Join Peter as he challenges educators to incorporate the 4 C's ~ Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity in their approach to teaching and learning. Peter shares his new short film, "Above and Beyond", created in collaboration with The Partnership for 21st Century Skills. This animated fable helps show that content mastery without the 4Cs will not provide students with the "wings" required to meet the demands of higher education, career, and life in a global society and world economy. In addition hear about Peter's essentials to 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.
This is a specific post production, editing workshop focused for more experienced (or willing) people who feel they need more time to talk about strategies, techniques, and tools to help them get their movies to look and feel more PRO-like. First off, any teacher can make a better looking, flowing, sounding movie. iMovie and Final Cut Pro X are two tools that have been intimidating to some, but I will take this time to go over features and tip of both applications that can help you produce the movie you want to make. There are a lot of you who ask me for this workshop and here it is. I can also do my best to answer any of your specific questions you may have about these apps. I will showcase some of my favorite tips and techniques, project management advice, and direct you to online resources to continue your journey to better movie making!
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, Jing (free) as well as the free iPad app, ScreenChomp.
An actual student, Tiana "Paul" Kadkhoda, will be co-presenting and demonstrating how we create our screencasts.
Have you been wondering about those curious little square codes that are showing up more and more in magazines, stores, theaters, and everywhere else? They are QR Codes and they have the power to link the real-world to the digital-world. In this session we will explore ways to use those little black and white codes to communicate and educate.
Participants will learn:
-more about what QR Codes are and how they work
-how to quickly and easily create your own QR Codes for free
-how to use QR Codes to give students access to rich information and experiences through links to movies, podcasts, text, URLs and more
Be sure to bring your smartphone to fully participate in this interactive session!
Presentation Resources: http://lainierowell.com
Armed Conflict. Gender Equality. Water and Sanitation. Children in an ever-increasing globalized world need to understand interconnectedness, respect and value diversity, have the ability to challenge injustice and take action in personally meaningful ways. Through TeachUNICEF’s free online interdisciplinary resources, educators can foster global citizenship in the classroom and explore critical global issues.
Attendees will learn:
• The importance of global education in the classroom
• Understand what is global citizenship and components of global competency
• How to utilize TeachUNICEF’s web resources
• Take action! TeachUNICEF and service learning
Useful links for this presentation:
• http://www.teachUNICEF.org
• http://www.theoneminutesjr.org/?thisarticle=571
• http://www.unicef.org/photoessays/index-pe_29913.html
In this one-hour interactive discussion, my students and I will share reactions and reflections on activities inspired by previous BLC events. Participants will also share ways they have (or will) put BLC ideas into action. Various topics will include:
-Flickr used as a way to make abstract thinking concrete (an idea inspired by Darren Kuropatwa’s use of Flickr in his calculus classroom)
-Student film as art, instruction, and introductions (inspired by the film making workshops of Marco Torres and Alas Media)
-The Digital Farm (inspired by Alan’s presentations of the same name)
-Student Scribes in an English Classroom (inspired by Alan’s podcast with Darren Kuropatwa)
Presentation Link: http://tinyurl.com/BLCathome
The 2012 Horizon Report acknowledges that is time for the adoption of 'Game Based Learning'. Alan November recently tweeted - ‘You never get an F in gaming, there's no penalty for risk taking in gaming.’
We are seeing the second generation of children who have enjoyed mastery of the word processor, with all its agility and opportunities to revise or refine, however, with this abundance of technology, assessment tasks rarely allow students to demonstrate their new multi-literacy skills or unleash their creativity.
Today's students need an edge. They need to engage in tasks that will make them comfortable with uncertainty, allow for team work, connect globally and permit creativity. Educators need to begin a journey of change that enlists the use of games within the curriculum.
The session, will focus on why and how gaming can equip students with 21st century learning skills, inspire them to stretch and enrich their knowledge and understanding, and demonstrate how 256 Middle School students took a journey of learning through an integrated assessment task focused on sustainability, using Minecraft to deliver their final product.
The outcomes of this workshop will demonstrate:
• How Minecraft was used for in an integrated assessment task,
• How gaming can enhance creativity and innovation,
• Student feedback,
• Examples of student work, and
• How to use tools such as video, blogs, Edmodo and Quia to gamify the classroom.
