Learners need to DO, CREATE, PRODUCE, and SHARE their learning experience with not only one teacher, but with a MUCH BIGGER community. This two day event will be a practical, hands-on session that’s fun and informal and will teach you how to incorporate movie making, social media, and mobile learning technology into your classroom. Whether you’re at the elementary, middle or high school level, see how movies have a place in your idea marketing and collecting evidence of learning for the school, parents and students. This is the best way to collect evidence of learning while covering the national curriculum.
This framework will help revolutionize your classroom; it can transform it into the most important space of your school– if not the community. Get ready to create and walk away with a valuable movie making process and a cool project to share! This is the best way to showcase what learning looks like in the classroom today. A lesson, an iPad, social media tools– what an exciting time for teachers and learners!
Apps Task-onomy: Digging Deeper Into the Application of APPS.
The iPad (or iPod touch or iPhone) with its apps opens many new opportunities for learning. At the same time, it offers a slightly different wrapper for older learning opportunities. Both can be worthwhile, but it would be a shame if teachers missed the former for the latter. And, if past experience and research is any indication, educators are much more likely to co-opt the new technology to accomplish the status quo.
This workshop is designed to help teachers think through both opportunities and to categorize those apps that lend themselves to either or both. Participants will start by exploring a variety of apps, some that lend themselves to learning content such as math facts or spelling words and others that can be used in open ended content creation such as storytelling or photography. Then, participants will examine a set of lessons that use these apps. Finally, we will use a "taxonomy" such as Bloom’s Taxonomy, SAMR, LoTi, ETaP, Prensky, etc. and attempt to classify/categorize where the apps fall. Most likely, participants will need to contextualize the app to a particular use/activity. Ideally, teachers will realize that in most cases it is not the app itself, but the context and way in which it is used that determines where it falls and that the apps belong in multiple places.
So you just got some iPads. Now what? How will you manage a set? Will students be able to download apps or will the teacher? How do you control who buys what if you share an iTunes account? Should you get volume licensing and apps at 50% off?
Come to this hands on session to build lesson and unit ideas. Learn how to wirelessly project any iPad onto a screen. Learn how to transfer files from an iPad. Learn how to find reviews of apps and lesson ideas for using apps.
Use iPads for creation vs. consumption to do things like create books, portfolios, digital stories, dialogs in a different language and more.
We will look at the work flow that puts students in control of their own learning. We will send you a list of apps to download prior to coming to the session. You MUST know your apple ID and password PRIOR to coming. Bring your charging cable and, IF POSSIBLE, bring a laptop but don’t worry if you don’t have one. Bring your iPad (laptop if possible, cables to connect iPad, Apple ID) and join Julia for this hands-on, popular session that fills quickly.
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?
NEW and IMPROVED session for BLC13
Learners need to DO, CREATE, PRODUCE, and SHARE their learning experience with not only one teacher, but with a MUCH BIGGER community. This two day event will be a practical, hands-on session that’s fun and informal and will teach you how to incorporate movie making, social media, and mobile learning technology into your classroom. Whether you’re at the elementary, middle or high school level, see how movies have a place in your idea marketing and collecting evidence of learning for the school, parents and students. This is the best way to collect evidence of learning while covering the national curriculum.
This framework will help revolutionize your classroom; it can transform it into the most important space of your school– if not the community. Get ready to create and walk away with a valuable movie making process and a cool project to share! This is the best way to showcase what learning looks like in the classroom today. A lesson, an iPad, social media tools– what an exciting time for teachers and learners!
Unpacking the broad assessment agenda we face in schools today and exploring new insights and solutions for the challenges we face.
Let’s face it, the assessment agenda is fraught with mixed metaphors, blind alleys and confusing vocabulary! We need to get to grips with this powerful part of learning. We need to put assessment back on to our own daily agenda and not just for a grade at the end of the course. Let’s re-establish assessment in it’s rightful place as an integral part of any learning.
How often do you leave a workshop brimming with ideas and anxious to put them into action? Following our first session, Apps Task-onomy, we will dig even further as we investigate ways to implement recommended apps into YOUR practice. Join this "make session", where participants will create lessons and app-tivities for immediate use in their class(es).
Bring your digital camera, a small flashlight (and tripod if possible), and join us on a walking tour of downtown Boston to explore night photography. Learn how to control light and use flashlights to paint with light and create imaginative images as a starting point for creative and point of view writing. If you have a camera with some manual settings bring it, but if you don’t we will use what ever camera you have or you can download the Slow Shutter iPhone app.
Engage students to paint their city, home and themselves in a different light using photography. We will investigate 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. Use photography to ignite imagination and create highly dramatic photos to render the familiar a little strange. Use these photos as a starting point for points of viewing writing.
This is a sample book that we created with our students on paint with light:
http://www.blurb.com/books/1372522
Whether you're an innovator who’s seeking to break a new idea to colleagues and community, or a leader trying to manage the expectations of an engaged active team, finding space to innovate is tough. Leaders face the challenge of managing priorities and planning in advance for the unplannable innovations that might come around the corner. Innovators face the hurdle of seeing their initial ideas grow, become accepted and flourish into a widely adopted way of thinking, working or learning.
Our expertise grows from nearly a decade working in technology, fashion, TV and film media, leading projects to be on budget, on time and on top of the competition, coupled with a background in classroom, government advisory and technology leadership roles.
We will bring both these worlds together to help provoke your own team's response to managing creativity and creating space for more innovation in your schools and your education department. We will share compelling stories, discuss the learning from these, and introduce your team to tools for reuse in your innovation strategy.
Are you new to iPads for learning? This pre-conference workshop will be a rich source of ideas, resources, and information about learning with the iPad in the elementary classroom. This hands-on workshop will start off with the basics of how to use an iPad so you and your students are as efficient as possible in order to maximize instructional time.
This includes tips and tricks to get even more out of your Internet communication device. With the iPad, learners can perform research, collaborate, interact with experts, and produce creative works! We will examine the iPad’s iOS platform, unique features that support student learning, and applications and activities that support mobile learning. Participants need to bring their own iPad to fully participate in this hands-on session. Do not miss out on this innovative workshop! Teachers, administrators, IT professionals and technology coordinators are welcome.
