sense of your life, is essential to making sense of an educator’s own practice. Come to this highly popular session to learn how to render the familiar a little strange through photography.
Convene with a number of BLC veterans for a newbie survival session. We want you to get the most you can from your time at the conference, so let us show you the ropes. We will give you tips on choosing sessions, how to get around the hotel and how to find help. We will also highlight the various online tools used throughout the week to help us stay connected, and we let you in on the best places to charge your laptop. Finally, Boston is a great city and we will share some recreational recommendations!
The kick-off social event for BLC11. Join us for our opening reception at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. Come pick up your registration package, meet and mingle with your new colleagues.
Convene with a number of BLC veterans for a newbie survival session. We want you to get the most you can from your time at the conference, so let us show you the ropes. We will give you tips on choosing sessions, how to get around the hotel and how to find help. We will also highlight the various online tools used throughout the week to help us stay connected, and we let you in on the best places to charge your laptop. Finally, Boston is a great city and we will share some recreational recommendations!
When it comes to using technology in the classroom, it is easy to become distracted by the glitz, glimmer and gimmicks of activities high in “cool factor” but lacking in rigor or academic value. How do we design learning experiences that challenge students at their learning edge and draw on or strengthen their repertoire of digital skills and literacies? How do we “locate the learning” in student-created content and projects? How do we avoid the allure of “BLING” (cool tech tools) and focus on the power of “BANG” (meaningful student-centered learning) to effectively “widen the walls” of our learning environments?
Do the impossible! Get your students online, get them enthused about writing, commenting and using multimedia – and improve their writing. Two related, but non-repetitive sessions, by Geoffrey Gevalt, award-winning journalist and founder of the Young Writers Project. Intended for teachers in grades 4-12. Tips to combat obstacles (including money), to engage your students as never before and to create authentic audiences for their best work.
Geoff will focus on what YWP has learned from working with thousands of students online in both formal and informal learning environments. You will learn how students engage in civil discourse, peer-to-peer learning and building communities of learning. What engages them and what does not? You will experience a wide variety of student creativity including podcasts, multimedia, collaborative projects and performance pieces. Participants will be provided powerful links to additional examples, free or low-cost software to use and lesson ideas.
Discussion about Dr. Mazur's keynote.
This is a practical and fun workshop focused on basic planning strategies for teachers and students alike. Because there are so many tools floating around in the class, along with a variety of needed roles, potentially disorganized environments may occur! We can help. We will explore tips and tricks on how to best plan daily, weekly and semester-long projects. Moreover, we will also discuss ways to connect and collaborate with other schools.
Celebrating 25 years in educational technology, New York Times Best Selling Illustrator, Peter H. Reynolds, children’s advocate, author, illustrator, and successful entrepreneur, will share his uplifting vision how to inspire more creative classrooms and share his knowledge and love of the written word.
Hear about Peter’s six essentials to foster creativity and innovation in the classroom. See how technology allows one to make new connections, share new ideas, and see what else is possible.
His message is served up in a delightful, touching and unforgettable style which is an entertaining blend of...his fanciful art work, live animation and a reading of one his books, The Dot, The North Star, or Ish. Peter will also share his latest DVD, Stories That Matter, Stories That Move along with his heart-warming tales of how creative educators dared him to make his mark.
Peter’s words, illustrations, animations and actions remind us to:
Wayne Township’s students and teachers were clamoring for access to on-line resources and opportunities for collaboration; but IT needed to maintain network security, CIPA compliance, user safety, and AUPs.
At no additional cost to the district, Wayne Township deployed My Big Campus to provide an engaging online environment for blended learning.
Hear from Team Wayne Township about how they:
One of the biggest problems educators have with integrating technology is keeping what is valuable from the past while still incorporating modern tools. Using a verbs and nouns metaphor that many have found useful, Prensky shows how the fundamental skills taught by educators change relatively little over time, whereas the tools for learning and practicing those skills will be changing ever more frequently in the 21st century. The talk presents a useful framework to deal with technological change in the classroom (Talk is based on Prensky’s book: Teaching Digital Natives).
In the Progressive Science Initiative (PSI), students are taking and passing AP science exams at up to 24 times the state rate; 100 teachers are receiving training in physics and chemistry; and, of those, more than 80 will become newly certified in those fields. PSI Methods have been used to create courses in all of high school science and K-12 mathematics (PMI). PSI and PMI use interactive white board and student responder technology, combined with a website for sharing resources (www.njctl.org) to create face-to-face intraschool and virtual interschool PLCs, enabling and empowering teachers. In the future, it is expected that creative educators will apply those same approaches to new content areas; imagination being the only limitation.
Public history, a movement involving collaboration and community activism, challenges communities to extend boundaries. Civic activism and digital storytelling collide in this powerful public history project linking urban and rural students in Louisiana.
Denise Altobello and Jenny Velasquez, teachers at Trinity Episcopal School in New Orleans join forces with Meredith Melancon of the public charter high school in Bunkie, Louisiana, to shed light on Solomon Northup, a New York free man of color, whose 1841 kidnapping led him through the slave exchange in New Orleans to 12 years as a slave.
Traveling between rural Bunkie and New Orleans’s Treme, America’s oldest African American neighborhood, students collaborate:
Such public history opens the doors to museums whose walls can no longer contain their stories.
Through the leadership of a regional education service agency, Genesee Intermediate School District, Flint, MI, high school students throughout Michigan have been able take up to 100% of their course work online and away from the traditional school building. Join this discussion to discover how online distance learning in Michigan has impacted the graduation rates, reduced drop out rates and served students who otherwise would not have graduated. Learn the challenges and successes of students, administrators and school districts who made the journey using virtual learning.
You may feel relatively satisfied with your current search offerings of Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines. What if you could search your friends’ thoughts, interests and activities? Would that be a better search experience?
Social search makes it possible to find content in status updates, real-time search, generating, labeling and finding user-generated content, ‘long-tail’ events and interests, finding vs re-finding and trend identification. Social search done right can become your most valuable research and productivity tool saving you time, energy and effort.
In this session we will explore the most promising new search offerings and discover which social search tool has the unique features that will make your search efforts more successful.
See how one teacher's challenge-based learning project (Disney Planet Challenge) transformed her classroom around a focused theme, unifying her class as they were empowered with purpose-driven technology skills. Projects included videos, podcasts, blogs, Scratch games, a Web site, presentations and Skype calls. Challenge-based learning fosters an environment of collaboration, creativity, purpose and an excitement for learning. In this challenge-based learning project, students had to identify a goal, develop guiding questions and activities, create a plan and put their plan into action. Students became advocates for a threatened species, the Blanding’s turtle, collecting and studying data around a Blanding’s turtle head-starting program, proposing a potential preservation area and also developing a publicity campaign to alert people in Concord about the turtles - including stories, brochures, posters, podcasts, public events and movies. This project was submitted to the Disney Planet Challenge national competition in February 2011 and was awarded second place.
This session is about transcending school reform to make new forms of school. It centers on creating learning environments designed to go beyond achievement to foster engagement in all types of K-12 settings. The session will be particularly useful for people starting plans for new schools or extensive redesign of existing schools.
This workshop will engage participants in lively discussion about:
This session will explore the above ideas in detail and devote significant time to collaborative online development/sharing of:
Seymour Papert describes bricolage as a way to learn and solve problems by trying, testing and playing around. How do we learn by playing around with digital stuff? Can we create deep learning experiences that encourage students to show and share what they know with the world and contribute to the global knowledge commons? We will unleash a cornucopia of concrete student centred learning experiences that leverage the power of the world wide web and focus teachers instructional design through lenses that are student centred, knowledge centred, assessment centred and community centred. We will look at both small short term assignments and larger long term projects that will amaze you with what your students can learn and share as 21st century bricoleurs.
This session has a Part 1 and Part 2. Attending Part 1 in NOT required to attend Part 2.
Shannon McClintock Miller uses social media with her students, teachers and throughout the school community everyday. Through social media, she has connected her students to authentic learning experiences that foster collaboration, communication and the skills that they will need as digital citizens in our emerging global society. In this session, she will show the positive roles social media can play in fostering interactions, leadership, personal responsibility, collaboration and effective communication using a variety of digital environments and media. By using social media, students are given a purpose and powerful audience that brings incredible value to their learning. Shannon will show how social media has changed the way she teaches and will inspire you to get your students connected through amazing stories, conversation and the voice of her students.