Student journalism can be about so much more than simply reporting on the school play and the football game. I will tell the story of the Student News Action Network, an online youth news service with contributors in more than 50 countries, and will share resources and techniques for teachers to empower their students to be effective digital storytellers.
Teachers will learn
The Values Exchange (VX) is a unique web-based thinking environment. The VX community allows students to explore any social issue using 'Facebook-style' technology and powerful social concepts (my feelings, hopes, ideals, equality, law etc). Students eagerly grasp the chance for online debate about situations that really matter to them. Students can post unlimited issues of their own, and explore a comprehensive dashboard of results as soon as they submit their ideas.
This session will explain exactly how teachers can use the Values Exchange Community to enhance their teaching in all areas of the curriculum. In addition, participants will:
understand the background to this thinking environment
how students can best use it
how to set up their own cases for debate
how to engage students in exploring results and interpreting rich meaning from the data
Everyday the Year 3 (2nd Grade) pupils at Rosendale Primary School in London negotiate their day.
Since September 2011 NoTosh has been working with the teachers at Rosendale Primary School. One of the key elements that emerged was how their innovative child centred curriculum was restricted by the traditional notion of the timetable. So we helped them re-design it, handing over the control to the 8 and 9 year olds.
Attendees will:
- See an overview of the project and how it fits into ongoing Design Thinking work
- Explore the curriculum model that puts the pupil at the centre of learning
- Review their own timetable to reveal questions and challenges - and surface the traditional blocks in the way
- Take away a new perspective on what teachers or school has control over
- Hear the views of pupils and staff who are innovating in this way in their classes
- Have time to reflect on their own practice and what it would take to change
Student journalism can be about so much more than simply reporting on the school play and the football game. I will tell the story of the Student News Action Network, an online youth news service with contributors in more than 50 countries, and will share resources and techniques for teachers to empower their students to be effective digital storytellers.
Teachers will learn
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. Central to this theme, is that the ideas and attitudes one associates with "play" are clearly disconnected from those we associate with "learning". 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 and reintroduce the concept of playful learning.
During this session, learn how to utilize reading and writing as a means to encourage problem-finding, as a means to encourage service learning, and as a means to encourage literacy. Students in a high school novels course connected, blogged and created authentic projects inspired by their texts. Follow an English teacher’s journey to create a meaningful, rigorous course where technology empowers and homework is a gift you give. Social reading and writing tools will be shared during the session.
Link for presentation: http://bit.ly/erinolson
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’ll show you how to create photo stories like the pros.
This workshop is for educators who want to get started creating and using podcasting in their classroom. We will cover the basics of planning, recording and publishing your podcast. We will walk you the all the steps from planning, classroom management to publication and syndication. This workshop is for teachers new to podcasting.
Common Core Standards
Speaking and listening
Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
Listening Standards, Grades 10-12, Item 4
Present information, findings and supporting evidence clearly, concisely, and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, substance and style are appropriate to purpose.
Listening Standards, Grades 6-12, Grade 6, Item 6
Make strategic use of digital media in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
Listening Standards, Grades 8, Item 6
Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.
Presentation Link: http://anewadventure.wikispaces.com/Podcasting
Embark upon a journey through the dawn of the information age with college student, Travis Allen. Experience the life of a true digital native who boldly refused to accept the status quo in the classroom. Learn how he uses his tablet, and only his tablet, in all of his courses. More importantly learn how you can be a part of a revolution for change in education.
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, provide meaningful feedback on student work and contribute to a library of tutorials.
This session focuses on various simple, easy and useful ways to incorporate screencasting with students whether using a Mac, Windows or iPad device.
An actual student, Tiana "Paul" Kadkhoda, will be co-presenting and demonstrating screencasting options.
We can empower all of our students to make a difference in the world, giving people purpose and mastery for learning. Two example projects will be highlighted:
She's the First where a group of students raised money to send a young woman from Tansania to the Kisa Secondary School.
The Van Meter Dreams to Life Foundation technology was put into the hands of inner city school children in Des Moines.
You will also learn to tap your students' passions via Twitter and other social tools such as FlipSnack and VoiceThread to connect your students with authentic community around the world. You will leave this session inspired to let your students be heard through their VOICE.