Google Apps for Education provides a free cross platform set of tools for educators. You can create Web sites, collect 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. We will walk through real examples and best practices of how to utilize these tools in an educational setting. You do not have to have Google Apps for Education to join this session, but are curious about what it has to offer.
Are you already using iPads in the classroom? Are you participating in the iPads for learning? It’s Elementary! (Part 1: Getting Started) pre-conference? Either way, this workshop will be a rich source of ideas, resources, and information for those who already know the basics of iPads for learning in the elementary classroom.
This hands-on workshop will explore productivity tools, educational activities and more, using built-in and freely available applications for Apple’s iPad. With the iPad, learners can perform research, collaborate, interact with experts, and produce creative works! We will examine using this mobile device to transform learning. This workshop includes time to collaboratively designing an activity that redefines learning. Do not miss out on this innovative workshop! Teachers, administrators, IT professionals and technology coordinators are welcome.
Albert Einstein said: “Play is the highest form of research.” We’re going to do some serious research into the potential of iPads and other mobile devices for learning. First we’ll play. Then we’ll learn by unpacking the things we did while playing. Expect to be out of your seat and learning with others in this high impact, fun and educational session exploring practical ways iPads and other mobile devices can be used to help students learn and share their learning with the world. Walk away with a kit of resources you can easily adapt to your own school or classroom.
Don’t forget to bring along a smartphone or iPad!
A hugely popular session at BLC12 this session will get you busy building and sharing your expertise! Professional networks are brimming with resources and links and it sometimes feels like too much. One of the best ways to narrow the focus is to crowdsource specific content. Networks should not simply be about connecting with fellow educators, we need to activate the huge potential they have and create together.
Learn alongside Tom Barrett who has been spending the last 5 years crowdsourcing resources that support teacher’s professional development as well as inspire engaging learning in the classroom!
- How can I make crowdsourcing a part of how I design materials for teachers and students?
- How do I engage all of my staff to be able to engage in creating resources together?
- How can I filter the vast amount of resources that I see everyday in my online networks? How do I make the most of the resources available?
- What tools can I use to help create resources with other teachers in my district?
Attendees will
- understand how a network can be a powerful tool for co-creation and not just connections;
- reflect on their own creative practices and how crowdsourcing might fit in;
- see real world examples of how crowdsourcing innovations are being applied in sectors beyond the education sector;
- see a range of examples of successfully crowdsourced resources for education.
- take away a range of tools and models to crowdsource unique resources for your classes and schools;
- see crowdsourcing in action
This workshop will respond to the following learning questions:
1) What elements must we shift in our own methods to take advantage of the global communications revolution and the incredible, transformative options available?
2) How can we design (not just assign) more motivating yet vigorous student work? "
Discover how 21st century skills have been integrated into the Common Core. Free resources, digital tools, lessons and exemplars will be shared. Gain knowledge as well as practical strategies to lead by example and integrate these tools/resources in meaningful and effective ways.
Attendees will:
-Learn about specific free tools and resources that allow administrators, teachers and students to communicate, collaborate, be creative and think critically in a Common Core world
-Participate in a collaborative activity that can be replicated with staff and students
Creativity is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration' - Thomas Edison.
The path to the creative society of the future goes straight through the classroom. When students have been taught the essential skills and knowledge of each subject they develop a deeper understanding of the material and are able to go beyond existing knowledge and transfer this knowledge to new situations. All of the research demonstrates that creativity only happens with sustained hard work, skill, and the confidence needed to take risks. According to Collard, ‘Creative skills aren't just about good ideas, they are about having the skills to make good ideas happen.’
We need to prepare our students to excel in examinations so that they can access the career paths they have chosen, but we also need to ensure that our students are to be able to enter the world as confident, creative individuals who can deal with the diverse and challenging problems they will encounter. Our students will have to master disciplinary knowledge and expertise to do well in tests, but if they are to flourish in the world, they must learn to uncover the learning, and understand how everything connects together, and how to link knowledge across disciplines. When we enable our students to achieve this their creativity will be unleashed.
This workshop will explore practical ways to unleash creativity in your students and enable them to flourish academically. A plethora of strategies, ideas and resources will be shared.
For the past year my school has been running a one-to-one iPad pilot for students in grades 7 - 12. The iPad allows for both formative and summative assessments using a variety of Apps and projects. These Apps and projects provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of concepts using all levels of Bloom’s taxonomy from remembering and understanding to evaluating and creating. In this session I will share our most successful projects and our favorite Apps. When iPads are used effectively, they are more than just a laptop replacement.
Apps will include
•Explain Everything
•iMovie
•iStopmotion
•iBooks
•Book Creator.
•Socrative
•Nearpod
Blake Copeland and Britt Knighton address the biggest issues facing education today, including: cutting edge methods for learning, making effective academically focused social networks, and combating campus emergency situations through smartphones.
Join twin brothers Peter H. Reynolds and Paul Reynolds as they challenge educators to incorporate the 4 C's plus 1, in their approach to teaching and learning: Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Creativity, plus one - Compassion. They share their short film, "Above and Beyond" along with a sneak peak of a new book called “Going Places". This fable helps show that content mastery with the 4 C's plus 1 can provide students with the "wings" they need to meet the demands of higher education, career, and life in a global society and world economy. In addition, hear about Peter's ‘essentials’ that foster creativity and innovation in the classroom. Participants leave with a renewed sense of engagement and a practical list of tools to tackle this challenge.
The Innosight Institute (2012) defines blended learning as: “a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace...” Given that blended learning is NOT about putting content online and hoping students will take it from there... How might we leverage digital tools, environments and processes to give students more control over time, place, path and/or pace, even within a traditional school schedule? How might we most effectively combine face-to-face and online experiences to engage learners and extend their thinking beyond traditional boundaries?