Almost every district has a mission statement that focuses on creating 21st century learners as a desired outcome. Participants will learn about the process and results of a middle school exit performance that required students to demonstrate essential 21st century skills through an authentic transfer task. These skills include the ability to be self-directed while also working within a diverse team, creatively and practically sole a complex global issue, and leverage technology to present and communicate effectively with an authentic outside audience through Skype or teleconference. This workshop will model how to design assessments that promote global awareness and responsibility, develop information and digital literacy, while also measuring whether students are meeting critical skills that are often stated but rarely assessed.
This workshop will explore productivity tools, educational activities and more, using built-in and freely available applications for Apple’s iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad). Learn how to use your iOS device to develop lesson plans, podcast and directly access iTunesU content. Also discover tips and tricks to get even more out of your Internet communication device.
This workshop will demonstrate the powerful effects of integrating student-created math video lessons, also called screencasts or mathcasts. The math videos are used as tutoring tools, a form of authentic assessment and for creating an enhanced “kids teaching kids” classroom culture. Perhaps best of all, the students enjoy creating these screencasts.
The video tutorials are used in classroom instruction and shared with a global audience via our iTunes podcast, YouTube channel, as well as our own Mathtrain.TV Web site. You will view student-created screencasts and discover how easy it is to create them for nearly any subject, as well as share them on-line, using the screen recording software Camtasia Studio and free Jing. Two actual students will be co-presenting and demonstrating how we create our screencasts.
The classroom blog is a 21st century bulletin board where class work is shared and viewed by many. It is an amazingly powerful, yet simple tool. Discover how blogging can transform learning in an early childhood classroom. Hear how young children are engaged in a participatory culture while learning traditional literacy skills and also the new media literacy skills.
Attendees will become informed about:
The format for this session will be that of a "Critical Conversation", involving decision-makers in technology adoption in schools in the issues of finding the right balance between risk and reward of using emerging participative digital media in the classroom.
There will be facilitation and input from Ewan McIntosh, former National Advisor on Learning and Technology Futures to the Scottish Government, through its education agency Learning and Teaching Scotland. Ewan has successfully implemented policy and advised policymakers on decisions that have, over the past years, resulted in a successful opening of access to most social networking sites, video sharing and publishing websites in certain Local Authorities.
Who said you need a fancy video camera to capture a great story? Any still camera and audio recorder (even a phone) is all you need. Come discover how simple it is to tell compelling stories through photography. Whether you are experienced or just starting out with photography, we will show you how to create photo stories like the pros.
Have you heard of Twitter? Are you wondering what all the fuss is about? Have you tried it and still do not get it? In this session we will focus on the ways Twitter can be harnessed to build a rich and powerful learning community. We will discuss tips and tricks to leverage the potential of this network. Resources will be provided to help attendees set up their own networks during and/or after the session.
In this session, Mike and Traci will provide an update of laws, cases and issues emerging in technology and education in the US in the past year. This session will include selected statutory and regulatory changes and guidance (such as the US Departments of Justice and Education’s joint guidance on eReader devices and ADA/IDEA compliance) and will examine court decisions likely to influence technology’s role in education.
"You mean there is educational value in World of Warcraft?” Absolutely! In this session, Peggy Sheehy will discuss her experiences playing World of Warcraft (WoW) with her students and a team from Pender County Schools in North Carolina. Come hear as she shares her own gaming experience, the professional educator community that has emerged as her guild in World of Warcraft, “Cognitive Dissonance” and her joint venture with Lucas Gillispie (Pender County Schools) in a project that initially targeted at-risk students in an after-school program designed to build community, leadership, literacy and student confidence in a variety of curricular areas using WoW. This past year, the project evolved into a literacy elective, "The Hero's Journey," and was brought into the academic day. English Language Arts, digital citizenship, communication, web 2.0 and social networking are all addressed in a blended curriculum using Moodle courseware, JRR Tolkien's, "The Hobbit," and World of Warcraft.
Creative educational principles and a school community's values should drive design decisions for physical changes to the school environment, big or small. Whether it is a media center makeover or a major construction project, our perspectives as the expert educators, not the construction experts, should set the vision and inspire the decision-making and building process. Our major school construction projects found their inspiration and informed direction in conversations about learning, not layout. Find out how to uncover connections and resources locally and globally to create practical, meaningful spaces for all kinds of learning. Good questions are the most important tool!
Join us as we explore how innovative teachers employed action research and challenge-based learning methodologies in their classrooms over a span of 12 months. These projects yielded highly significant results, behavioral and data driven, both from students and teachers. These teachers are part of an online masters degree focusing on emergent media and immersive learning environments for learners of all ages. A partial requirement of this degree is to conduct an action research project as well as a challenge based-learning initiative.
Challenge Based Learning requires the teacher to be part of the learning process and work along side the students to produce possible solutions. Solutions will often reflect individual interests and desires, which motivate students to take ownership of their learning. These solutions are shared with a global audience, which brings attention to communication, collaboration, critical thinking and evaluation, skills for the 21st century.
Discover how teachers and school leaders locate and create ready-to-use Web applications, lessons, quizzes and rubrics for the benefit of learning new skills. Utilize valuable professional development resources, creativity tools, problem solving resources, fun and creative experiments and collaboration connections, to make learning even more fun for you and your students.
This session will cover how to produce engaging multimedia projects resulting in increased student commenting and achievement including efficient ways of learning and how to utilize valuable resources for students, teachers and school administrators alike.
Topics:
Launched one year ago, thousands of educators around the world have joined the DocsTeach community to locate primary sources and learning activities for their classrooms, borrow from fellow teachers’ work and create their own interactive online learning activities centered on historical thinking skills. This session will highlight the tools available on DocsTeach.org from the National Archives Experience with a focus on constructing assignments that let students build upon basic document-analysis skills to think critically and meaningfully engage with primary sources. For first-time or existing DocsTeach users, attendees will become familiar with the following aspects of DocsTeach.org:
Harnessing the power of social networking tools in the classroom can be very beneficial for all involved, including students, teachers and parents. Traditional thinking tells us that this works best (and maybe solely) in a secondary school setting. But it is also happening in an unlikely place - elementary schools. All too often elementary students are left behind in terms of using technology, but this session will showcase how one district, generally, and one 1st grade classroom, specifically, is embracing the use of Facebook in the classroom. And additionally, Facebook in these classrooms is not being used solely for communication, but for actual instructional purposes and writing practice.
In this session, we will discuss:
One of the greatest gifts we can give students is the tools to learn independently. This landmark teaching methodology employs elements of UDL, Blended Learning, Standards Based Grading and Asynchronous Mastery. This model is being used in classrooms from kindergarten through the college levels and in all subject matters.
Flipped classrooms are now hubs of learning where the teachers interact individually with every student every day. This facilitates differentiation of learning for all students. Advanced students can move ahead and struggling students are given the extra help that they need. Students spend more time interacting with teachers and the content rather than “sitting and getting” from the teachers.
Part of meeting the learning needs of each student involves scheduling flexibility. This is made possible in the flipped classroom by leveraging vodcasting technology to deliver content. No longer is the entire class schedule dictated by the teacher’s content delivery schedule. Instead, each student learns and masters objectives in ways that are meaningful to them and on a time schedule that is appropriate for them.
In order to help students become globally connected, their teachers and administrators need to be globally aware, curious, interested and competent. Let us explore the why and how of becoming a globally connected educator. From global competencies, connections, collaborations and communication to tools and projects designed and created for you to investigate the world, bring in perspective, knowledge, skills and disposition.
In the Digital Age, the dominance of conventional, linear text of the last few centuries is eroding and giving way to multimodal communication, with its screen-based, non-linear, participatory and visual emphasis. This presentation highlights innovative educational uses of the Read-Write Web that effectively incorporate both conventional prose and multimedia communication. Join in reviewing alternative K-12 activities and projects with interactive technologies and see how online social media is empowering student-centered leaning. Designed for curriculum specialists, classroom teachers, and educational technology specialists, this session features projects from social studies, language arts, world languages and math/science classrooms.
Learn, discuss and share tips and tricks with others in how they use and manage their personal learning networks. The conversation will focus on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn but we will go where the conversation takes us. Understanding and expanding your professional reach is essential in today's digital society.