Shannon's presentation link: http://bit.ly/shannonmmillerblc12
Are you already using iPads in the classroom? Just considering an implementation? Either way, this session will be a rich source of ideas, resources, and information about learning with the iPad in the elementary classroom. This fast-paced session 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 the iPad's iOS platform, unique features that support student learning, and applications and activities that support differentiated mobile learning. We will also discover tips and tricks to get even more out of your Internet communication device. Participants are encouraged to bring their own iPad to participate.
Presentation Resources: http://lainierowell.com
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!
Learn how to create an engaging presentation with Prezi. Prezi is a free software for educators and students that allows building presentations that are not just linear. In this workshop, you will not only learn how to use Prezi, but you will also better understand how to be an effective communicator on stage. The audience will co-create a Prezi.
Remember the days of hanging your child’s work on the refrigerator for everyone to see? In today's changing world the refrigerator is no longer relevant. Students need a window to the world where they can publish, share and connect with others around the world. In this session participates will learn how to create their classroom’s window to the world. Digital publishing in the classroom is much more complicated than placing a computer or iPad in front of your students. You, as a teacher, can shift your philosophical understanding of teaching and learning. Garth and Mike will discuss the positives and negatives, problems and road blocks and how allowing students a digital voice has effected teaching and learning in our lives. Further, we will discuss the methodology necessary to prepare students for leaving Digital Footprints worth following. Think of the excitement in August as you introduce a new way to connect with your students, parents and the world. Join us and empower your students to leave digital footprints worth following.
Presentation link: http://www.teachersfortomorrow.net/blc12.html
We thought about titling this session, "Stop Giving Them The Answer: Let Them Figure It Out Themselves!", but thought that sounded a little too edgy. Join us for a strategy-building session on how to foster student-owned learning in the classroom (and live!). Don't expect one size fits all answers - but questions, strategies, possibilities, examples, and maybe a few awkward silences...
In this session, participants will explore ways to:
• Engage and empower students as critical thinkers, questioners, connectors and creators of content
• Build student repertoire of problem-solving strategies
• Promote and develop student capacity for finding the right information, right relationships and right resources, all at the right time.
Presentation Link: http://balancedtech.wikispaces.com/BLC12+-+Less+Is+More
How do educators 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 students. These include ”Ten Basic Google Search Techniques” and a “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.
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.
Presentation link: http://j.mp/DarrenBLC12
Elementary students in the United States communicated via email with students in Australia in my research, published in The Reading Teacher. This session will provide teachers with qualitative research results and specific instructions for setting up and implementing ePals in their classrooms. Teachers will learn about the impact of authentic communication activities on students’ motivation/engagement, written language production and cultural learning and empathy. Results and implications for subgroups of general education students, special education students, and second language learners are reported. Student writing samples will be shown. Methods of using the new ePals global community, projects, and activities will also be shared. Learn benefits of globalizing student writing. Assist students in improving their written language and cultural understandings.
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 and one in Manitoba, Ca.. 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. For the past two years, the project, which evolved into an ELA elective, The Hero's Journey," was brought into the academic day. English Language Arts, digital citizenship, leadership, teamwork, communication, web 2.0 and social networking are all addressed in a blended curriculum using 3D GameLab courseware, JRR Tolkien's, "The Hobbit," and the commercial video game, World of Warcraft.
In this workshop, you will learn how social networks can be used to connect, create, and collaborate with each other and the world. I will share my experiences using social networks such as Skype, Twitter, Edmodo, Facebook, Diigo, Blogger, KidBlog, Collaborize Classroom, StudyBlue and more with my students at Van Meter Community School and others around the world. You will also hear from representatives of these various platforms via Skype and share your own experiences with others in the workshop as well. Participants will not only see how I organize my life in these social networks, but you will also have the chance to sign up and get connected within them as well. You will leave this workshop having new places to connect, tools to use with within your classroom and library, and a global community that opens you up to new ideas, people, and places.
Presentation Link: http://bit.ly/shannonmmillerblc12
The Values Exchange (VX) is a unique web-based thinking environment. The VX community allows students to explore any social issue using 'Facebook-style' technology and powerful social concepts (my feelings, hopes, ideals, equality, law etc). Students eagerly grasp the chance for online debate about situations that really matter to them. Students can post unlimited issues of their own, and explore a comprehensive dashboard of results as soon as they submit their ideas.