Attendees will consider elements critical to the design of successful “BYOB” learning opportunities, including:
Presentation Resources: http://bit.ly/blcbyob13
Social Networking services often get the bad rap of 'time-wasters' or distractors. Yet, there are many social networks built upon passion, kindness, transparency, sharing, and collaboration. This session will explore these positive human networks as they apply to educators. Participants will learn how educator networks are transforming practice through the development of Personal Learning Networks. They will learn the most commonly used tools and techniques to support teaching and learning through social media. And, perhaps most importantly, participants will leave with the capability to extend and enhance their learning about this vital topic beyond the duration of the workshop.
Tired of fighting for the attention of your students while they surreptitiously text their friends about their boredom? How about asking them to take their phones out to learn? They know how to work them better than you AND there are so many educational functions they probably aren't even aware of. Learn how to use smart phones in your classroom to create and complete projects. Turn them on and tune them in to the power of learning on their phones.
Use Twitter chats to engage whole classes in discussions and eliminate the conversation that happens between you and two eager students in your room. Use instagram and video functions to shoot footage for projects - edit them in iMovie. Work on documents using Google drive. Maintain your student publication using Word Press and get to play with other free apps that will enhance classroom learning.
Presentation Resources:
Main Presentation - http://bit.ly/14Qaerl
Collaborative Handout: http://bit.ly/1bUVOJm
Google Form for Paraticipation: http://bit.ly/17wwSTA
This session is an extended version of Lainie's TEDx Talk. It goes more into specifics and gives educators practical information to get connected.
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This fast-paced session will explore ways that students can use the mobile devices to curate their own learning networks comprised of experts, practitioners, teachers and other students around the world to make learning a 24/7 experience. With mobile devices such as the iPad, learners can perform research, collaborate and produce creative works! During this session we will also discover tips and tricks to make connections. This session will be a rich source of ideas, resources and information for communication and collaboration. Participants are encouraged to bring their own mobile device to participate.
Despite significant advances in technology for learning, today’s education systems remain largely “one-size-fits-all”, ignoring the individuality of students and forcing them into artificial timelines for learning. But what does Personalized learning really mean? In this presentation, we will go beyond the marketing hype around personalization to discuss a true Personalized Learning platforms that enable the creation of personal and social learning spaces to support learner-centered experiences and empower students to direct their own learning. In this session we will discuss successful examples and definitions of personalization approaches and how standards of interoperability are critical to the success of personalization for all.
Research isn’t a solitary task confined to a library. Research happens every time we
grab our cell phones to answer a question or search for something. Despite being hyper connected to information, students need to learn how to find, evaluate and use that information in a variety of contexts. Explore how Instagram scavenger hunts, infographics
and expert group investigations can be used to get students researching to address the Common Core Standards.
Participants will:
Discuss the changing role of research in our lives.
Crowdsource ideas for using Instagram to teach informal research.
Explore how infographics combine research and digital media.
Brainstorm benefits of allowing students to become the “experts” and teach each other.
How large is the gap that truly exists between the real and ideal for learners? Are there ways to “tweak” (small shift) instruction that will enlist students as deep questioners, critical thinkers and effective problem-solvers (big impact)? What if we created a “Destination Postcard” of the ideal learner, and designed learning experiences from there? Join this Switch-inspired think-tank on lesson design and implementation strategies that empower students to think and act their way to the acquisition and connection of content while developing enduring learning dispositions. (Common Core Compatible)
Attendees will engage in discussion and consider activities designed to help educators:
Presentation Resources: http://bit.ly/ssbi13
Very few schools have the amount of technical support that they need and one of the most overlooked technical resources schools have is their students! If you have staff who are reluctant with technology, having students work as in class liaisons is a great way to bring the teacher along while empowering the kids. 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 where the students, staff and school all benefit.
Our young people LOVE the chance to create, connect and collaborate through different online tools. There are so many possibilities and ways to integrate these tools into the curriculum. This presentation will explore a variety of Web 2.0 tools and how they can be used to enhance the different strands within literacy: listening, reading, speaking, vocabulary, storytelling, writing, spelling, and poetry.
Shannon McClintock Miller will highlight several different Web 2.0 tools and provide examples of how they can be used in each of these strands.
You will walk away from this presentation ready to use a tool or two within each of these strands and armed to answer those questions with, "There's a Web 2.0 tool for that!"
This session explores ways to set up a successful year in the 1st5days, using Yahki. Come prepared for hands-on best-practice activities including:
- Negotiated student goal setting
- Flipped and AIM Framework approaches; student media curation and idea hatching
- Learner democracy - student interests and choices
- Formative assessment by Day 4
- Student-led learner network building
- Leveraging learner analytics with students
- Reflective learning approaches
- Involving parents and guests
- Celebrating and featuring learner success across your community.
Are you ready to turn education upside down? Perhaps you have tried a little Flip of your own and want to learn more. You might be beginning an investigation to discover what a Flipped Classroom is with the thought of possibly trying some kind of flip yourself. This is a must attend session before jumping in the air and doing a full flip. Together we will investigate and contemplate what might work best for specific classroom needs. You will leave with a better definition, resources to explore, and tools to begin your flip. Best of all, you will discover how to incorporate Bloom’s higher order thinking skills and blend the learning environment. You may just begin to Flip your idea of what Flipping really is!
Inspired by the vision of our Head of School, Joan Holden, the St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes History Department designed a signature Oral History Project. Together with the assistance of our IT Department students create a polished 10-12 minute documentary based on recording the oral history of a family member at least one full generation removed. Using Blogs, Macs, iMovie and the internet students are fully supported in this endeavor. Established benchmarks must be met during the process including selecting a subject, researching the time period of the subject’s life, composing at least 20 questions, and filming 45-60 minutes of raw video footage. Once these benchmarks are reached students use class time to edit their projects, integrating images and music to form a cohesive documentary theme. This project has replaced the midterm exam for our 11th grade students in a school wide effort to equip our graduates with the 21st century skills of communication, creativity and digital literacy.
2.0 has been around for awhile. Yet, many of our schools have failed to fully embrace its potential to enhance learning. Our profession is not notorious for rapid response – and it should be! In this session we will explore structures and curricular features and successful examples that schools can implement now!