Realistic fiction offers students the opportunity to learn about people and cultures from around the world. The web provides the connection between students and people from around the world. Using these two resources, lessons can be created that engage and challenge your students to read more and with greater understanding. We will share classroom examples of books used with students and how we connected fiction to the real world. We will focus on literature appropriate for grade 5 - 9. The concepts can be adapted for all grades.
Focus question: How should Media Literacy be fully integrated into classrooms at all grade levels, particularly in this age of converging communications media?
In the classroom it is easy to do some fill-in-the-time media activities to address this concept. However, it is critical today, given our visual world, that we find innovative ways of working with today’s teachable media moments. This workshop is designed how to develop a variety of short, practical media activities and to use the key concepts of media analysis.
We can cost technology in schools, but how do we measure its value, especially when cost is questioned?
How can we help others to manage change by recognising and valuing the educational benefits such as:
This session investigates an approach to measuring the value of educational technology in schools using a study method developed in Australia and the USA and applied in Canberra, England, California, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Portugal.
The approach surveys the capabilities of teachers, the vision and value proposition of the school, the views of staff and students and the Gartner Group total cost of ownership model provided by CoSN.
“In today’s world, it’s no longer how much you know that matters; it’s what you can do with what you know.” With this belief, students need to be engaged in meaningful tasks, which represent their point of view and understanding. In the session, we will explore how using stop motion animation with elementary school children creates a classroom community of problem solving, collaboration, imagination and communication. We believe that learning is authentic when each student is an active participant in his or her own education. The presenters will:
Come explore and discover the latest iOS apps for learning, play and productivity! Douglas Kiang will present the top apps he and his colleagues at Punahou School have been using to enhance learning in the classroom, and help learners of all ages to be more productive, organized and better informed.
Online learning has exploded in recent years. Some studies predict that high school students may be taking upwards of 50% of their courses online before the decade is out. But effective online teaching is very different from teaching in a classroom or lecture hall. This session dives into the facets of designing online courses that keep students engaged, learning and collaborating. Discover strategies to keep learning fun and effective through a number of free or nearly free distance technologies available today. Whether you're new to online teaching, already leading courses or an old pro, you are bound to come away from session with scores of techniques, strategies and ideas on how to galvanize your online courses.
The Innovative Technology in Science Inquiry (ITSI) project prepares diverse students for careers in information technologies by engaging them in exciting, inquiry-based science projects that use computational models and real-time data acquisition. ITSI has produced dozens of activities in middle school earth, physical and life sciences and high school physics, chemistry and biology using a range of commercial sensors as well as open source or research-based software, including Molecular Workbench, NetLogo, Physics Education Technology (PhET) and Seismic Eruption.
ITSI activities are embedded in software that allows students to read the activity, answer questions, make predictions and collect data, analyze results, run a computer-based model, take and annotate snapshots of that model and save their work within one application. It also allows the collection of formative and summative assessment data, which is available to the teachers. The software is not specific to any sensor manufacturer or platform. It is designed to work with whatever curriculum, computers and sensors schools may have or adopt.
THINK Global School (TGS) is the world's first global, mobile high school. We have no building we can call home. Instead we take students and faculty from 12 countries to live, study and explore in three different international cities each year--Stockholm, Sydney and Beijing in year one, for example. In place of of bricks and mortar, we have iPhones, iPads and Macbook Pros--every student and faculty member works with all three devices--and a custom-made ELGG-based web platform to hold them all together. After a year of running a 3:1 program we'd love to share our experience: More is less--making the technology ubiquitous paradoxically makes it less visible (pens and pencils are everywhere but we do not notice them) and the less visible the technology, the less disruptive it is; for similar reasons, ubiquitous connectivity is important; apps do not matter but the the idea "there's an app for that" does, which means users can choose apps based on personal preferences; finally while there is overlap in their capabilities, each device is best suited to different purposes (iPhones are superb data capturing tools, laptops better data processing and production tools) But if we could only have just one tool it would be the iPhone--not an iPad or Laptop.
In this session we will present a brief summary of the TGS 3:1 program and follow with a discussion. We will demonstrate workflow across all three devices so bring iPhones, iPads and laptops.
Why promote 21st century skill development? How are digital immigrants essential in the education of today's digital natives? What are some ways to engage today’s students? How do educators put all these ideas together to create real student centered learning and essential educational transformation? More than a presentation, you will have the opportunity to listen to testimonies from educators, students and various professionals. Along the way, Mike will share some tools he has created to assist your digital natives. These include, ”Ten Basic Google Search Techniques” and “Seven Step (A-G) Web Evaluation Program." Learn about amazing free web resources such as Intel Thinking Tools and investigate student creativity with some video creation ideas. Have the opportunity to smile, laugh, engage and reflect on both practice and possibilities. Walk away with points to ponder, antidotes, a reason to transform and resource material that you can share with your personal learning community.
Yes! Primary students, too, can have digital portfolios that allow them to reflect and record their learning. Just like their older counterparts, young learners want to showcase their learning for a wide audience and obtain feedback beyond the teacher’s comments. We will discuss what works effectively with our youngest students.
You will leave with:
Before the days of tractors and combines, for more than 60% of the population in North America, farming was a way of life. Today that number is less than 2%. Children who grew up in rural areas made vital economic contributions to their families and communities by engaging in real farm chores.
Now it is time to restore the dignity of real student work in our schools. Our students can now easily create collaborative content that contributes to a library of learning resources.
Six learning jobs will be outlined:
Explore ways to make student work meaningful, highly motivating and consequential to the world around them.
Many propose teaching problem-solving skills, yet few show teachers practically how to go about doing it. Prensky proposes a way to teach problem solving using a simple, generalizable methodology, and then applies that methodology to all subjects and levels. (Talk is based on Prensky’s next book from Corwin.)
Being part of the "Millennial" generation and the Information/Technology Age is nothing new. It happened before in the few hundred years surrounding the beginning of the last millennium. The difference now is that our society and educational community are going through that same information upheaval in less than a generation. From the Moors' invasion of Spain to the printing press to Web 2.0+, let history shed some light on where we might be going and how we might guide the journey through the following examples:
School-safe social media technology has evolved. ePals LearningSpace includes a full suite of easy-to-use cloud-based web 2.0 tools for communication and collaboration, robust safety and security features, generous storage space, ability to add third party applications and integration with the district’s locally supported and managed resources. This technology, used throughout Hauppauge (NY) Schools, can empower teachers and students to create their own collaborative learning communities and to enjoy more great days of teaching and learning together any time, anywhere and with anyone in the world they choose.
Breaking curriculum free from its "rusty cage" -- constraints of time and place and an overemphasis on objectives that can be explicitly evaluated for grading purposes -- can open a world of exciting new opportunities to discover and develop the unique talents of every student.
Cognitive development occurs in a social context containing the powerful forces determining the nature of an individual’s life.
This birds of a feather session is intended to provide an opportunity for you to meet with other advanced users to share ideas and learn from one another. This is a moderated session where presentations will be by participants in the room. This is your two minutes of fame to share something cool, leading edge or extremely powerful for learning.
Criteria:
Google Apps for Education provides a free cross platform set of tools for educators. You can create Web sites, collect digital homework, manage student portfolios and much more. If your district has adopted Google Apps for Education, or is thinking about it, then this session is for you. Many districts have dived into Google Apps without a clear system for managing the digital work created there by teachers and students. We will walk through tips and tricks in setting up a Google Apps Domain and include real examples and best practices of how to utilize these tools in an educational setting.
Come experience the power of giving 18-year-old students the opportunity to design personal learning pathways during the last semester of high school. You will see how each individual student focus became the vehicle through which they demonstrated their cumulative skills in research, product development, community service and public speaking.
Attendees will learn how our five-year program leverages a defunct state requirement into a rich, 21st century cornucopia while most of our students take full college loads. Hear of the challenges as well as our student’s successes as we engaged our local community to meet the burgeoning needs of students in today’s classrooms.
Student examples will include:
Classroom conversation and learning should be conceptual. Through inquiry driven curriculum, students are inspired to question, to think, to reflect and to contemplate. All voices should be heard and should be given outlets. The session will discuss how conceptual learning and technology converge and how to create essential questions that require more than a Google search to answer.
The following will be shared:
Building Learning Communities is invited to a Creativity Reception at FableVision Studios located on the top floor of the Boston Children’s Museum with gorgeous views of the city. Come to meet and be inspired by Peter H. Reynolds and his team in their creative workspace from 6 – 8 pm.
