As a classroom teacher I was seldom allowed out to continue my education and network with other educators. Despite my opinions on this I am not only pleased but often overwhelmed with the opportunities I receive for continuing education in my new position.
SXSWedu offered a unique opportunity to listen, talk, and experience. I’ve never been to an education conference with such a diverse group of attendees, bringing with them their enthusiasm and unique lens. I was truly mind blown throughout many of my experiences. For my own good I’ll process a few of those here, and hopefully light a spark in your own head along the way.
Maker Movement
This is a new interest of mine, but the more I research I realize it isn’t. Growing up I have fond memories of testing the pitch of our neighborhood bike ramps to find the perfect launch into the lake. During one of the Winter Olympic watch-a-thons at my house I used every piece of paper I could find to construct my own vision of an Olympic park. Even today I would rather consult my garage scrap pile for functional furniture projects than head over to a big box store.
I’ve come to find that this is what the Maker Movement is- simply a title on what many of us have already been doing. I was so taken by a speech by Rosanne Somerson on critical making and design I bought her book on the way out Thursday (first book bought in years, but the way). I look forward to reading it, but more importantly to evolving my own ideas of making to influence the way we teach. I can already see students experimenting with modifications for a canal system out of cardboard, measuring angles and designing structures to support weight, and constructing circuits to provide power to their own lighting systems.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality caught my eye several years ago when an app called Around Me used it to show the location of restaurants and other places of interest. You’d hold up your phone and see the city before you with imposed signs of restaurant names. Since then it has come a long way, and apps like Aurasma and Blippar are bringing it to the education world. While the applications are time consuming I can see a day where wearable technology like glasses change the way students view and interact with their environment.
I have to assume this will evolve where the money is: gaming. I can see it now, millions of basement dwelling gamers emerge with their AR enabled glasses to battle GPS placed monsters, gain riches through hidden chests, and view their co-players with armor and regalia that us non-gamers will never know about. But from there, how hard will it be to impose Santa Anna and his troops in the plaza in front of the Alamo? Can we hold up a phone and be only a few feet from Dr. King in front of the Lincoln Memorial? I’m no math expert, but if I were able to view an object with angles and equations labeled it might make more sense to me. This is the one to watch in the next few years.
Wearable Technology
How apropos that I heard about this in several sessions with the release of the Apple Watch in the near future. But what is out there that our students (and school districts) can actually afford? And how can we use these to innovate the learning environment?
We collect data every day on our students. From attendance to assessment, they are tracked and analyzed their whole life. With wearable technology we can expand this to track things like pulse rate, movement, and even brainwaves. We don’t even know what we can do with all of this yet, but the possibilities of building the most engaging lessons in the history of planning periods is there.
From a coach perspective we need to implement the use of this technology now. Students have location enabled phones in their position. Why not incorporate the data they are collecting on themselves in to weekend workouts, daily challenges, or even personal growth plans? Devices like Fitbit and Pebble offer a more comfortable version, but their smart phone works just as well.
Community Involvement
In my district we have a firm grasp on the ability to Tweet and post just about everything that happens. But who is this reaching? How are our community members engaging in communication? Have we asked, or do we just assume they will jump on the ship we have built?
I went to an amazing, thought-provoking session with Joe Mazza on the concept of FACE (Family and Community Engagement) and eFACE (think we’ll call it iFACE). While his session challenged many of the things I thought we were doing right it was the collaboration in the room that brought out questions and solutions that left us all carrying the conversation out of the room. Though there were many ideas present, the concept on ‘unconferencing’ parent meetings in an edcamp style was the most exciting. I look forward to bringing back some of these ideas to my team and district.
Differentiating Education
Differentiation is not a new concept, but the way Sal Kahn explained his vision and mission for education really left me energized. It was fitting this was the last speech of the conference, and it rebooted my motivation for assisting teachers in evolving education with innovative technology. The concepts he spoke about made so much sense:
A student scoring a 90 on a test still doesn’t know 10% of the material.
Traditional education models allow for gaps in education. Get what you can, then move on.
Is abandoning pacing guides really a fear of teachers?? I tend to think the opposite. Today with innovative technology we can blend the learning environment and flip most of the traditional teaching to provide an individual pathway for our students to not just reach 70%, or even 90%, but 100% of the skills we want to teach them. Why should we accept anything less?
I texted something to myself on Tuesday during a session: Problems are simply opportunities for innovation. I will continue to look at the world this way, and can truly thank the presenters and attendees for influencing this way of thought.
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