Music is so important to all of us. And, for so many years, if one didn't catch the music instrument bug early (or frankly couldn't afford an instrument), you became a listener, not a participant. NOW..... STOP THE PRESSES! LISTEN! ANYONE CAN MAKE MUSIC! PROMISE! This workshop will focus on how digital technology has allowed us to have access to instruments and our own professional production studio. Also, we have easy access to a plethora of FREE online just-in-time lessons and tutorials. Now, from idea to having a song up on iTunes is a process now that can take a few hours (or less). Think about that! No longer do you need to worry about copyright issues (from using other people’s music) when your students are creating their own music. This will be a FUN and LOUD workshop. COME! Spend an hour with us and BECOME THE MUSICIAN YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE!
Recent surges in technological innovation connect educational communities worldwide, and have certainly changed the face of learning. Through various forms of media, we are each consumers and producers of stories that serve to connect us with others. This new wave of expression drives us to become not only informed learners, but empathetic global citizens. This hands-on session focuses on strategies to:
Presentation Resources: http://www.slideshare.net/CaitlinKrause
Participants will have toolbox of web-based and iPad app resources for implementation of the ELA and Social Studies/History Common Core Anchor Standards in writing
Participants will be exposed to collaborative tools for reading, writing and research
Participants will be prepared to instruct their students to independently evaluate web resources
Participants will be exposed to model lessons using Common Core Writing Standards seamlessly woven into English and Social Studies lessons
Participants will have "hands on" practice using apps introduced in this session.
Presentation Handout: http://goo.gl/ZN2EZ
Find new ways to engage students using the things they already do in their free time! Students watching a video of a math lesson is no different, in practice, than watching a YouTube video, and this can easily be done with lesson capture where, most importantly, content is viewed by students on devices they already have - computers, tablets, smart phones. Adding in a Learning Management System (LMS) gives students the same format to interact with their peers and teachers online much like they do with their social networking sites - posting, responding, engaging with their peers. Finally, taking the class on virtual fieldtrips helps them cross over country lines and time zones to connect with other classes using real-time video conference software just like when they chat with their friends or family abroad. Come learn how these can all be easily implemented without a lot of extra cost or time.
Uncovering information through inquiry is essential to common core learning. In this engaging and fast paced session you will explore search strategies that put students at the center of their search. Mike will guide you through five search engines as you practice using different search strategies and techniques with him. You will discover and explore search engines built on the basis of peer review, computation, readability indexes, social media (education style), and informational searches (advanced but simple). Perhaps you or your students may wish to build their own search engine. Learn some of Mike’s important search strategies that were recently featured in Alan November’s newest book, Who Owns The Learning. You will walk away with ideas and tools that will allow you to address the Common Core while putting students truly at the center.
With hundreds of thousands of apps it can be overwhelming to know which apps to download for your class. In this workshop, we’ll give you some of the essential tips for searching for apps for your classroom and share some of our favorites that will help you and your students create really awesome stuff! Come with your favorites, too, and build a collaborative list of good resources that we'll share with all. This will be a FUN and interactive workshop!
Fast and easy collaboration is what makes Google tools an ideal learning environment. Gain knowledge as well as practical strategies to lead by example and make collaboration a natural way of learning in your Common Core school. If you are ready to move your school from content consumption to content creation and community building while developing more self-directed learners, this session is for you.
Attendees will:
-Learn about specific Google tools that provide an easy-to-use, integrated way for teachers and students to collaborate
-Explore practical workflow models for sharing and collecting assignments
-Participate in a collaborative activity that can be replicated in classrooms
-Discover how real-time collaboration, powerful sharing controls and seamless compatibility make learning more engaging and a teacher’s life easier
Garth and I have collaborated across two school districts, nearly thirty miles apart for the past seven years. That does not stop our students from learning together (virtually) everyday in the classroom, reflecting and refining their own websites with help of their blog buddies and working outside of school on projects such as Medieval Minecraft villages. This session is strictly about educational philosophy. We will walk you through our educational beliefs our creative process. Experience the “down and dirty” truth behind our collaboration. Our goal is that crowd participation and insightful questions will drive this presentation and create conversation that touches at the heart of teaching.
1. Constructivism
-What does it mean?
-Its place in a classroom
2. Collaborative Process
-Tools
-Re-imagine, Refine, redesign
-Implementation
-Reflection
3. Motivation
-Change from carrots to caring
4. Mastery
-From content to culture
-Using content to teach mastery of skills to empower learning, not knowledge
For years, the November Learning team has promoted and educated tens of thousands of teachers and students on how to read the "grammar" of the Internet and apply simple strategies to validate information. In this session, participants will be taken deeper into this topic with a series of examples that demonstrate how you can address these same topics within your curriculum while also accounting for the Common Core State Standards.
Presentation Resources:
http://www.novemberlearning.com/resources
http://brianmull.wikispaces.com
Inspired by the vision of our Head of School, Joan Holden, the St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes History Department designed a signature Oral History Project. Together with the assistance of our IT Department students create a polished 10-12 minute documentary based on recording the oral history of a family member at least one full generation removed. Using Blogs, Macs, iMovie and the internet students are fully supported in this endeavor. Established benchmarks must be met during the process including selecting a subject, researching the time period of the subject’s life, composing at least 20 questions, and filming 45-60 minutes of raw video footage. Once these benchmarks are reached students use class time to edit their projects, integrating images and music to form a cohesive documentary theme. This project has replaced the midterm exam for our 11th grade students in a school wide effort to equip our graduates with the 21st century skills of communication, creativity and digital literacy.
Awakening Your Creative genius does exactly what the title suggests. It causes people to become aware of their own creative potential and understand how to harness it in education. This session takes creativity out of the confines of just art and music. Keep an open mind as this experience is not meant to teach the audience anything new, but rather to get people to see what they already know from a different perspective - causing a paradigm shift.
The Common Core State Standards ask students to build knowledge through research--through assessing the credibility of their reading, through synthesizing information form multiple sources, through responding critically to informational texts, through supporting an argument with solid evidence. How can teachers and librarians work together to unpack the CCSS and inspire learning? Joyce, Michelle, and Shannon share their collaborative experiences K-12, followed by a CCSS Smackdown!