The Studio is about 1.1 miles away from the Park Plaza, which is about a 15 minute cab ride with traffic. The address is 308 Congress Street, (on the top floor of the Boston Children’s Museum).
It is walk-able as well, however the walk would take about 25 minutes.
A “DUCK” is an authentic, renovated World War II amphibious landing vehicle. On this narrated city tour you’ll cruise by all the places that make Boston the birthplace of freedom and a city of firsts, from the golden-domed State House to Bunker Hill to fashionable Newbury Street; from Quincy Market to the Prudential Tower, and more. Learn little known facts and interesting insights about our unique and wonderful city.
And this is not any ordinary street tour…. You will “splashdown” as your ConDUCKtor takes your DUCK right into the Charles River. Bring your camera, ipods and videos – share the ride with family members and colleagues. We’ve booked Ducks especially for BLC participants.
Price: $36 – The Duck Boat will pick you up outside of the hotel at the Valet entrance.
Discover free, Web-based tools that motivate your students to learn and connect with the global community. Make the move from content consumption to content creation and community building while developing more self-directed learners and raising global awareness. This session will be a rich source of ideas, resources and information about learning with technology in the 21st century.
Signatures, notations, scribbles, messy handwriting and top-secret and declassified stamps can make students wonder about the lives of documents and curious to learn more. These can be great hooks in the classroom. So too can be a letter written with enough emotion to make the reader bubble with anger about events that happened 50 years ago. Or a statement from a teenager about a troubling situation that makes the reader swell with pride at the author’s eloquence. Or an official government document that matter-of-factly classifies people based solely upon their ethnicity and induces bewilderment about how living in the past must have been. Primary sources can evoke emotion and empathy in students, making them perfect teaching tools for sensitive subjects. This session will explore the capacity of primary sources to address difficult-to-teach topics. Participants will also be introduced to DocsTeach.org, where they can search for primary sources to use in the classroom.
Do the impossible! Get your students online, get them enthused about writing, commenting and using multimedia – and improve their writing. Two related, but non-repetitive sessions, by Geoffrey Gevalt, award-winning journalist and founder of the Young Writers Project. Intended for teachers in grades 4-12. Tips to combat obstacles (including money), to engage your students as never before and to create authentic audiences for their best work.
Gevalt will show you what teachers have been doing in YWP digital spaces in Language Arts, Science, Math, Foreign Languages and ELL in grades 4-12. Exemplars will be shown in a wide variety of areas involving writing, podcasting, photo stories, art critique, science exploration, etc. You will be provided links to authentic lesson plans, free or low-cost software to use to create your own digital spaces, powerful Web-apps and top digital educators you should be following.
What is all the buzz about YouTube, Flickr, Diigo, Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, Twitter, Skype, Second Life and the many Web 2.0 technologies that are key components of students' daily vocabulary? Which technologies are really supporting and enhancing our students? How can teachers effectively use the "read/write web" to motivate students and connect them to the world? Do we really understand Web 2.0 and the effect it has on our students? Our students are authors of blogs, designers of web sites and developers of ringtones. They have created an entire language of their own using abbreviated terms. The bottom line is that these students learn and comprehend in a way that is foreign to many of us, and, as a result, they often feel disconnected from traditional teachers and schools of yesteryear. In this workshop, we will explore several Web 2.0 tools, how students are using them and how to successfully integrate them into the curriculum.
Our schools are at the beginning of a historic transition from paper as the dominant storage and retrieval media to the web. The initial response of bolting technology on top of the current design of school is a short-term process that will only yield marginal improvement. Contrast this “$1,000 pencil” approach with how society is transforming how, where, when, with whom and even why people work. Being self directed, managing global communications and overwhelming amounts of information have become critical job skills. The workshop will include response to the following criticalleadership questions, such as:
In this session, teachers will learn the basics of podcasting from the initial planning stages to publication within iTunes. See how educators can immerse students in international collaboration projects and have students become positive and contributing global citizens.
In the Progressive Science Initiative (PSI), students are taking and passing AP science exams at up to 24 times the state rate; 100 teachers are receiving training in physics and chemistry; and, of those, more than 80 will become newly certified in those fields. PSI Methods have been used to create courses in all of high school science and K-12 mathematics (PMI). PSI and PMI use interactive white board and student responder technology, combined with a website for sharing resources (www.njctl.org) to create face-to-face intraschool and virtual interschool PLCs, enabling and empowering teachers. In the future, it is expected that creative educators will apply those same approaches to new content areas; imagination being the only limitation.
In this session, Traci and Mike will provide an overview of federal laws regulating the use of technology in American schools, including the usual suspects (CIPA, NCIPA, FERPA, IDEA and TEACH) and never-saw-it-coming laws (like FLSA and ADA). This session will be of interest to both novices to the topic and battle-tested veterans who may have lost sight of the legal forest because of the fees.
Imagine if students, thirty miles apart, could collaborate on their own digital textbook. Now imagine students receive no grade for their work. Imagery, podcasts, texts, PowerPoints, hyperlinks and more all created by students and for the world. In this presentation, we will focus on how we built a 21st century learning environment between two school districts; one with a 1-to-1 laptop program and the other with a computer lab. We will explain how we built a common curriculum that engages and empowers our students to collaborate, communicate and disseminate their story of world history using Skype, GoogleDocs and Wikispaces. Our students’ efforts, over the past five years, have resulted in the creation of a living, digital textbook. Engaged with curriculum, motivated by a desire to understand the world in which they live and leaving digital footprints worth following.
The iPad brings interactive learning right into the hands of students, teachers and administrators. These powerful mobile learning devices have the potential to revolutionize learning with a set of ever growing tools for all curriculum areas and learning styles. In this session, we will discuss how iPad devices will transform educational environments with innovative tools to meet each student’s learning needs.
This workshop gives teachers and administrators authentic ideas to integrate technology tools into every lesson and activity, no matter the subject! One major point made in this workshop is the discussion of “the real purpose” for technology, which is to connect and collaborate outside of the classroom. This workshop takes away the fear and burden teachers feel about using new technologies by empowering the students to explore and learn the tools that interest them.
Workshop includes:
A great partnership developed when I began to tweet. Four months after my first post, I developed friendships including one connecting four Iowa schools. Our classes joined together by student blogs. Students learned how to create blogs and how to comment appropriately. While the purpose in our classrooms varied, we were able to foster student interest through collaboration. This is only the beginning...
Join us as we discuss:
The International Baccalaureate's three programmes, covering the 3 - 19 years primary and secondary market, is increasingly recognized as being fit for 21st century educational needs. The organization is growing in size with almost 4000 programmes being offered in over 135 countries, including 1300 schools in the USA. Join Director General Jeffrey Beard as he explains how the IB is utilizing technology to transform the organization by building an increasingly networked and collaborative infrastructure across its three global centres.
Specifically, Director General Beard will explain how techology is playing a major role in the organization's transformation in four major areas:
Seymour Papert describes bricolage as a way to learn and solve problems by trying, testing and playing around. How do we learn by playing around with digital stuff? Can we create deep learning experiences that encourage students to show and share what they know with the world and contribute to the global knowledge commons? We will unleash a cornucopia of concrete student centred learning experiences that leverage the power of the world wide web and focus teachers instructional design through lenses that are student centred, knowledge centred, assessment centred and community centred. We will look at both small short term assignments and larger long term projects that will amaze you with what your students can learn and share as 21st century bricoleurs.
This session has a Part 1 and Part 2. Attending Part 1 in NOT required to attend Part 2.
So, you have integrated technology in your classrooms. Is it leading to improved learning? What does assessment look like in a Digital Age classroom of Web 2.0 integration and multimodal projects? How do we distinguish between higher-order thinking and "bells-and-whistles"? In this session we will explore the role of a "logic model" and backward-design principles in developing effective "Assessment 2.0" strategies. We will look at techniques and rubrics that help establish a clear relationship between project goals and skill benchmarks. We will also focus on the critical role of formative assessments and timely intervention. Furthermore, we will also examine how a 2.0 assessment differs from a traditional assessment. A fundamental goal is to identify characteristics of effective assessments that link to and measure student mastery of worthwhile learning goals.
Educators can empower others to use communication, social media, collaboration and connections to make a difference. This workshop will focus on developing a vision that encourages students to “think, lead and serve while connecting to their passions.” Change can begin by building a team environment that includes teachers and students. Shannon will demonstrate how to strengthen the local school community and promote global connectivity using Google Sites, blogging and social networks. You will leave this presentation with several ideas that can be replicated and successful in your schools as well.
