I am thrilled to be with you today. Regardless of all of the politics that threaten our work, our children and their future, I maintain that there still has never been a more exciting time to be a teacher.
- That we are preparing our children for a future that we can not clearly describes makes us all learners, not just teachers.
- That our children are creating and living a culture that is based almost entirely on learning means that they are coming into our classroom wired to learn.
- That we are living and working in an entirely new information landscape offers previously unimaginable learning experiences for our children.
I will be delivering four presentations to you today, giving you time to discuss each. First will be a context-building presentation, itemizing three reasons why the education that I got in the ’50s and ’60s is irrelevant and even detrimental to today’s children and their future. The second will look at what it means to be literate in this new information landscape and the third will address the learning skills and habits that our children enter our classrooms out of. Finally, we will look at how teachers are learning, cultivating personal learning networks that cause them to come into their classrooms with something brand new every single day.
Online Handouts
- Harnessing the Perfect Storm – http://goo.gl/ZKFfa
- Literacy in the Digital Age – http://goo.gl/HqWnj
- Cracking the Code of the ‘Native’ Learning Experience – http://goo.gl/agyqQ
- Cultivating Your Personal Learning Network – http://goo.gl/yUara7
- Backchannel Transcript — [link]
Here are some administrator blogs whom I recommend:
- Chris Lehmann, Practical Theory – http://practicaltheory.org/serendipity/
- Scott McLeod, Dangerously Irrelevant – http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org
- George Couros, The Principal of Change – http://georgecouros.ca/blog/
- David Jakes, Strength of Weak Ties – http://strengthofweakties.org
- Doug Johnson, Blue Skunk Blog – http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com
- Diane Ravitch, Diane Ravitch – http://dianeravitch.net
It’s an honor to be here with you today, and to be back in Iowa. At least with this trip, I was able to drive a bit across the real Iowa and to take some pictures. It’s the next day now and I had a great tour yesterday of Sioux county, guided by Steve Grond. Not sure yet about the photos. Have to get home to put them on the computer and see.