Over 80% of our brains are used interpreting visuals. It seems a waste not to take advantage this powerful channel into the minds of our students. What sorts of ways can a single image be used to tell stories and explore complex ideas in Math, Science, Language Arts or Languages classroom? What could we do with a series of pictures? How can we do this beyond the time and space of the classroom walls and have our students generate a bank of powerful visuals to inspire future students to create even more powerful learning imagery? What’s the best way to get stuff off the kids mobile devices and shared publically so our students learn while making a contribution to the global knowledge commons? We’ll touch on how all this feeds the essential 21st Century skills of Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking and Global Citizenship.
Bring your camera enabled mobile device. We’re gonna use it. And show you how to take better pictures in the process.
'Creativity is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration' - Thomas Edison.
The path to the creative society of the future goes straight through the classroom. When students have been taught the essential skills and knowledge of each subject they develop a deeper understanding of the material and are able to go beyond existing knowledge and transfer this knowledge to new situations. All of the research demonstrates that creativity only happens with sustained hard work, skill, and the confidence needed to take risks. According to Collard, ‘Creative skills aren't just about good ideas, they are about having the skills to make good ideas happen.’
We need to prepare our students to excel in examinations so that they can access the career paths they have chosen, but we also need to ensure that our students are to be able to enter the world as confident, creative individuals who can deal with the diverse and challenging problems they will encounter. Our students will have to master disciplinary knowledge and expertise to do well in tests, but if they are to flourish in the world, they must learn to uncover the learning, and understand how everything connects together, and how to link knowledge across disciplines. When we enable our students to achieve this their creativity will be unleashed.
This workshop will explore practical ways to unleash creativity in your students and enable them to flourish academically. A plethora of strategies, ideas and resources will be shared.
This session is an extended version of Lainie's TEDx Talk. It goes more into specifics and gives educators practical information to get connected.
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This fast-paced session will explore ways that students can use the mobile devices to curate their own learning networks comprised of experts, practitioners, teachers and other students around the world to make learning a 24/7 experience. With mobile devices such as the iPad, learners can perform research, collaborate and produce creative works! During this session we will also discover tips and tricks to make connections. This session will be a rich source of ideas, resources and information for communication and collaboration. Participants are encouraged to bring their own mobile device to participate.
Are you interested in using your twitter account as a communication tool with your students? Come see how a geometry teacher uses Twitter to engage her students in and outside the classroom in 140 characters or less. We will explore how a learning community has been created between the teacher and students through tweets, hashtags, and student created resources that are being shared through Twitter. Not only will you see the teacher’s perspective on managing a classroom Twitter account, but also student and parent testimonials.
This session is 50% hands-on. Experience Yahki for the first time. Build Your Own Learning Community with Yahki in minutes. Create stories and challenges for students. Stock up on a raft of fresh ideas to put your students in the driver’s seat for their learning. See how a social networking tool designed for the pursuit of democracy abroad has evolved into a vehicle for an ‘Education Spring’ for schools worldwide with the invention of ‘the education channel’ for each school globally. This is a BLC ‘first’.
This hands-on workshop will share examples of how teachers in Australia have been using essential student in-class data to constantly reflect upon and inform their own practice. Participants will be introduced to some simple strategies that have been shown to offer unique visibility on learning, whilst supporting high quality learning conversations, meaningful collaboration and measurably higher levels of understanding.
Views from a number of school leaders in US/UK/France/Russia/ Netherlands attending BLC (Superintendents, school principals, STEM teachers, GTEC project leaders and GTEC Ambassadors from the US, Russia, UK, France, Netherlands). A discussion of the challenges from the variety perspectives of educators from different educational systems (re: implementing Global STEM education programs) and about how we can realistically develop collaborative programs across geographies and cultures. While Global collaboration in STEM sounds like the perfect answer to developing student and teacher skills, this is still not so easy to implement in our schools (in US and around the world). Participants will learn more about different challenges in the various educational systems and how develop appropriate collaborative programs for different schools and countries. The legendary Dr. Charlie Pellerin (NASA Hubble Telescope) (and a GTEC Advisor) will be joining us via Skype & speak about NASA 4D system and our collaborative efforts bringing it to the educators around the world with GTEC team. GTEC team members and teachers & students from global school partners will be co-presenting these sessions.
Dennis Yarmouth Hign School, S.Yarmouth, US http://dy-regional.k12.ma.us/dennis-yarmouth-regional-high-school
Finham Park Math & Computing High School in Coventry, UK http://www.finhampark.co.uk/
Schkola Lycei Vtoraia Schola High School in Moscow, Russia http://www.sch2.ru/
Het 4E Gymnasium in Amsterdam, Netherlands http://www.het4egymnasium.nl/
Rene-Cassin High School, Ballan-Mire, France http://clg-rene-cassin-ballan-mire.tice.ac-orleans-tours.fr/eva/
Google and Apple don’t always play well together. In this session I will show you ways to leverage Google Apps for Education tools such as Google Docs, Presentations, Forms, Mail, Tasks and Sites, on your iPad. We will look at both Google created Apps and third party Apps that help the two to get along. Whether you are teaching with 1 iPad in the classroom or you are in a 1 to 1 iPad setting, you will come away from this workshop with ideas for ways to:
Go paperless
Collect assignments
Sync your email
Give feedback
Share files
Collect data
Discover how 21st century skills have been integrated into the Common Core. Free resources, digital tools, lessons and exemplars will be shared. Gain knowledge as well as practical strategies to lead by example and integrate these tools/resources in meaningful and effective ways.
Attendees will:
-Learn about specific free tools and resources that allow administrators, teachers and students to communicate, collaborate, be creative and think critically in a Common Core world
-Participate in a collaborative activity that can be replicated with staff and students
It is not just for celebrities anymore! Twitter has quickly become one of the easiest and most effective tools for educators to promote home/school connections. Learn how one kindergarten teacher uses Twitter to keep parents informed, promote student/parent dialogue about learning and provide followers with a virtual classroom experience. Hear parent feedback on Twitter’s impact and learn how easy it is to implement in your classroom.