Give your students a voice by helping them run their very own film festival from beginning to end. From creating the movies, to securing the funding, to finding a venue and welcoming the public, this workshop will give you the tips you need to help students and teachers plan and run a successful film festival in your own community!
In this session we will look at the essential elements of a successful collaborative project and share several free technology tools that can help facilitate this type of learning. These tools can help students to create websites, write papers, collaborate on presentations and collect data. Tools will include Google Apps (docs, forms, presentations and spreadsheets), Wikispaces and Ning.
In this session you will learn:
What if we tried to go Google-free? How hard would it be? Should we be looking for alternatives? Will you like them? Are we too reliant on Google’s services? Is it dangerous to give all our information to one corporation? Should we be moving our data out of Google as soon as possible? Does Google have too much "Power"? What would you do if Gmail, went down? Join us, find the answers and discover alternatives.
With heightened expectations for what it means to meet the needs of our graduates as they prepare for college, career and citizenship in the 21st century alongside the requirements of meeting state standards and district curricula, the teacher often feels pulled in several directions as to how to accomplish what can often look like competing goals. This workshop, using the case study of child labor during the Industrial Revolution, will demonstrate how teachers can “globalize” the curriculum – making meaningful modern connections and offering suggestions for instruction and assessment that embody the skills and thinking required in the digital age including electronic surveys, blogging, web site evaluation, skyping with outside experts and creating and posting video clips.
In the last few years, education has finally noticed gaming and virtual worlds, but this gaming attention has been characterized by two very different perspectives. Some see engagement, concentration and collaboration, while others see isolation, social dysfunction and addiction. Often, educators have difficulty seeing the relevance of a particular game to some portion of their curriculum. This presentation will dispel the myths surrounding gaming, draw clear connections between games and learning and give attendees practical examples and resources to begin using these powerful learning platforms.
Travel bloggers, photographers and writers beware! Tweens and teens travel too, and they have much to add to this ever-growing genre.
Enter the New Orleans T(w)een Travel Writers and Movie Making Workshop http://www.nolatweens.com.
Denise Altobello and Jenny Velasquez direct middle school students from around the United States as they harness the power of travel writing, digital storytelling, design and publication to market New Orleans as a family destination.
With the support of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, we guide 8-day summer workshops that welcome students from around the United States to:
Many teachers and school administrators are stuck between wanting to integrate new technology tools in their classrooms and being overwhelmed on where and how to begin. This session addresses that reality and provides examples and encouragement about getting started. Examples are real world and encouragement enthusiastic.
The challenge was to "Design an iPhone app that is useful to our school community." I used a challenge-based learning approach to inspire a group of beginning programmers to design questions, conduct guiding activities and find the resources they needed to invent a solution to a campus-wide problem. Along the way, I documented their thinking and used video and online tools to capture the story of how our app was published on the App Store and how this process transformed our classroom into a student-centered, fully collaborative learning environment.
Students as Teachers builds on the idea that learning can be solidified by teaching it to others and expands learning outside the classroom walls. I will share how we use flipcams in and out of the classroom as students create tutorial videos for a wide range of subjects and a wide range of viewers.
Attendees will:
In the Spring of 2010, Ewan McIntosh worked with educators in an English elementary school with a stellar goal in mind: to take a group who lacked confidence in public speaking and, in 10 weeks, have them present amazing speeches to the world through a TEDx event.
This talk outlines the processes and planning involved in this cross-curricular, cross-age and stage project, and shares some of the skills learned by staff and students in developing amazing presentations, sharp audio and powerful film to be shared with the world on the web.
Transform your teaching and learning by creating and sharing authentic assessment using free screen recording software. See real examples of schools, teachers, students, peers and universities who are creating screencasts to comment on student essays and to provide meaningful feedback on student work.
This session focuses on various simple, easy and useful ways to incorporate screencasting with students. Two actual students will be co-presenting and demonstrating screencasting options.
Take advantage of the free tools that come with every computer and the American Film Institute's years of research, field testing and curriculum development to integrate filmmaking into your core curriculum. Students take charge of their own learning, build on their visual literacy skills and master and retain content at a deeper level.
Have you been on Twitter for a while? Do you feel like something is missing? There's a good chance that you are not maximizing your experience. Signing up for and learning the basics of using social tools are generally pretty easy. But to really gain value, you need to understand the more advanced features of what these tools have to offer. This workshop will provide you with several examples of how to tweak your usage to gain the most value out of your time online.
Tools such as classroom blogging, Skype calls and collaborative projects allow young learners to connect and learn from children who live far away. In addition, their classroom teachers can develop relationships that support their own learning. Come discover how you can connect and develop a classroom environment that spans time zones and empowers learners.
Attendees will become familiar with
Feeling overwhelmed with information? Come play at this highly creative and engaging session on using the iPhone camera for learning. Create math walks, use GPS tags to use photos for history or socials classes, use photography to improve student writing and create point of view images for more powerful perspective writing. Bring your iPhone or new iPod touch with a camera.
One of the least discussed, but mega powerful facets of multimedia is the power of music production. Now, more than ever, we can produce music for projects or simply produce music to share. The tools have made themselves much more democratic, easier to use and accessible to us mere mortals with no music knowledge. This workshop will help you with tips and resources on how adding music to your classroom may be the special incentive for some (if not all) of your students! We will look at software and hardware (from free to pay) that will become a must in your classrooms.
Prensky argues that too much time is being spent trying to fix the educational “system,” and hardly any is being spent on fixing the education the system provides—particularly for the future. Prensky is convinced that, with our present course, all the momentum and money now available will be just thrown away and lost, and, when it is all spent, we shall end up with an educational system that is incapable of preparing the bulk of our students for the 21st century.
The reason so much time and money is being wasted, argues Prensky, is that virtually all of the educational improvement efforts now in place are aimed at bringing back, and attempting to make successful the education that America offered students in the 20th century (occasionally with technological enhancements). Sadly, too many people assume this is still the right education for today—although it no longer works for most of our students. Practically no effort is being made, despite the many educational projects and programs now being funded and offered, to create and implement a better, more future-oriented education for all of our kids; an education that will enable them to deal with the issues and realities they will face in the 21st century. (Talk is based on a widely circulated article.)
So every student has a computer now what do you do? This session will look at the pedagogy, theories and practices behind 1:1 programs. From reverse instruction strategies to reducing time on assignments, participants will walk away with ideas they can take back to their own classrooms. Ideas that might even mean spending less class time on the computer and more time engaging face to face.
Participants will discuss:
One of the most effective ways to get students collaborating with each other is to use tools that are easily accessible. If the tools are browser agnostic, have no demand for installations or updates and are intuitive, the collaboration is more likely to be effective. Together, we will look at Google Forms, Docs and Sites as a suite of tools to facilitate and foster global collaborations.
This session will provide teachers and administrators the fundamentals of leadership that will develop them as education leaders in the classroom and throughout their school districts. It will focus on:
This session will provide concrete suggestions that school superintendents, principals, BOE members and technology coordinators can and should consider in their journey to Web 2.0 land. The workshop will offer suggestions of approaches for district leadership teams to incorporate into their system for Web 2.0 integration and engagement; there will be an emphasis on the structural, political and philosophical realities that must be challenged and accounted for.
The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-profit journalism organization, supports 50 high-quality, international reporting projects annually. These projects offer teachers classroom-friendly, multimedia material and lesson plans that can be used to infuse pressing global issues into the school curriculum. We will share how our collaboration with the Student News Action Network has encouraged students to explore critical global issues and their local implications.
John will share a range of "Active Learning Recipes" for thriving in a connected world of difference. He will explore a range of new tools and their use a catalyst for active learning and for managing formative feedback. The session will also explore the potential of difference bingo, managing the sensory matrix and taking eBay style profiling to the classroom. The session will also include an introduction to the Learning Event Generator and resources that allow for 300 different ways to "show what you know."
With personal technology devices becoming pervasive, many schools are contemplating “bring your own device” initiatives, allowing students to bring and use their own technology in schools. This session will explore legal and policy issues related to such initiatives. Does CIPA’s filtering requirement apply to student owned devices used on school networks? Does the school have an obligation to “upgrade” devices of students with disabilities? Come and find out.
