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Work with education leaders across several strands of tech integration and emerging technologies. Some of the strands: Digital Storytelling, Leadership, Social Technologies, Online Learning, Measurement, Constructionism, Tech Integration, Creativity, and Tech Support.
Digital Storytelling – Bernajean Porter
Beyond Words: Becoming Wizards with 21st Century Communication Skills
Urgent! Human beings needed with effective communication skills in order to
translate inert, raw information into valuable knowledge useful and
beneficial to others. No paper allowed!
For students to be effective communicators in the 21st century,
sophisticated skills in expressing ideas with multiple communication
technologies will be needed. Even though writing skills still form a crucial
foundation in developing digital media, printed text has lost its monopoly
to multimedia in the information age. So how do paper-trained educators
transform themselves into wizards at organizing and coaching content-based,
student digital products that grab attention, mesmerize audiences with
engagingly, rigorous content and purposefully impacts others long after?
Using any of the dynamic media tools enabling new forms of communication
beyond words will require practicing new literacies that master the grammar
of reading/writing of images and sound as well as crafting information for
impact. Building and communicating understanding isn’t improved by using the
fancy, infamous bells and whistle features in myopic tools like PowerPoint.
The new communication needs are less about mastering technical skills of
technology than about being able to design information by artfully using
sound, images, transitions and special effects in ways that dance ideas
together into illuminated understandings.
Teaching the iGeneration – Dr. Larry Rosen
Strategies for successfully engaging today’s high-tech learners and maintaining the teacher’s role in education
Alternative models of education abound, from online learning to the flipped classroom, from mobile learning to a 1:1 laptop or tablet programs. The missing ingredient is redefining the role of the teacher. What is the teacher’s role in transforming education and how can educators maintain and enhance the learning experience while solidifying their role as true leaders for our children? Dr. Rosen will bring current cutting-edge psychological, educational and neuroscience research to bear on solving this problem so that the end result in stronger roles for teachers and more engaged student learners.
Game Design: Empowerment and Development of 21st Century Skills – Alexander Johnson
As the social stigma towards computer-gaming fades, educators are discovering the potential of games-based learning and game design as vehicles that will allow students to master 21st Century Skills. This workshop is designed to demonstrate the incredible learning potential of game design through a series of activities and simulations built around problem solving, communication, teamwork, leadership, and systems thinking. Attendees will leave with the knowledge and belief that gaming, in particular game design, has the potential to speak to the mind of the 21st Century, inspire the unmotivated, and revitalize the best things about traditional education.
Leadership for a Changing World – Scott McLeod
It is difficult to overstate the changes that digital technologies have
wrought on our society. As we navigate an ‘Information Revolution’ that is
as impactful but apparently also swifter than the Industrial Revolution of
the 18th and 19th centuries, the collective transformative effects can be
seen in every aspect of our lives. And we’re just getting started…
The implications for learning, teaching, schooling, and workforce
preparation in this new world are both profound and intimidating.
Participants should come prepared to think, talk, and wrestle with thorny
issues of paradigm shifts and school reinvention. Attendees will need a
laptop and will walk away with concrete ideas that they can implement
tomorrow in their school organizations.
Social and Mobile Technologies: A Catalyst for the Renaissance in Learning – Scott Klososky
Most everyone has capitulated to the fact that the new technologies we have been given over the past ten years will change education massively. Capitulation is very different than evangelism and Scott Klososky wants more than anything to help everyone he comes in contact with to be evangelists for utilizing the many new dynamics Social, mobile, and Web technologies are bringing us. Further, he wants us all to have a crystal clear picture of what come next so that we in education can drive innovation instead of lagging. His unique business perspective on the education world is helpful to hear because it is people like him that employ those we educate...
Online Learning – Brad Rathgeber and
Molly Rumsey
How do you create the dynamic environment of an independent school classroom
online? Workshop participants will be provided with the tools needed to
begin creating interactive, engaging, collaborative online coursework that
follows the independent school model. This workshop will begin before the
conference starts, with an online activity that will help participants to
understand the landscape of online education. When at the conference,
participants will be introduced to pedagogical approaches to online
education, giving them a chance to discuss approaches and come away with
some understanding of an independent school approach to online education.
Participants will also learn about effective tools for delivery of online
courses, including Learning Management Systems, collaborative video and text
tools, and web 2.0 tools.
Measurement – Damian Bebell
Educational measurement and evaluation can play an important role in the
development and sustainability of any educational technology initiative or
school reform. This session will provide a hands-on approach to the
effective use of measurement, research, and evaluation processes and tools
for informing day-to-day practices as well as empirically demonstrating the
successes of your program. Participants will learn to craft measurable
research questions and will be provided examples of qualitative and
quantitative tools that can help inform their own questions, practices, and
initiatives. A concluding activity and discussion will examine how
educational technology research has particularly struggled with identifying
appropriate outcome measures (especially the use of standardized student
achievement tests).
Constructionism and Project-Based Learning – Gary Stager
Jean Piaget said, "To understand is to invent." Seymour Papert added, "If you can make things with computers, then you make a lot more interesting things." Tinkering and making things are human impulses that result in authentic learning experiences and amplify creativity. This workshop will explore ways in which technology may be used to construct knowledge across intellectual domains and grade levels. The power of technology in education lies in the computer's ability to increase the breadth, depth and range of projects possible. Such projects create memories and build understanding. This workshop will explore the elements of effective projects and discuss ways in which to evaluate the quality of such learning experiences through hands-on experiences and video-based vignettes. We will also discuss strategies for effectively teaching with technology in ways that put students at the center of the learning process in an attempt to understand "constructionism," the learning theory that has provided the intellectual foundation and progressive vision of 1:1 computing since 1968.
Tech Integration – Elizabeth Helfant and
Connie White
Frameworks can help us manage and drive change. They can help us be
intentional about developing a truly integrated curriculum that leverages
technology and what we know about emerging brain research to deepen
students’ learning and skills’ acquisition. This session will explore TPACK
as a framework that can support the growth of a robust contemporary
curriculum as well as the development of a faculty professional development
program. We will explore ways to create TPACK certified curriculum and
faculty growth plans. We will look at a robust toolkit, project examples and
tech enhanced pedagogical strategies to deepen student learning.
Creativity – Tim Rylands and Sarah Neild
Motivating and inspiring even the most reluctant learners.
'I stepped out into a landscape of almost unbearable beauty, a feathered
sky stretching out across the silken sea, warm sand beneath my feet.
Turning, I saw steps, foot worn and timeless, winding downwards. Where would
they lead me?'
Tim Rylands and Sarah Neild will present some inspiring, accessible tools
and ideas, for raising the level of writing, speaking and listening, and
creativity in children of all ages. An exploration of virtual worlds, Web2.0
and visual literacy elements, and how they have had a huge impact on raising
children’s confidence and collaboration, across the creative curriculum.
Using, and creating, relevant, engaging resources, to motivate, and enthuse,
children of all ages and abilities. Come prepared to be inspired and to
leave with many practical ideas to apply back in the classroom. |