· Learn the basics of navigating Twitter, including account creation and
set up
· Receive sample letter templates to help parents use Twitter
· Find education professionals and interests to follow on Twitter
· Crack the code of common Twitter lingo and characters
Blake Copeland and Britt Knighton address the biggest issues facing education today, including: cutting edge methods for learning, making effective academically focused social networks, and combating campus emergency situations through smartphones.
Despite significant advances in technology for learning, today’s education systems remain largely “one-size-fits-all”, ignoring the individuality of students and forcing them into artificial timelines for learning. But what does Personalized learning really mean? In this presentation, we will go beyond the marketing hype around personalization to discuss a true Personalized Learning platforms that enable the creation of personal and social learning spaces to support learner-centered experiences and empower students to direct their own learning. In this session we will discuss successful examples and definitions of personalization approaches and how standards of interoperability are critical to the success of personalization for all.
Most educators would agree that students' literacy is crucial to their academic success - and a great way to promote literacy across all strands is with the use engaging iPad apps. This presentation will explore a variety of iPad apps and how they can be used to enhance the different strands within literacy: listening, reading, speaking, vocabulary, storytelling, writing, spelling, and poetry. Shannon McClintock Miller will discuss in depth why she likes each app and provides examples of how they can be used in the classroom. You will walk away from this presentation ready to use an app or two within each of these strands. Get ready to have some fun with apps!
Literacy for productive citizens...sharing tools/ideas to reveal student genius.
Digital technologies can amplify contemplation and create meaningful conversation offering opportunity for choice and for voice. Strategies to support learning, to encourage deep thinking and to reveal understanding will be shared along with examples for implementation. The assignment/the assessment can and should allow for creativity. Participate and experiment during the session: backchannels, screencasts, photography
This presentation will describe the dynamic nature of student aspirations and the ways in which student voice has been turned into action across the country in states like Ohio, New Hampshire, Montana, and Texas, and internationally in the United Kingdom.
Dr. Quaglia will share the conditions that need to be in place so that every student regardless of age or background can reach their fullest potential. This presentation will share data from over 800,000 students who have participated in the My Voice Survey. Such data have implications regarding how schools are organized, the role of educators, and how we are assessing students. The presentation will also provide an understanding of the importance of student voice and how it can be used proactively in school reform initiatives designed to increase academic standards and in the overall develop of healthy productive citizens.
Instructional time is precious. Rather than asking your students to mine the Internet looking for information, show them how to get to the information using effective search strategies. Join us as we take a tour of the tools that Google has developed to help you and your students focus on synthesizing the information you’ve 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.
Are you interested in using your twitter account as a communication tool with your students? Come see how a geometry teacher uses Twitter to engage her students in and outside the classroom in 140 characters or less. We will explore how a learning community has been created between the teacher and students through tweets, hashtags, and student created resources that are being shared through Twitter. Not only will you see the teacher’s perspective on managing a classroom Twitter account, but also student and parent testimonials.
The research on comprehension instruction indicates that active readers who think as they read
use a variety of strategies-they ask questions, determine importance, synthesize information
and connect what they are learning to what they already know. These same strategies are
essential for students to turn information into knowledge when using technology. Designed for
educators who desire to move beyond device specific or single-purpose, skill-focused apps, this
session will focus on how a limited number of tools can transform learning as students become
inspired by audience and authentic feedback, connect with classrooms and experts around the
globe, and create projects previously unimaginable. The session will:
marry best practice instructional strategies with current digital tools and practices
address social media, digital publishing, student creation, reflection and cross-grade,
cross-school, cross-global collaboration
offer specifics in supporting students to read with a critical eye and a skeptical stance as
they navigate and evaluate digitalsources
provide a variety of ways to help their students engage in research and investigation
that spark local, as well as global learning,right from their own classrooms
Imagine the difference between the vision of 1:1 compared to 1:World. The real revolution is not that every student has a digital device. The real revolution is access to massive amounts of information and people (teamwork) around the world. In 1:World thinking the emphasis on staff development shifts from technical training to the classroom management skills of a globally connected classroom.
How do teachers manage their own continuous improvement?
How do we build powerful communities of educators who are sharing best practices?
How do we empower students to manage unlimited and constantly exploding sources of (very good and very bad) information?
How do we teach students to connect globally for a wide range of collaborative work?
How do we balance the political expectations of standard assessments with the opportunity to be innovative and creative?
How do we engage the whole family in the education process?
While a one word change does not guarantee improvement, it can give your school community a clear vision of where we are headed.
How can educators integrate Project Based Learning and 21st century skills into STEM education? Even if you only teach just one subject, you can still incorporate STEM and PBL into your classroom. Are you a member of an interdisciplinary team or planning group? ...then it gets even better! Discover dozens of engaging online programs and opportunities that allow STEM and PBL to push your students’ creativity and innovation. The results will be a PBL educational experience that will rev up student engagement and inquiry…full STEM... or should we say... STEAM ahead! View several brief demonstrations of software and take a tour of some amazing web sites. Learn from practicing educator Michael Gorman, who was named STEM Educator of the Year by the Indiana US Air Force Association, an Indiana Teacher of the Year Semi-finalist, a BIE National Faculty Member, and a facilitator for the Siemens Discovery Education National STEM Academy. Walk away with resources that will allow for a real partnership between STEM and PBL!Best of all discover how the new Common Core makes PBL and STEM a perfect 21st century learning opportunity. Join Mike in a session that promises to be an exciting PBL entry event giving participants ideas and content they can use tomorrow!
Recent surges in technological innovation connect educational communities worldwide, and have certainly changed the face of learning. Through various forms of media, we are each consumers and producers of stories that serve to connect us with others. This new wave of expression drives us to become not only informed learners, but empathetic global citizens. This hands-on session focuses on strategies to:
Presentation Resources: http://www.slideshare.net/CaitlinKrause
Instructional time is precious. Rather than asking your students to mine the Internet looking for information, show them how to get to the information using effective search strategies. Join us as we take a tour of the tools that Google has developed to help you and your students focus on synthesizing the information you’ve 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.