Using Camtasia Studio, the presenters will demonstrate the process of creating a video podcast from start to finish. They will discuss the finer points of making an engaging, educational and humorous which students will learn from. These videos are used the flipped classroom model of instruction. In the flipped model, students watch teacher-produced videos at home and in class engage in hands on activities which reinforce the learning.
An education that incorporates the principles and priorities of a passion-driven classroom: disciplined study, fostered imagination, active participation and community contribution, will result in learners who are successful and citizens who are ready and willing to participate in shaping the future.
Come join me as we explore how to organize, manage and create school and classroom environments that spark and sustain students’ energy, excitement and love of learning.
Augmented what? AR is quickly becoming an emerging technology according to the 2011 Horizon Report. An augmented reality environment includes elements of the real world and the virtual world at the same time, but is interactive in real time. The interaction between the virtual object and the real world brings to life abstract concepts and seeks to enhance understanding. Sound interesting?
In this session attendees will better understand AR and it implications on education. Learn how to manipulate AR objects via mobile devices and laptops. Discover how AR applications can enhance textbooks too have the power to engage a reader in ways that have never been possible. Take a field trip to a museum with a group of classmates and never leave the classroom. Come learn how to manipulate the White House and a Dodecahedron in 3D and how to make your own AR objects: text, photos, sound and more. Using AR applications can provide each student with his/her own unique discovery path. Do not miss out on the fun!
This interactive workshop will explore and provide hands-on examples of how the use of a new online program, based on six trait analytic rubrics, can be easily integrated to improve student outcomes and to encourage and motivate students to revise. Enriching the discussion will be methods currently in use in a middle school classroom to efficiently and effectively integrate an online writing practice program into core instruction providing instant scoring of student work, targeted feedback, suggestions for revision, kid friendly tutorials on each trait, exemplars and tools that allow teachers and students to communicate easily about their work. An online math practice program will also be discussed. Both can also serve as common formative assessments that are characteristic of PLCs.
Enjoy a wonderful story with novel ideas to incorporate PBL with free technology. Travel through lands of PBL ideas; discover collaborative resources and extend PBL beyond your classroom. Browse the chapters below, prepare your imagination, be ready for new possibilities and be sure to stop by for a story that leaves you with a happy ending.
THINK Global School (TGS) is the world's first global, mobile high school. We have no building we can call home. Instead we take students and faculty from 12 countries to live, study and explore in three different international cities each year--Stockholm, Sydney and Beijing in year one, for example. Instead of bricks and mortar, we have a 3:1 program (iPhones, iPads and MBPs) held together by a custom-made ELGG-based web platform built to support Alan November's Digital Learning Farm concept. Our curriculum model--core learning practiced through applied learning leading to original research--is also wrapped around the students-as-contributors idea. With our nomadic life and continuously evolving program of events and explorations our classroom is defined not by where we are, but by what we do, not by physical space, but by psychological space. The Farm has helped us build the independence of thought and work that is both a practical necessity and a key developmental goal of our school.
In this session we will look at how we set up our technology to support the Digital Learning Farm as a core practice, present some examples of student work and discuss the results of working with the Farm for a year with 15 students from 11 different countries.
High powered, low-cost smartphones now afford us the opportunity to learn on the go. With these devices, students can perform research, collaborate, interact with experts, and produce creative works all from a phone! But which one is best for supporting student learning? In this session, we will examine the Android and iPhone mobile platforms, unique features of each that support student learning, and applications and activities that support differentiated mobile learning.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own smartphone to this hands-on session as interaction will be built into the session using online polling websites, Google Forms, and other means of mobile interaction.
Do not miss out on this innovative workshop. Most content also applies to iPod Touch and iPad users. Teachers, administrators, IT professionals and technology coordinators are welcome.
West Tisbury is a high performing Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 8 School in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Valerie Becker and Sue Miller, two forward thinking teachers at the school, have a proven track record of using technology to empower students to become active participants in the co-construction of knowledge. In this session, Valerie, Sue and their students will share how they use Promethean's ActivInspire software and tools in concert with a range of engaging media to nurture students' creativity, curiosity, collaboration and communicate their understanding of content. They will use the National Educational Technology Plan as a framework to describe what are doing empowers this bold vision.
Broughton Hall High School is part of the Building Schools for the Future Programme in the UK. The school has an international reputation for developing innovative approaches to curriculum design and skills based approaches to learning.
This has led to the following developments in recent years:
The focus of this session will be on the 'I's of introspection, inclusion, innovation and implementation in the development of a more relevant and engaging way of learning.
Google Apps for Education provides a free cross platform set of tools for educators. You can create Web sites, collect digital homework, manage student portfolios and much more. If your district has adopted Google Apps for Education, or is thinking about it, then this session is for you. Many districts have dived into Google Apps without a clear system for managing the digital work created there by teachers and students. We will walk through tips and tricks in setting up a Google Apps Domain and include real examples and best practices of how to utilize these tools in an educational setting.
Critical, dynamic thinkers are a “must-have” in today’s society, but how do we create such a thinker? Promethean’s Learner Response Systems allow us to engage every learner in any subject area with a higher-level thinking experience and immediate feedback. You will learn how to seamlessly incorporate Learner Response Systems into your classroom of kindergarteners to seniors in this hands-on session. You will also discover keywords to incorporate into your discussion questions that will evoke the most thought by challenging your learners to surpass their critical thinking potential!
Rooms to be designated closer to the conference but they will be scattered on the 4th floor.
Calling all International BLC Colleagues: You are cordially invited to a special session to explore the potential of GTEC’s global classroom model, how it can revolutionize approaches to learning and how your students can become global classrooms students too! The session provides you with a unique opportunity to establish useful global classroom partnerships.
GTEC (Global Technology and Engineering Consortium)
This project is designed to produce a new 21st century global workforce, the community our students will be living and working. They will be effective working in and with other countries/cultures through global team-work training and collaboration with business and industry. This preparation is needed in order to solve the problems urgently confronting the world’s populations, an outcome which has some urgency.
We recently concluded a two pilots: at The Spirit of Knowledge Charter School in Worcester (US) and Haywood Engineering College (UK) ; and Newburyport High School, Newburyport, MA (US) and Olin College of Engineering, Needham, MA (US).
The presentation will be made by members of GTEC Leadership Team and students from one pilot school.
The social highlight of the conference week! Your registration includes the Annual BLC Bash that will be held in the magnificent ballroom of the Park Plaza Hotel.
Focus Question: We have the technology, students have the digital tools....so how should our curriculum permeate all aspects of our teaching, students’ learning and assessment?
In this workshop, many student examples and ideas will be shared on how to assess concepts beyond paper and pencil. We will focus on how to use our media-rich environment--video and visuals--to transform assessment beyond the essay and multiple choice through social media and various media tools.
SmartGraphs is a project that studies the educational value of digital objects embedded in graphs that “know” about themselves and that provide scaffolding to students to help them learn about graphs and the concepts conveyed in graphs.
SmartGraphs is guided by collaboration between the Concord Consortium and the Pennsylvania State Department of Education Classrooms for the Future program, through which 145,000 laptop computers are deployed to serve 500,000 students. Other states, districts or schools that are also interested in providing meaningful software to help students interpret visual graphical data from existing graphs or real time data collected with probes will thrill with this free open source software tool!
Learn about the Encyclopedia of Life project, a global effort to document information about all of the estimated 1.9 million species on Earth (www.eol.org). The focus will be on how EOL, a completely free resource, can be used for curriculum development resources and to actively engage students in the process of doing science with its participatory tools and to become familiar with this life-long learning resource. Anyone can access, reuse and repurpose the authoritative scientific content, podcasts, media and literature found on EOL. Web-based tools allow students to better access, use and share biodiversity information and to be involved in science projects, while also learning about media and technology. The following tools will be demonstrated:
The presentation will draw upon information and results gained from specific projects in formal and informal learning settings.
As teacher-leaders, we created a blog called teachersfortomorrow.net where we leave our own digital footprints. This website serves as a depository of professional reflections, a place where we offer a glimpse into our classrooms. Our goal is to use our experiences with technology and curriculum to help other teachers create the classroom of tomorrow. In our schools, students of tomorrow collaborate on projects, scaffold information and create personal connections not bound by distance or socioeconomic status. Living and learning in school districts nearly thirty miles apart, our students interact weekly via Skype, a shared classroom blog, student blogs and GoogleDocs. In our schools, both students and teachers are making digital footprints worth following.
