Innovation Summit Boston 2016

As more and more devices enter into our classrooms, teachers are presented with an opportunity to expand the way students are able to demonstrate their learning. Traditionally, teachers have opted for the essay, but with all of the technology currently available to students, alternate ways of presenting knowledge are readily available. Video creation can be a powerful alternative to written composition. In this session, participants will be presented with the benefits of student created videos, along with tools for creating those videos on both the iPad and Chromebook. Potential tools may include include: iMovie, DoInk, WeVideo, YouTube Creator Studio, Screencastify, and Snagit.

Throughout human history, one of the few constants that remains is the joy of telling and sharing stories. With many social media platforms introducing live video, the possibilities for how we tell stories is changing. Sharing the stories of what we do in education is not something new. We constantly hear, “If you do not tell your story then someone else will.” Using Gary Vaynerchuk’s Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook framework, we’ll explore how to use live video with intention and purpose to share the story of your learning community. You’ll see examples and learn best practices for creating powerful stories that can change the way you share the story of your school.

Educational technology can impact the academic process, and can also bring good results in strengthening the self-esteem of teenagers. iPad´s can be great for the emotional and personal topics.

LINK TO PRESENTATION: tinyurl.com/creativemindset

Are you wrestling with these questions - now what? What can we do with these devices? How do you encourage staff to innovate? How do you reflect? How do we make sure we are not just using ‘expensive pieces of paper’? How do you proceed? We will walk participants through our process of answering this essential question - ‘How Can We Cultivate and Curate the Progression of Student Learning and Growth?’

This session is aimed towards both building-based secondary-level educators, administrators, and district administrators who are exploring or are involved in the implementation of a mobile learning initiative. Through the voice of administrators, teachers and students, participants will experience first hand how Blake Middle School engaged students and educators in the transformation from a computer lab/wireless cart model to the 1:1 environment.

By following four core principles (Program Development, Classroom/Curriculum Implementation/Integration, Professional Development, and Reflection/Evaluation), students and educators from Blake Middle School have brought an engaging student-centered model to fruition. This session will zoom in on two of these core principles…
- Classroom/Curriculum Implementation/Integration (Student/Teacher demonstrations across curricula demonstrating the applications of the program; Fostering creativity/redefinition and reflections/curation via student portfolios)
- Professional Development Structure (ETT, common planning, internal structures, appropriate staffing)

Participants will walk away with a framework to help address these questions, highlighting our approach to thematic professional development, a culture of collaboration, student creativity, purposeful learning, and digital citizenry. We will exhibit our methods of transparency and communication with the parents and greater community, philosophy of mistakes, and professional development model. The lessons we learned and approach we took as a team to enhance the learning for our students will hopefully help with sharing our approach, successes, mistakes, and process of growth.