Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Jacobsen: Engaging Ideas in Education - Dec 7th

Engaging Teaching in a Participatory Digital World

Abstract:  A participatory digital world calls for changed mindsets about schooling, knowledge, teaching, learning, and assessment. Information delivery approaches to schooling must give way to active, engaged, and collaborative teaching and learning relationships made possible by social networks and a changed media and technology landscapes.  Already comfortable with broadcast and interactive technologies, teachers need support to embrace online and blended participatory learning designs for students who build knowledge in the 21st century.  Simply training teachers how to use current technologies will not shift how they work with disciplinary knowledge, how they design for learning and assessment, and how they embrace technology for idea improvement. Instead, teachers require continuous professional support as they learn to design rich, authentic learning tasks and cultivate a knowledge building culture with their students.

Post-talk Conversation and Reflection

Thank you for attending my talk, and for asking such great questions!  I hope that you will comment on my blog! Just click on comment, and follow the steps.

The complex challenges that arise when technology comes to school require that all members in the educational system to establish a shared vision (Alberta Education's Inspired Education is a great start! - Thanks, Dave Minister Hancock; The Institutional Learning and Teaching Plan, UCalgary - Thanks, Dennis Sumara!), to work together and think creatively to find solutions and appropriate actions, and then to pull in the same direction to achieve widespread changes.

Here are the videos I referenced during my talk - enjoy the full-length versions:

Seymour Papert Interview - One Laptop per Child (OLPC)
Innovator: Powerful Ideas, Children and Computers

Students Take on Modern Technology
Digital technology affects opportunities for learning

Sunny View School in Toronto
Choice and Voice for Every Child

I Wish... By Crosbie Heights
Hands on Vs. Hands U

Ridgeway Crystal Beach High School
What kids love to do with technology

Helpful Horse: Wild and Free
Inquiry Exemplars: Galileo Network

Check out these AMAZING Galileo Network Inquiry Exemplars:
Other Cool Videos that I wanted to show, but did not have time:

SMART Table - Touch. Learn. Together.
Touch interactivity

Cisco TelePresence... Just for Fun! 
Kids being kids

The Internet of Things
An interconnected system of systems

Arthur C Clarke predicting the future in 1964
Nobody has a crystal ball

Idea new ad on 'Education for all'
Mobile and Participatory Learning Opportunities - I showed this one to my own children, who shared my wonder and dismay that all children in the world do not get to go to school.

1 comment:

Jim Brandin said...

The session was enjoyable. I left with several thoughts and a clearer indication of how we might proceed, One question has to do with a comment made early in the talk: that the issues were 90% about teaching and learning and just 10% about technology. While this reflects my sentiments, the ratio is not evident in much of the conversation in this area -- we seem so focused on the technology. Is it really a 90/10 split, in your estimation?

Jim Brandon