Tough economic times demand strong, innovative ties between industry and education. Immerse yourself in the Blue Valley School District's Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS), which is revolutionizing high school education through a nationally-recognized, profession-based educational model. Created in partnership with seventy-four international business partners (from IBM to Sprint to Garmin), hundreds of business professional mentors, six leading universities and education experts, CAPS is designed to provide high school students the skills needed to succeed in the competitive college environment and global work force. In this session, participants will Skype live with students and partners of the CAPS program and learn the:
Blue Valley CAPS received a Gold Edison Award in the Living, Working and Learning Environments category in 2011.
Learn more about Blue Valley CAPS at http://www.bvcaps.org/
http://www.bvcaps.org/Pathway/filmmaking/Video/1433/caps-innovation-video/View.aspx
A practical exploration of the intersection between visual design, presentation design and instructional design. Every day, several times a day, teachers everywhere are called upon to educate, entertain, elucidate, enlighten and maintain attention and amongst their students. With the advent of interactive white boards and/or video projectors in classrooms everywhere, the intersection of these skills is fast becoming a centrepiece of an educators toolkit. This workshop will model and illustrate concrete ways in which teachers can incorporate these skills into their pedagogical practice.
From slow motion to green screen/chroma key to conversations with historical figures, learn how students and teachers can mimic Hollywood and television effects with the simple editing software found on any computer.
Rock Our World celebrates community building through the integration of science, music and collaborative technologies. Students share creativity and learning with digital technologies.
No longer should you be concerned about spending precious classroom minutes mining the Internet looking for information. Join us as we take a tour of the tools and strategies that Google has developed to help you and your students focus on synthesizing the information you have found rather than spending precious classroom time trying to find it. Explore how to use Google’s latest search techniques with your students and develop strategies to help your students do meaningful queries rather than just hunt for data.
Technology has the potential to change our relationship to history and can facilitate engaging activities and research that would be difficult or impossible to create in a tech-free environment. Primary sources -- the heart of historical analysis -- are increasingly available on the Web accompanied by new and innovative ways of interacting with these online materials. As such, historians, educators and students must improve their skills of accessing, evaluating, creating and collaborating with digital primary sources. This session develops skills for accessing and teaching with digital primary sources and provides exemplary activities. Participants will learn tools and techniques for uncovering primary sources and will explore cutting-edge interactive collections with fascinating potential.
In today's globally connected society, geography is more important thn ever. Google Maps is a free tool that is easy enough to use with all ages. Even elementary grade students can dive in. You will learn to build a tour within Google Maps - complete with descriptions, links and images. Great for ANY subject area.
Did you know that all jobs of the future will require a basic understanding of math and science? The most recent ten year employment projections by the U.S. Labor Department show that of the 20 fastest growing occupations projected for 2014, 15 of them require significant mathematics or science preparation to successfully compete for a job. As educators, what can we do to ensure our students are ready for the future? With the surge of mobile device integration in our schools, is it possible to merge these devices with STEM curriculum to engage students? The answer is yes!
In this session, attendees will learn different innovative ways to integrate mobile devices into STEM curriculum. Attendees will discover valuable resources on new and exciting ways to change the stigma that STEM classes are too hard. This session will provide something for everyone, even if STEM content areas are not your focus. Come and ENTER PODSTEMIC!
The session will provide participants with tools to leverage technology for Character and Leadership Education. The session will focus on how the application of technology in the classroom can motivate students to use technology as a leadership tool across the curriculum. It will develop the core skills necessary for the integration of technology in the classroom.
Critical, dynamic thinkers are a “must-have” in today’s society, but how do we create such a thinker? Promethean’s Learner Response Systems allow us to engage every learner in any subject area with a higher-level thinking experience and immediate feedback. You will learn how to seamlessly incorporate Learner Response Systems into your classroom of kindergarteners to seniors in this hands-on session. You will also discover keywords to incorporate into your discussion questions that will evoke the most thought by challenging your learners to surpass their critical thinking potential!
In a world where students are constantly plugged in, how do we find the balance between engaging them on “their level” and also teaching them the face to face skills of conversation and real life interaction? When children share the same physical space, how do we ensure they also share the same mental space?
In this session we will attempt answer the following questions.
Both The Partnership for 21st Century Skills and ISTE have outlined what they believe to be 21st century skills today's schools need to be teaching students. A common standard they have both identified is the ability for students to interact, collaborate and publish with peers and experts in multiple environments through a variety of mediums. In this session, we will analyze why the ability to collaborate effectively is a critical skill and how educators can facilitate student collaboration through Google Docs.
From West Point to HSBC (biggest bank in the world), one of the most valued skills is to understand different cultural perspectives and points of view. If we want our students to be competitive in the global economy, we must challenge them to co-create and present to a worldwide authentic audience. Any classroom can be organized to be a global communications center, and we can design more rigorous and motivating assignments that engage our students to communicate globally with purpose. Expand boundaries of potential and give your students courage to engage with the world.
Discussion about Rob's keynote.
If you are on Twitter and you want to answer the questions of "why, how and what to do next?" -- this is for you. Our discussion will unpack the essential aspects of Twitter and its power to change the world, while also establishing its relevance and impact for education.
This hands on session promises to take your Twitter presence and experience to the next level leaving you ready to “tweet “ with purpose, power and confidence.
Think video is just for outside of school activities? Join us to talk about how students of any age can plan, capture and share their learning experience using video. The session will include curriculum connections, the benefits of using this media and the ways that video can be used to connect, collaborate and share at any grade level.
You will leave with:
Integrate Project Based Learning, 21st century skills and the fine arts into STEM education. Include all students as you go beyond the STEM based disciplines. Discover dozens of engaging online programs and opportunities that allow STEM to push your students’ creativity and innovation. The results will be an educational experience that will rev up student engagement and inquiry…full STEAM ahead! View several brief demonstrations and gather resources that will get your class started using free software applications including MIT’s Scratch, West Point Academy’s WP Bridge Project and Google’s Sketch Up. Learn from a practicing educator who was named STEM Educator of the Year by the Fort Wayne Chapter of the US Air Force Association, an Indiana Teacher of the Year Semi-finalist and a facilitator for the Siemens Discovery Education National STEM Academy. Walk away with resources that will allow for real STEAM in your school that includes everyone...STEAMIE!
Students need assistance in learning how to think, how to believe and how to succeed. "Mistakes are not disasters," but an opportunity to learn something new. Join us and discover ideas on "Life Lessons." Explore assignments that you can implement in your classroom.
The Digital Learning Farm is an inspiration for transforming the culture of any classroom. Would your teachers like their students to work harder than they do? Do you want your students to beg for more work? This session will share classroom examples that embrace the notion of giving students authentic responsibilities not only for motivation, but also to learn critical skills to become literate in the 21st century.
Last year we described the mission, vision and rationale for the project: developing a model for educating K-12 and higher education students capable of succeeding in a flat and diverse globe. GTEC provides an alternative approach to developing the 21st century global workforce through a unique international mentorship and collaboration among K12, higher education and business/industry.
This year we will report on progress with two pilot programs. In the first program, students from Spirit of Knowledge Charter School, Worcester, MA, and Haywood Engineering College, UK, teamed up to create a ‘global classroom’ to solve an energy optimization problem. In the second program, Newburyport High School joined undergraduates from Olin College of Engineering in a problem-oriented co-design project to reclaim wasted energy. Both pilot programs received technical support from Parametric Technology Corporation, Needham, MA / UK.
Further discussion will include next steps involving additional partners abroad and at home.
Educators are inundated with buzzwords like 21st century skills and global education, but how do we bring them into the classroom effectively today? The Student News Action Network, an online high school journalism collaboration, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, is building a network of kids around the world writing research-based journalism about topic-driven issues ranging from the March earthquake in Japan to the global water crisis to women’s rights in the Arab world. We will present a practical, scalable model for meaningful international student collaboration that teachers can use in the classroom immediately.
Few schools have the amount of technical support that they need, and one of the most overlooked technical resources schools have is the students! If you know teachers who are reluctant to use technology, a great way to encourage them is by using students as tech liaisons. The student learns by teaching and the teacher learns by listening. In this session, we will cover a variety of examples of how this is accomplished in a way that benefits everyone.
Augmented Reality, a technology that has been around for several years, has found its place in pop culture, the world of art and museums thanks to the prevalence of smartphones and location-based services built around them.
