This is what school should be like. This is what science should be like. There are so many cool things about this. But you cannot write a concrete outcome, a specific essential learning or create a test before you start for the whole class. Report cards and standardized curriculum get in the way. Congrats to the teacher who was willing to take a chance. Kids are asked to take chances all the time, but we teachers are expected to know all.

There are so many pedagogical good things here that remind me of the GRAND Projects that we used to run at RHS, the brain child of TIm Beatty.

But from a logistics point of view, this is so good because it is simple, the materials are relatively easy, the research is real, the answer is valuable, and there is no right answer. The trick is to find other examples that are not pre-fab, standardized, pre-packaged, out of the box. This is something to aspire to, and the younger the grades..the better. It reminds me of Preston Middle School activities with their animal guzzler.

How Do You Personalize Learning With Multiple Types Of Technology Including The Iwb With Tablets, Etc.?

Even though I have been teaching for many years, and have been part of many PD sessions, I am just starting to wrap my brain around how to personalize my classroom for my students? Now, I am starting to have some lectures to get the ball rolling, some labs for the hands on learner, some video for the lost, late, or absent student, online notes, and online quizzes for the student who wants repetition. My experience is starting to understand some of the neessary steps that requires scaffolding and still other content that are wonderful detours. It takes a while to figure out the difference here.

The essential learning and the wonderful detours require an asynchronous classroom. I am working towards a situation where some students can work on this and other students can work on that. NOTEBOOK files are starting to provide a perfect way for small groups using their own Smartboards or individuals at laptops to walk themselves through a short lesson to scaffold them for the next activity. It allows them to have a follow up formative quiz so that they know if they are ready for the summative assessment, in whatever flavor that might be.

I recently watched number of “the future is wonderful” videos. One by Corning Glass, another by Microsoft’s Partners in Learning and this one my Smart Tech.

I love the clean lines, the cool tech and the innovative uses of tech. But that is NOT what gets me the most. The biggest thing is the “what the do”. Much of the things we would like to do, can be done now! It is often less of a technology question and more of a tradition, a curriculum, a status quo, an avidance of radical. We have been talking about project based learning, student centered, portfolios, community, 21 Century, Free schools, since my dad was teaching in the early 70’s. Yet we still have bells, report cards, standardized tests, grades, and columns of courses with a strict curriculum.

Technology can help makes some of these changes easier and manageable, but hot spots have been doing these long before our ICT age. My Dad’s wisdom lives in the Garth Brooks song, Standing outside the Fire”

We call them cool

Those hearts that have no scars to show

The ones that never do let go

And risk the tables being turned

We call them fools

Who have to dance within the flame

Who chance the sorrow and the shame

That always comes with getting burned

I am not suggesting being reckless. But I am suggesting a few things.

#1. Seriously question why we do some of the things we do? There used to be a very good reason why we do many things. Are those still good reasons today? Maybe yes , maybe no.

#2. If I cannot say “yes” to the above, am I willing to be a bit of a fool? I ask my students to take risks all the time and celebrate responsible fails. Am I willing to take a chance and be left with a scar? What is the worst thing that can happen if this goes sideways…really? Am I willing to let go of old because it is comfortable and known? or did someone a long time ago figure this out and I should learn their wisdom?

#3. Try it. I wait until I failed TWICE before I seriously evaluate it. If I get it perfect the first time, it might not have been a big enough change. When I have failed twice, then I willl consider if this has a good foundation that needs some band-aids, duct tape and TLC, or if it is flawed and needs to be bulldozed to the ground.

There are lots of superficial scars failing, duct taping and bulldozing. But there is a whole new world to create out there.

Ed Compass, SmartTech, Oct 2012

Promote 21st century skills with your SMART Board and Spongelab

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Drove up to Fredericton in TERRIBLE RAIN (Thanks Marcel) to attend a virtual conference, face to face. Virtual is good. Face to face is better!! Had I attended virtually, I probably would have interacted with Bryan Facey and Jeff Whipple. But I would not have sat beside Heather Hallett and talked about Partners In Learning and I would not have met a great BBT teacher to design a collaborative Chemistry Google Sketchup project!!

Tech is cool, but face to face is CRUCIAL!!

My work was featured  by name in David Warlick’s Keynote at the MAINEducation 2012 conference. Thanks so much. I have many more things since we last talked.

Just finished the SMART Technology Free course on Cyberbullying.

It was short, sweet, useful and productive. They talked about practical things on how you can prevent cyberbullying. I knew about e=mail and filters. What I had never considered was setting the ring tones of the bullies to silent. I also did not know that there was an app for that so that calls and texts from individuals are never received except to put them in a folder to be used as evidence. I like it!!

Completed SMART Flash Animations course. It dealt with how to use Notebook to make animations and embed animations. It was more about what makes a good animation for educational purposes and what is distracting. Thanks again SMART!!