Local Educators Encouraged to Think Big and Embrace the Future

In a world that is being constantly changed by technology, the April 8Tech Expo, sponsored by the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center, offered some sound advice for local educators who are eager to enhance teaching and learning in their schools.

LHRIC Executive Director Dennis Lauro, center,
pictured with Dr. Pam Moran and Ira Socol. 

The annual event, which was held at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor, included an array of presentations from students and teachers in various local school districts where the latest cutting-edge technology is being used.

Ardsley, Bronxville, Croton Harmon, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, Katonah Lewisboro, Ossining, Pelham, Scarsdale and Yorktown were among the districts represented at the Expo, which attracted close to 400 people.

Several vendors also participated, including Annese, Aspire Technology Partners, Cisco, Dell, Edgenuity, Doctrina, Haiku, Imagine Learning, Pearson Education, Renaissance Learning, Tynker and more.

Creating Moonshot Thinkers

Molly Schroeder speaks at Tech Expo.

Global Digital Age Learning Specialist Molly Schroeder of the EdTechTeam suggested that students could be “moonshot thinkers” if the education environment allowed them to be more creative. That vision was part of Schroeder’s keynote presentation titled, “Falling in Love with the Future.”

During her 45-minute talk, Ms. Schroeder said it is an “epic time” for creativity in the classroom.

“There is so much potential in the students who are sitting in classrooms right now,” she said.

To participate in the kind of moonshot thinking that Ms. Schroeder espouses, she said teachers need to be risk takers, be creative, have passion for their subject, accept challenges and not be afraid to fail.

This moonshot thinking, which is a regular feature of the Google X initiative, an experimental lab that seeks to solve the world’s next big problems, is not dependent on state assessments but on teachers getting students to answer questions without using Google as an aid.

Students should be expected to figure out the answers by thinking outside of the box and to work “in beta,” explained Ms. Schroeder.

“Learning is no longer multiple choice questions,” she said. “We want students to surprise us.”

Some of the Google products that facilitate creative learning include Google Cardboard, a virtual reality platform built by Google that is increasingly being used by teachers to take students on virtual reality tours of the world’s many interesting places. Google Cardboard is primarily used with the app Google Expeditions.

Transforming Schools

Continuing on the same theme, Superintendent Pam Moran, head of Virginia’s Albemarie County Public Schools, and Ira Socol, that district’s design project manager and director of educational technology and innovation, talked about the successful implementation of contemporary technologies into their schools.

Dr. Pam Moran and Ira Socol, both from the Albemarie
County Public Schools, share the stage at Tech Expo.

Comprised of 26 schools, the district’s students come from a myriad of backgrounds, including middle-class suburbs, agricultural communities and an urban area close to the city of Charlottesville, where approximately 70 different languages are spoken.

Knowing that 65 percent of the district’s current kindergartners will end up in jobs that currently do not exist, Dr. Moran said the district’s job is to change the model of education from one that is not currently set up for kids to succeed to a hub of creativity.

Using specific students as examples, both speakers told the audience how even the most disinterested of them can find success.

The school district’s technology initiatives, which includes a network of CTE/STEM mechatronics labs, are centered around seven pathways that ensure lifelong learning for every child.

They include choice and comfort, which gives students real learning space choices; instructional tolerance, which produces active and engaged learners in a learning community; universal design for learning, which allows for differentiated learning environments; a maker-infused curriculum; project/problem, passion-based learning; interactive technologies and the appropriate connectivity to make it all happen.   

To the audience, Dr. Moran said, “Change something in your school, in your class and in your district that tomorrow represents engaged students and leveraged resources.”

“One of the things you will find that is you will have kids who are engaged and who want to come to school. That’s what we want for our kids and that’s my vision for all of you.”

TLI – Acclaimed Writer Argues for Better Perspective on Education

If there's one thing that Marc Prensky would like to see schools doing, it's giving students the credit they deserve.

One of the world's leading experts on the connection between learning and technology, Mr. Prensky urged participants attending the LHRIC's Feb. 13 Technology Leadership Institute to move away from the old system of top down teaching and in its place embrace the idea of partnering with students and using the powerful capabilities of technology to help do it.

Mr. Prensky, the author of five books on the digital culture and education, talks frequently about designing better pedagogy and curriculum for today's generation of students and how educators can learn to thrive in this digital age.

"We have to prepare these kids while avoiding something else that we often slide into, which is what I call cellophane kids," said Mr. Prensky, during his presentation titled, "Brain Gain: Technology and the Quest for Digital Wisdom," which is also the title of his latest book.