Participants will have toolbox of web-based and iPad app resources for implementation of the ELA and Social Studies/History Common Core Anchor Standards in writing
Participants will be exposed to collaborative tools for reading, writing and research
Participants will be prepared to instruct their students to independently evaluate web resources
Participants will be exposed to model lessons using Common Core Writing Standards seamlessly woven into English and Social Studies lessons
Participants will have "hands on" practice using apps introduced in this session.
Presentation Handout: http://goo.gl/ZN2EZ
Do you wish you had more time for project based learning? The shift from breadth to
depth in the Common Core Standards creates more opportunities for students to explore real-world problems and challenges, understand the relevance of what they are learning, and pursue their passions. Learn to leverage technology and social media to empower students, facilitate collaboration and inspire creativity.
Participants will:
Explore project based learning.
Collaborate with other attendees to design a PBL assignment to use with students.
Discuss how Web 2.0 tools and social media can be used to connect students to each other and experts.
Identify the multiple Standards addressed with this single project structure.
Each year the amount of published information continues to expand at a staggering pace. From books and periodicals to web-based content, it's easy for teachers to get lost in this information explosion. How can we discover engaging resources that move the textbook as the focus while putting students at the center? What tools allow teachers and students to view and archive relevant information that helps them to understand new content? Join us as we explore a new category of web-based tools-tools for curating information-and see how these tools can help both teachers and students align with the new Common Core.
Monte Vista was the world's first adopter of iPads, placing them in the classroom the day of their sale, in April 2010, and has continued with a current 1:1 program for all students, 6th through 12th grade, teachers, administrators and a large part of the support staff. We have hosted visitors from states across the country, as well as representatives from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, China and Japan. We have also hosted 5 iPad conferences, with 2 more to come in this school year. This session will be a story of that journey, from its beginning to the present, with an honest evaluation of our successes and failures, and the leadership that has kept us going forward. The purpose of the session is to give schools who are considering an iPad program some valuable insights to help launch their own programs.
Presentation Resources:
http://www.novemberlearning.com/resources
http://brianmull.wikispaces.com
Tired of fighting for the attention of your students while they surreptitiously text their friends about their boredom? How about asking them to take their phones out to learn? They know how to work them better than you AND there are so many educational functions they probably aren't even aware of. Learn how to use smart phones in your classroom to create and complete projects. Turn them on and tune them in to the power of learning on their phones.
Use Twitter chats to engage whole classes in discussions and eliminate the conversation that happens between you and two eager students in your room. Use instagram and video functions to shoot footage for projects - edit them in iMovie. Work on documents using Google drive. Maintain your student publication using Word Press and get to play with other free apps that will enhance classroom learning.
Presentation Resources:
Main Presentation - http://bit.ly/14Qaerl
Collaborative Handout: http://bit.ly/1bUVOJm
Google Form for Paraticipation: http://bit.ly/17wwSTA
Explore how the process of Design Thinking can be applied to issues being grappled with at a school leadership level. During this session we will work on one common challenge that will be crowdsourced and voted on leading up to the workshop. Working through the creative process the NoTosh team will lead you and colleagues towards some possible solutions and share with you some ideas for applying this methodology to future challenges.
Attendees will:
- learn about the Design Thinking process to explore creative problem solving.
- use Design Thinking in an hour to address a single school improvement issue.
- consider the way curriculum might be delivered using the Design Thinking process.
- take away potential solutions to a school based challenge that can be put into action and tested.
Availability of free and low-cost apps for mobile devices grows exponentially. Many educators and families have turned to these less expensive tools and content hoping for a simple and affordable way to accommodate learners with special needs, especially in the general curriculum. However, we must keep already known decision-making processes in mind when designing and recommending interventions. Educators need to be careful of “magic wand syndrome”. Take care to make the fit for the learner just as you would for any other tool. This session will share a public resource wiki for guiding decisions about apps and strategies to consider for mobile device implementation for students with special needs.
The iPhone, your iPod, and the iPad once were considered NON creative devices because one couldn't really create anything on these devices. Well, ITS NOT TRUE! Not only can you create an unlimited variety of things, we use them as (very) portable production studios! You can use these tools to document leaning at your school! We can plan, produce, edit, and showcase a movie ALL DONE FROM my mobile devices. This WILL REVOLUTIONIZE LEARNING! In this session, we'll look at the different applications that can make this happen from cool planning tools, to amazing production resources, to powerful editing apps, and finally to our names on a marquee.Using the tools you have access to, whether it’s audio, video or photography, come learn how to collect evidence of learning in your classroom and how to share it with the world!
Learn how teachers around the world are empowering students and improving writing outcomes as they move to digital work environments with Google Apps for Education. At the Manaiakalani cluster in New Zealand, the Richland 2 district in South Carolina, and the Science Leadership Academy in Pennsylvania, educators are transforming pedagogy supported by Google’s free productivity, collaboration and social media tools, coupled with Hapara’s Teacher Dashboard for knowledge and classroom management. Hear how these emerging models of teaching and learning with cloud-based tools are enabling teachers to move the needle on student empowerment, student achievement, and perhaps most significantly, student joy.
In a word or two you remember the whole story: glass slipper, sour grapes, cold porridge. You remember more than the facts (a step mother & two step sisters, an absent father, a godmother) you remember the relationships and deeper connections between the characters (nasty step mom & sisters, warm but lonely friendships with the animals in the house, a dream of a better life).
The challenge for teachers and students is not to find problems but to find stories. Powerful narratives, in a word or two, bring to mind a wealth of ideas and relationships; more than just facts. How can we find the stories that make our teaching sticky? How do we help kids find, and more importantly tell, the stories that make their learning sticky?
We’ll look at some strong examples and send you on your way with a toolkit of ideas and practices to make teaching & learning sticky in your class.
Of all the creative industries, the ad industry is probably the best known for its use of provocation to stick ideas in our minds and compel us into action. What would happen if we harnessed provocation for learning? Well, it's actually part of what we know makes learning great already, one of the core ingredients to make the difference between students being taught science or learning how to be scientists, being taught about language or being taught to become writers.