This session will explain exactly how teachers can use the Values Exchange Community to enhance their teaching in all areas of the curriculum. In addition, participants will:
understand the background to this thinking environment
how students can best use it
how to set up their own cases for debate
how to engage students in exploring results and interpreting rich meaning from the data
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, with specific case examples of their use:
Virtual Collections http://education.eol.org/page/collections
Electronic field guides http://education.eol.org/ideas/tools/fieldguide
Education LifeDesk tool http://www.edulifedesks.org/
The presentation will draw upon information and results gained from specific projects in formal and informal learning settings.
The 2012 Horizon Report acknowledges that is time for the adoption of 'Game Based Learning'. Alan November recently tweeted - ‘You never get an F in gaming, there's no penalty for risk taking in gaming.’
We are seeing the second generation of children who have enjoyed mastery of the word processor, with all its agility and opportunities to revise or refine, however, with this abundance of technology, assessment tasks rarely allow students to demonstrate their new multi-literacy skills or unleash their creativity.
Today's students need an edge. They need to engage in tasks that will make them comfortable with uncertainty, allow for team work, connect globally and permit creativity. Educators need to begin a journey of change that enlists the use of games within the curriculum.
The session, will focus on why and how gaming can equip students with 21st century learning skills, inspire them to stretch and enrich their knowledge and understanding, and demonstrate how 256 Middle School students took a journey of learning through an integrated assessment task focused on sustainability, using Minecraft to deliver their final product.
The outcomes of this workshop will demonstrate:
• How Minecraft was used for in an integrated assessment task,
• How gaming can enhance creativity and innovation,
• Student feedback,
• Examples of student work, and
• How to use tools such as video, blogs, Edmodo and Quia to gamify the classroom.
Create and publish interactive multi-touch lessons and books for the iPad, with Mac’s free iBooks Author. Or just create almost any type of book just for fun. Flipping your class? You and your students can design engaging class resources with galleries, video, 3D objects, animation and interactive diagrams.
This session is for beginners and will demonstrate how fast and easy it is to create your first captivating iBook for the iPad.
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, with specific case examples of their use:
Virtual Collections http://education.eol.org/page/collections
Electronic field guides http://education.eol.org/ideas/tools/fieldguide
Education LifeDesk tool http://www.edulifedesks.org/
The presentation will draw upon information and results gained from specific projects in formal and informal learning settings.
Fast and easy collaboration is what makes Google tools an ideal learning environment. The goal of this session is to provide you with the knowledge as well as practical strategies to make collaboration a natural way of learning in your classroom.
This session will be a rich source of ideas, resources and information about these collaborative tools. 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
If you are ready to move from content consumption to content creation and community building while developing more self-directed learners, this session is for you.
Presentation Resources: http://lainierowell.com
Realistic fiction offers students the opportunity to learn about people and cultures from around the world. The web provides the authentic 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. One example is the web site our students created for the novel Mississippi Trial 1955. We will focus on literature appropriate for grade 5 - 9. The concepts can be adapted for all grades.
Common Core Standards:
Informational Text, Grades 6-12, Grade 8, Item 9
Analyze a case in which two or more text provide conflicting information on the same topic and identify where the texts disagree on matters of fact or interpretation.
Writing Grades 6-8, Grade 8, Item 2a-f
Write information/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts and information through the selection, organization and analysis of relevant content.
Presentation Resources: http://empathyblc.wikispaces.com/
The Values Exchange (VX) is a unique web-based thinking environment. The VX community allows students to explore any social issue using 'Facebook-style' technology and powerful social concepts (my feelings, hopes, ideals, equality, law etc). Students eagerly grasp the chance for online debate about situations that really matter to them. Students can post unlimited issues of their own, and explore a comprehensive dashboard of results as soon as they submit their ideas.
This session will explain exactly how teachers can use the Values Exchange Community to enhance their teaching in all areas of the curriculum. In addition, participants will:
understand the background to this thinking environment
how students can best use it
how to set up their own cases for debate
how to engage students in exploring results and interpreting rich meaning from the data
During this session, learn how to utilize reading and writing as a means to encourage problem-finding, as a means to encourage service learning, and as a means to encourage literacy. Students in a high school novels course connected, blogged and created authentic projects inspired by their texts. Follow an English teacher’s journey to create a meaningful, rigorous course where technology empowers and homework is a gift you give. Social reading and writing tools will be shared during the session.
Link for presentation: http://bit.ly/erinolson
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’ll 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.
iPads are making their debut in many schools. There are many questions to be answered.