Despite what other experts say about the United States' education system trailing the schooling of other countries, Mr. Prensky, the founder and creative director of Spree Games and Games2train, believes the system is failing children worldwide. "The whole world is in this place and it is not a good place," said Mr. Prensky. "It's not just developing countries with problems; the world's education is in the toilet."

Educating to the wrong context

Much of the problem, explained Mr. Prensky, is that schools are teaching to a context that no longer exists. In a world with half its population under the age of 25, Mr. Prensky said educators need to come up with better solutions to engage students. 

The context we currently live in is described by Mr. Prensky as "VUCA," which stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. It's a context that is perhaps the biggest challenge to educators and to the world in general, he added.

Mr. Prensky sees education through the eyes of those who were born in this century and not through the eyes of the ones providing it. Today's students, he said, are disillusioned with the system, many of them feeling their primary role as students is to follow directions. Not that young people have all the answers either, he noted, but that adults' educational needs are very different and focused primarily on raising grades and test scores.

To combat this, Mr. Prensky suggested that teachers listen more intently to students, but also focus on the verbs of teaching rather than the nouns, which in this case applies to the tools or technologies that assist teaching and learning.

Nouns that have become familiar in today's learning environment include PowerPoint, e-mail, Wikipedia and others, but additional tools are quickly taking their place. The verbs of learning, however, often remain the same, he said. They include presenting, communicating, persuading, collaborating and learning, to name a few.

"It's important for us to focus on what those verbs are, even as the nouns to do it with are changing all the time," noted Mr. Prensky, who holds master's degrees from Yale University, Middlebury College and The Harvard Business School. "The question to ask is this: what are the key verbs we want our students to learn?"

Like all new challenges in life, technology can be scary, said Mr. Prensky. "I don't tell people to change, but I do remind them that we all need to adapt to the world we live in, to this new 21^st century context."

Doing old things in new ways

While most schools simply recreate new ways of doing old things, Mr. Prensky believes that educators should be creating new ways to do what they couldn't do before. Websites, for example, even the best ones, are "trivial uses of technology," he said.

Activities such as Skyping with students and teachers around the world, using 3D printers, engaging in virtual worlds, playing complex games, creating robots and encouraging the use of the computational knowledge engine, WolframAlpha, which is not about giving students the answers to a problem but rather explaining how the result was obtained, are all worthwhile endeavors, he added.

Technology, however, can't provide students with all the answers. That should come from teachers who have empathy for them, which in turn will create a desire for learning and a passion to persist and do better, Mr. Prensky noted.

While educators over the years have been "bamboozled" with the idea of best practices, the notion of inventing has somewhat disappeared. "When something is moving as quickly as technology, there are no best practices," said Mr. Prensky. "There are only good practices and the need to continually invent better ones."

To enhance the practice of teaching, Mr. Prensky said teachers need to give students the credit they are worthy of. Not trusting them enough nor giving them the freedom they deserve is a frequent occurrence, he said. "The education of tomorrow has less to do with course, curriculum, degrees and exams," he added, and more to do with collaboration.

Mr. Prensky said schools have "gone off track," focusing more on high performance testing and deviating from the goal of creating better people. "What we should be doing is motivating our kids to figure out what they're passionate about, to think creatively, and to think critically and scientifically. I think kids would be more excited to be become better thinkers, actors and relaters."

For more information on Mr. Prensky's work or to order any of his books, go to www.marcprensky.com.  

LHRIC Teams Up with NYSCATE to Host First Mobile Learning Summit

The much-anticipated Mobile Learning Summit held last month at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor was well received by many of the region's school district administrators, teachers and college faculty who are eager to implement the proper policies and support structures that will enable mobile learning to flourish in their schools.

The all-day event, co-sponsored by the LHRIC and NYSCATE, served as an opportunity for the K-20 education community to discuss, learn and share best practices in this growing area of technology, a niche that is quickly changing the face of education nationwide.

In his keynote presentation, "Designing Mobile Learning: Personal, Portable & Engaging," Richard Culatta, deputy director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education, talked about the need for cautiousness and planning when creating a mobile learning plan for students. He also described the opportunities for enhanced teaching and learning as a result of it.

"It's extremely important to think it through," urged Mr. Culatta, who has worked in the K-12 community, higher education, corporate and government training environments as well as private consulting. "If you can't answer the question, 'why are we doing this?' then I think it's time to stop and think about what we're doing with mobile learning devices."

Some, said Mr. Culatta, believe mobile learning is all about switching to electronic textbooks. The reality is that schools need fewer textbooks and more mobile learning technologies. In fact, they are "way better" than the classroom learning that has prevailed for hundreds of years, he noted.