At the end of this session, participants will: - have an understanding of why provocation is a core part of both creative and critical thinking - see how the planning of student-owned learning depends upon strong, provocative exploratory topics - learn about different approaches to planning topics that tightly map curriculum but which offer freedom of choice in the students' learning journey.
Availability of free and low-cost apps for mobile devices grows exponentially. Many educators and families have turned to these less expensive tools and content hoping for a simple and affordable way to accommodate learners with special needs, especially in the general curriculum. However, we must keep already known decision-making processes in mind when designing and recommending interventions. Educators need to be careful of “magic wand syndrome”. Take care to make the fit for the learner just as you would for any other tool. This session will share a public resource wiki for guiding decisions about apps and strategies to consider for mobile device implementation for students with special needs.
The U.S. Fund for UNICEF is the voice for UNICEF in the United States, working for the survival of children around the world through fundraising, education and advocacy. For more than 60 years, UNICEF has been the world’s leader for children saving more young lives than any other humanitarian organization. This session will educate attendees on UNICEF's global impact through the concept of “global citizenship”, specifically as someone who understands global interconnectedness, respects and values diversity, has the ability to challenge inequalities and takes action in a way that is personally meaningful. Attendees will also be engaged with specifics around the U.S. Fund for UNICEF’s global impact, domestic campaigns and the TeachUNICEF global education resource.
It is not just for celebrities anymore! Twitter has quickly become one of the easiest and most effective tools for educators to promote home/school connections. Learn how one kindergarten teacher uses Twitter to keep parents informed, promote student/parent dialogue about learning and provide followers with a virtual classroom experience. Hear parent feedback on Twitter’s impact and learn how easy it is to implement in your classroom.
· Learn the basics of navigating Twitter, including account creation and
set up
· Receive sample letter templates to help parents use Twitter
· Find education professionals and interests to follow on Twitter
· Crack the code of common Twitter lingo and characters
This session will be presented by GTEC international team and the US school administrators, teachers and students. We will explore what really works and what does not from the perspective of the students and the teachers. The effectiveness of the existing web-based collaboration tools for a virtual community, student teamwork in STEM education and the acquisition of 21st century skills and mapping of the GTEC STEM programs to the National Standards will be discussed. We will provide recommendations for the US and international educational community on the applicability of these tools for educational collaborative projects - both from the students’ and the teachers’ perspectives. We will discuss the opportunities that virtual labs provide for developing global STEM teamwork classroom programs and offer examples of professional collaborative tools. We will also review the perspective of STEM employment & workforce development professionals (re: STEM skills & workforce readiness). The participants of innovative and rigorous Global STEM program will share their experience in joint international projects implemented under the GTEC umbrella. 8th and 9th graders of Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School worked with schools in UK, France and Russia on various GTEC STEM projects such as NASA space exploration, astronomy investigations, world-wide clean water research, and methods of data visualization and etc.
Dennis Yarmouth Hign School, S.Yarmouth, US http://dy-regional.k12.ma.us/dennis-yarmouth-regional-high-school
Finham Park Math & Computing High School in Coventry, UK http://www.finhampark.co.uk/
Schkola Lycei Vtoraia Schola High School in Moscow, Russia http://www.sch2.ru/
Het 4E Gymnasium in Amsterdam, Netherlands http://www.het4egymnasium.nl/
Rene-Cassin High School, Ballan-Mire, France http://clg-rene-cassin-ballan-mire.tice.ac-orleans-tours.fr/eva/
If you still think that Twitter is only a tool used to keep connected with friends or with happenings around the world, you could be missing out on greater opportunities to help students expand the boundaries of their learning. In this session, participants will find out how Twitter can help students collaboratively solve problems, search out alternative perspective on global issues and gain further insight to information they have found online.
Presentation Resources:
http://www.novemberlearning.com/resources
http://brianmull.wikispaces.com
This hands-on workshop will share examples of how teachers in Australia have been using essential student in-class data to constantly reflect upon and inform their own practice. Participants will be introduced to some simple strategies that have been shown to offer unique visibility on learning, whilst supporting high quality learning conversations, meaningful collaboration and measurably higher levels of understanding.
The U.S. Fund for UNICEF is the voice for UNICEF in the United States, working for the survival of children around the world through fundraising, education and advocacy. For more than 60 years, UNICEF has been the world’s leader for children saving more young lives than any other humanitarian organization. This session will educate attendees on UNICEF's global impact through the concept of “global citizenship”, specifically as someone who understands global interconnectedness, respects and values diversity, has the ability to challenge inequalities and takes action in a way that is personally meaningful. Attendees will also be engaged with specifics around the U.S. Fund for UNICEF’s global impact, domestic campaigns and the TeachUNICEF global education resource.
Awakening Your Creative genius does exactly what the title suggests. It causes people to become aware of their own creative potential and understand how to harness it in education. This session takes creativity out of the confines of just art and music. Keep an open mind as this experience is not meant to teach the audience anything new, but rather to get people to see what they already know from a different perspective - causing a paradigm shift.
“Bueller?
Bueller? Bueller?” Lecture alone is ineffective whether it is live or online. So, the challenge with the flipped classroom model is to engage students around the content in a dynamic way. Then class time can be used to create learning communities where students
communicate, collaborate and create! Given the myriad tools at our fingertips, this is becoming easier to do!
Participants
will:
Discuss strategies for flipping and engaging students online.
Explore online resources that can be used to flip instruction (i.e. TED-Ed, virtual field trips, etc.)
Crowdsource favorite websites for media, resources, and information.
Brainstorm ideas for extending learning in class with student-centered activities.
Explore how the process of Design Thinking can be applied to issues being grappled with at a school leadership level. During this session we will work on one common challenge that will be crowdsourced and voted on leading up to the workshop. Working through the creative process the NoTosh team will lead you and colleagues towards some possible solutions and share with you some ideas for applying this methodology to future challenges.
Attendees will:
- learn about the Design Thinking process to explore creative problem solving.
- use Design Thinking in an hour to address a single school improvement issue.
- consider the way curriculum might be delivered using the Design Thinking process.
- take away potential solutions to a school based challenge that can be put into action and tested.