Can iPads replace laptops? Are they just another bandwagon or a tool that can improve teaching, student learning and productivity like no other device? Let’s talk about how immediate access and availability to information, productivity tools, a global network, assistive technology as well as being able to create content and media, all on one device, can change a classroom’s learning environment.
Audiences will:
This workshop will help educators to ensure all learners understand how to apply key lifelong learning skills: planning, questioning, conversing, visualising, emoting and critiquing. These competencies help students became more fluent and creative in designing and producing their media texts where the message must be clear and intentional. Student work uses language, image and sound for self expression, communication and social advocacy.
This framework assists teachers to decide on, and co-develop big ideas with students and to recognise what students bring, not only their prior knowledge but also their misconceptions. It identifies what the intended learning will look like at a particular year level of schooling, and the evidence required for learning to be assessed. This includes the development of formative assessment tasks and providing students with regular feedback.
You will also learn how to tap a Youtube channel and Facebook communication strategy to build a professional community of shared best practice.
Throughout the program we found more teachers started to engage in critical and reflective conversations with colleagues around their learning design and how digital learning tools can be used for student achievement and for them to produce work of quality.
What are the ten big things modern TLs must teach to ensure learners at all levels grow as transliterate citizens? From a better understanding of intellectual property to best tools for telling stories and communicating new knowledge, while addressing the CCSS, Joyce and Shannon count them down and reveal strategies for delivering instruction.
Presentation Link: http://joyceatblc.wikispaces.com/
Photography is BEAUTIFUL! I don’t know of many people who don’t LOVE an aspect of photography. Capturing moments, experiences, and stories is such a personal and HUMAN experience. Now, with the ease of use of digital cameras-- anyone can not only make high grade images, but can push the creativity envelope and create new art from a photograph. This workshop will FOCUS on how to make a better picture with what you have on you, we will show you how to explore more creative features available on your camera as well as in post production. Smart phones are dominating this space now and we will share some of our favorite apps for making magical images. We will practice shooting options and even talk about ongoing learning opportunities online. Attend this workshop if you want to learn how to make a better image, learn about enhancing the image, and sharing your art! SEE you there!
In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the award winning "Me, Myself and I" Digital Literacy Project. This fully resourced modular project has been running successfully in classrooms from Grades 5 - 9 in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore the UK, and the USA. Participants will be given access to resources for all 9 modules along with guidance on how to adapt each module to meet local priorities and curriculum requirements. Taking the theme of "Learning as a Journey" the resources have been designed to equip students and teachers with essential skills, knowledge and understanding, along with contemporary strategies and an essential toolkit of key Web 2.0 tools to support learning across all areas of the curriculum. This exciting digital literacy project also focuses on developing self and peer assessment capabilities and student autonomy through the use of personal digital narrative and a range of learning management tools.
This session is sponsored by Learnology.
Maintain academic rigour while transforming the way kids learn through problem finding curricula? Rebuild a school from its first brick right through to its first pedagogical principles without harming great grades? Ewan McIntosh and his team have been working with MLC School, Sydney, Australia, to do just that, helping the faculty, students and local community change the very way they think about learning, teaching and the space around them.
More slaves exist today than at any point in history. This one-hour interactive presentation will demonstrate how, through the use of free web 2.0 tools, a teacher can still deliver “traditional” curriculum while using social justice and media literacy to increase student engagement and develop empathy. Students will share the multimedia work they produced and explain the connections they found between their fight against modern slavery and their developing communication skills.
Topics will include:
-Wikis
-Google Docs
-Video production tools
-Copyright rules
-YouTube
-Twitter
Presentation Link: http://tinyurl.com/BCDSfightsSlavery
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, Jing (free) as well as the free iPad app, ScreenChomp.
An actual student, Tiana "Paul" Kadkhoda, will be co-presenting and demonstrating how we create our screencasts.
Inspired by MIT’s Media Lab, NuVu Studio is an innovation center for middle and high school students where teams build multi-disciplinary, collaborative projects. NuVu nurtures creative problem solving, collaboration, and presentation skills. This session is entirely led by students. Past participants of the program will share their experience, explain the program’s influence on their learning, and demonstrate how the NuVu culture is shaping the everyday curriculum at Beaver Country Day School outside of Boston.