Mr. Culatta suggested that today's schools have a good chance at getting the mobile learning revolution right. "When we transition to mobile, we need to step back and redesign for that environment, and when we do that, phenomenal things happen."

To make this a reality, however, he suggested that schools capitalize on mobile learning's ability to engage students and to realize the advantages it offers because of its portable nature and its focus on personal learning.

Some strategies to follow include:

• having learners interact with experts in the form of real-time feedback
• allowing them to collaborate with peers, therefore instilling competitiveness in the learning process
• offering interesting content for them to learn from
• initiating a form of personal learning that means adapting to students' individual learning styles, offering differentiated instruction and leveraging their interests and experiences.

As these strategies develop, Mr. Culatta said schools will gather more tools that will help them enhance the kind of personalized learning that is needed in today's classrooms. Citing the Detroit Schools and the New York-based School of One as good examples, Mr. Culatta said those students are learning at their own pace and participating in projects designed around their interests and needs.

"As this happens in more schools nationwide, it will become easier to do the right things in teaching and learning," he added.

In the second keynote of the day, Travis Allen, president and CEO of iSchool Initiative, talked about his own experiences as a mobile learner. In his presentation, "Becoming a Mobile Learner," Mr. Allen described his foray into technology after getting an iPhone a couple of years ago. "I, like many others, enjoyed the endless list of applications on it and shortly after, I began looking into educational apps to help me in high school. I soon realized the amazing capabilities this device would have in education."

Mr. Allen, 21, wanted every student to realize the unlocked potential of the iPhone and shared his opinion on the topic by producing a video, titled "iSchool Initiative." The company is a student led non-profit dedicated to revolutionizing the nation's education system through innovative technology.

Participants also had the chance to explore a number of breakout sessions that took place throughout the morning and afternoon. They included information sessions on the use of mobile devices in the interactive classroom; the implementation of iPads for administrators, teachers and students; a step-by-step guide for administrators and instructors on how to use the iPad; using the Barnes and Noble Nook reader as a learning tool in the classroom; the advantages of using Prezi, a free software for educators and students; recording, composing and learning about music with iOS devices such as the iPad, iPhone and iPod, and much more.

A number of educational technology companies that partner with the RIC and with local school districts were also available to showcase their latest products and services.

The Buzz on iPads in Education

Close to 75 people attended a full-day session here at our Model Schools offices on the use of iPads in education and how the devices can be used in classrooms to improve student engagement and achievement.

Here in our local region, the Scarsdale School District is leading the way. In a presentation titled “Five Apps for the Connected Classroom,” Director of Technology Jerry Crisci and instructor Ken Holvig gave an informative presentation on the many apps that can be used on this versatile device.

“This has taken off in so many different directions,” said Mr. Crisci, who suggested that collaborating with each other is how most educators will discover what is happening in school districts across the region.

To show how this lightweight tablet (the new iPad2 has a 10-hour plus battery life) can be used in education, the presenters gave a brief demo on their top five picks for the connected classroom.

Among them were Flipboard, an app that reformats content into a digital, interactive magazine format; Wikipanion, which is basically Wikipedia for the iPad; Google Earth, with its thousands of aerial and satellite photos, city names, country borders, photos, road maps, and so much more; Dragon Dictate, a voice recognition application that allows users to speak and then see the recording in a typewritten format; and Google Translate, a free translation tool.

The amount of resources that students and teachers have access to is growing, they noted. Take for instance, KhanAcademy.org, which allows students to watch, practice and literally learn anything online for free. iTunes University is one of their favorite apps. “In my opinion, it’s one of the best kept secrets out there,” said Mr. Holvig. There’s no denying this powerful resource. Right now, users have access to more than 350,000 free lectures, videos, films, and other resources, and it’s all free. Check it out at http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/.

Dr. Dan Brenner, superintendent of the Roslyn School District, rounded out the day’s session with a dynamic talk about his district’s experience in rolling out an iPad pilot at Roslyn High School. Last summer, the district gave tablets to a select group of teachers and then had them trained on the use of the device. In December, the iPads were given to about 50 students. In a recent article in Scholastic.com, Dr. Brenner said, “We gave it (the iPad) out because it was a device to serve our needs. What’s generated interested was the fact that it’s a cool toy. What got us moving is it serves our needs."

The district’s intention is to create a paperless classroom, with students having access to novels, class notes, documents, folder systems, and other textbooks online, avoiding the need to carry heavy books into class. Students also have access to district email accounts from their iPads, which they use to communicate with.

For more information on Roslyn’s exciting pilot project, visit http://wordpress.roslynschools.org/wordpress/.