Augmented Reality allows the user to discover virtual objects in real-world locations through their cellphone's camera. It has been harnessed by cultural organisations and museums to create exhibits within exhibits, or to show off the history and photographic heritage of a city.
This is a session to learn about how others have used it and set about harnessing this exciting technology in your own learning environments.
Educational leaders need to model the use of technology in their own work with teachers to showcase the ever growing possibilities and ensure sustainability. As well, teachers need opportunities for professional development that happen within their classroom walls and which are embedded into their individual instruction and curricula.
Attending this session will give you the information you need to create your own Professional Learning Network and use the learned information to support the individual needs of your staff as a passionate, guiding leader. We will describe how to use tools such as Facebook, blogs and Twitter to obtain and communicate information and concepts that will further the learning opportunities for your students and staff. Furthermore, along with pulled out grouped professional development, teachers desperately need the chance to have someone provide "just in time" learning based on their individual needs. In asking the right questions, modeling, mentoring, lesson planning and curricular concepts can be provided through on-site, meaningful coaching. Hear how Jennifer and Andrew used both of these important concepts in tandem to build true sustainability at Lawrence Middle School in New Jersey.
Adding value to learning and marketing what we do/think/produce are key ingredients to our learning spaces today and tomorrow. Many of our schools are, however, still using traditional means of producing research papers and reports – text-based final products. Using the power of visual storytelling can intrinsically motivate all involved (including teachers) to explore new and exciting ways to create learning, and more importantly, showcase it to the world. Documentaries are an important form of media that allow/empower content area teachers new avenues of adding value to their learning goals. This is a quick workshop that will explore strategies on how to best create an environment where these projects can be produced and shared.
Have you been on Twitter for a while? Do you feel like something is missing? There's a good chance that you are not maximizing your experience. Signing up for and learning the basics of using social tools are generally pretty easy. But to really gain value, you need to understand the more advanced features of what these tools have to offer. This workshop will provide you with several examples of how to tweak your usage to gain the most value out of your time online.
Cushing Academy has undergone a profound systemic transformation which has been a collective educational quest. This year, Cushing teachers traveled to various schools in the country where innovative educational approaches are taking place. Faculty researched pioneering classroom applications of 21st century learning and took a close look at what we are doing in our classrooms to meet the needs of our digital learners.
We will preview our soon-to-be published companion pieces: Jim Tracy’s book on developing an entrepreneurial school and faculty findings on the best innovations Cushing has incubated internally along with the most interesting practices we have found in our travels, including:
- galvanize faculty to a greater sense of inquiry and discovery
- affirm peers, encourage contributions and assuage fears around change
- forge a new consensus and momentum among faculty
Young learners are active, curious and motivated. Their learning environment should be filled with concrete and hands-on opportunities that engage them and inspire learning. Just as building blocks, pattern blocks and attribute blocks are tools used to explore and develop mathematical concepts, digital tools, such as netbooks, iPod touches, Roamer Robots, video cameras and interactive whiteboards can also enhance the learning in a primary classroom. Learn how digital tools support a learning environment that motivates students to be active, independent and reflective learners.
In his 2009 book Drive, Dan Pink identifies three key factors underlying human motivation: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose (AMP). How can we apply these ideas to student learning? By designing instruction with an eye for engagement. According to Phillip Schlechty, engaged students demonstrate deeper understanding, better retention of content and more successful transference of their learning to new contexts. After reflecting on our own needs as learners, we will review key engagement concepts from Schlechty's "Working on the Work," contextualizing them through innovative examples and simple ways teachers can leverage technology to increase student engagement and move them towards a greater sense of autonomy, mastery and purpose in their learning. We will review examples of simple online tools and processes such as social bookmarking and backchannelling that can increase engagement. Twitter summary of this presentation: "To engage students, let them create content that matters and contributes. Use digital tools to connect them constructively to the world.”
Participants will leave this session with a framework and ideas for using online tools and processes to design learning experiences that allow students to:
We live in a time of communication and information. As classrooms change to reflect this reality there are many things to consider such as critical thinking on the web, online safety in a connected world, launching a learning community, opportunities for online publishing, organizing student and teacher learning and connective learning with Google apps and social tools. Join this discussion about getting started, getting comfortable and getting creative with new tools in education.
An exploration of how we can make the most of "The Internet of Things." Focus will especially be on how we can manage the use of GPS, augmented reality, RFID tags, near field communication and simple QR codes. What does the use of these simple tools in the learning process mean for learning beyond the desk, screen and the classroom.
With the app store now available for more than just your iPhone and iPad, it can be overwhelming to know which apps to download. In this workshop we will give you some of the essential apps for your classroom and share some of our favorites apps that will help you and your students create. Come with your favorites, too, and build a collaborative list of good resources that we'll share with all.
Could you imagine being seven years old, sitting in an old wooden desk, bundled up in a un-heated school room with bare concrete floors and walls of peeling plaster? As if that was not enough of a challenge, all of a sudden more adults than you can quickly count from a far-away place march in through the open door! What do you do? Why, you just keep on working on your lesson, of course. After all you ARE here to learn. Finally, when the teacher says it is okay, you look up, flash your heartwarming smile and greet the visitors with a friendly “Ni-hao.“ This session will share reflections from a learning journey to China focusing on student achievement and technology.
Shannon Miller is constantly connecting and collaborating with others outside the walls of Van Meter School in Iowa. She hears these types of questions often, “How do you make these connections? How do you plan with someone 1,000 miles away?”, “How do you keep yourself organized?" and “How do you connect the teachers within your school to other teachers?” In this presentation, Shannon will answer these questions and more by having a conversation about her successful collaboration with other librarians, teachers, students, authors and others around the world. She will share tools, social networks and tips on how to bring global collaboration and connections into your schools. By hearing the stories that Shannon has to share, you will see that anyone can do this by being positive, organized, proactive and not afraid to make a difference.
Learn how leaders, including superintendents, principals and teachers, can promote a vision of employing digital tools to engage students in rigorous work. Leaders should emphasize the importance of student use of digital tools to communicate, solve problems and apply content and skills. Leaders should model participation in professional growth and collaboration across job types and levels through Digital Playgrounds, blogs, wikis and/or Twitter. Leaders should implement supportive policies and procedures relating to internet filtering, use of mobile devices on campus and other topics. Leaders should provide greater access to technology through initiatives such as student use of a wireless network; the establishment of a digital learning management system that supports the blending of virtual and traditional instruction and the creation of a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure that allows staff and students to access the resources of the district network anytime, anyplace and from any device with browser capability.
QR Codes are popping up everywhere; boarding passes, advertisements and even in newspapers. What do these codes do and how can they be used in education? This session will explore the possibilities of using QR Codes in your school and classroom. Bring your smartphone and your thinking outside the box hat as we dive into this new emerging world of codes and the linking of physical and digital content.
Realistic fiction offers students the opportunity to learn about people and cultures from around the world. The web provides the connection between students and people from around the world. Using these two resources, lessons can be created that engage and challenge your students to read more and with greater understanding. We will share classroom examples of books used with students and how we connected fiction to the real world. We will focus on literature appropriate for grade 5 - 9. The concepts can be adapted for all grades.
Transforming learning in schools requires convincing diverse stakeholders to embrace the possibilities of 21st century learning and technology integration. In some schools, teachers and librarians are leading the way: trying to convince administrators to offer support and professional development time. In other places, administrators are trying to earn faculty support for new initiatives aimed at disrupting established patterns of teacher-centered content delivery. In some low performing schools, dysfunctional communication networks are the obstacles to change, and in some high performing schools, a track record of past success is a barrier for preparing for a changing future. All of these diverse scenarios are united by one common need: transforming schools requires a compelling answer to the question “Why Change?”
In this session, we will examine answers to the question “Why Change?” and we will look at strategies for communicating those answers to diverse stakeholders. We will analyze common patterns of ed tech reform in schools, and we will identify successful strategies for supporting reform in diverse settings.
"Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand." (Author unknown)
This session will explore the basics of inquiry learning along with strategies and lessons learned while coaching a wide variety of teachers interested in incorporating inquiry-based learning tools into their teaching toolkit. Inquiry-based learning is a constructivist teaching approach that encourages students to generate and seek answers to their own questions as they construct new knowledge. Highly engaging and deeply meaningful - this style of teaching appeals to those seeking transformational learning opportunities for their students.