How can essential questions, digitized lectures, student research, collaboration, student blogging, historical fiction, self paced, and mastery learning come together to change teaching and learning in your classroom? Join Mike and Garth as we dissect the process of creating a 21st century webquest, based on the essential questions of your curriculum, that allows students to collaborate and develop depth of understanding and master content. Using constructionist methodology, flipped teaching and free applications, you can provide students with the opportunity to guide their own learning. During this session we will talk about the philosophy and design of WebQuests, how to share your WebQuest with students and how WebQuests can be used to change teaching and learning.
Presentation link: http://www.teachersfortomorrow.net/blc12.html
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, I use them as a portable (very) production studios! I can plan, produce, edit, and showcase a move ALL DONE FROM my mobile devices. This WILL REVOLUTIONIZE LEARNING! We will 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. We will show you how you can make a movie on your iDevice. Bring it! We’ll show you just HOW COOL having a movie studio in your pocket really is.
What happens when bullies use social media?
What happens when a kid, bully or bullied, shoots a video and posts it to YouTube? (The answers aren’t all bad.)
And why is she smiling?
A conversation with educators about cultivating empathy in our students to combat bullying in and out of school in an increasingly digital environment. Participants will leave with a wealth of powerful visual material and discussion starters they can use in their schools with their students. We’ll share ideas to effectively lead these sort of difficult conversations and share resources we can easily access anywhere any time.
[While it’s not required to attend the session it would be a good idea to have a twitter account before arriving at BLC12.]
Presentation link: http://j.mp/DarrenBLC12
In this workshop, you will learn how social networks can be used to connect, create, and collaborate with each other and the world. I will share my experiences using social networks such as Skype, Twitter, Edmodo, Facebook, Diigo, Blogger, KidBlog, Collaborize Classroom, StudyBlue and more with my students at Van Meter Community School and others around the world. You will also hear from representatives of these various platforms via Skype and share your own experiences with others in the workshop as well. Participants will not only see how I organize my life in these social networks, but you will also have the chance to sign up and get connected within them as well. You will leave this workshop having new places to connect, tools to use with within your classroom and library, and a global community that opens you up to new ideas, people, and places.
Shannon's presentation link: http://bit.ly/shannonmmillerblc12
Fasten your seat belts for the fast and exciting Driving Question; "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! Join Mike in a session that promises to be an exciting PBL entry event giving participants ideas and content they can use tomorrow!
How will you avoid exposing your audience to “Death by PowerPoint”?
Learn why audiences today expect more than bullet lists, over used templates and clipart. How do you design compelling presentations? This presentation is for teachers who want to step up their own design practices in their teaching, online presences, as well as help students use images to support their learning.
Attendees will:
Realistic fiction offers students the opportunity to learn about people and cultures from around the world. The web provides the authentic 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. One example is the web site our students created for the novel Mississippi Trial 1955. We will focus on literature appropriate for grade 5 - 9. The concepts can be adapted for all grades.
Common Core Standards:
Informational Text, Grades 6-12, Grade 8, Item 9
Analyze a case in which two or more text provide conflicting information on the same topic and identify where the texts disagree on matters of fact or interpretation.
Writing Grades 6-8, Grade 8, Item 2a-f
Write information/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts and information through the selection, organization and analysis of relevant content.
Presentation Resources: http://empathyblc.wikispaces.com/
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-owned learning) to effectively “widen the walls” and “raise the ceiling” of our learning environments? (Common Core Capatible)
In this session, participants will explore ways to:
- Apply TPaCK, SAMR and HEAT frameworks as pedagogical lenses when designing lessons strengthened by use of technology.
- Challenge students to find authentic ways to leverage available tools for deeper learning.
- Seek balance over time among content acquisition, lifelong learning skills and the development of tool fluency.
Presentation link: http://bit.ly/bvb12-links
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.
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. Central to this theme, is that the ideas and attitudes one associates with "play" are clearly disconnected from those we associate with "learning". 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 and reintroduce the concept of playful learning.
Participants will be introduced to the hugely successful United Classrooms Global Collaboration Project, connecting classrooms in the United States with partner classes in Australia. This fully resourced project has been designed to foster high quality, online curriculum-facing collaborations through the development of concrete offline relationships. Attendees will be presented with a starter pack containing the full project overview and all related materials before being offered an opportunity to identify a partner class from a list of Australian schools.
The project creates opportunities for students to:
This session is sponsored by Learnology.
