Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Learning Revolution - Week's Free Events - SLS14 Expanded! - Open Natural Math Class - Educate to Liberate or Control?

The Learning Revolution
Weekly Update

March 18th


All of life is a constant education.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

The technologies of the Internet and the Web are reshaping where, when, and from whom we learn--and even how we think about learning. The Learning Revolution Project highlights our own virtual and physical events and those of our more than 200 partners. We also highlight good conversations about learning taking place between educators, learners, leaders, and others from the school, library, museum, work, adult, online, non-traditional and home learning worlds. The Internet is shifting the boundaries of these worlds, and we believe that as they increasingly overlap and integrate they will be critical to framing and preparing for the learning revolution starting to take place.

Our projects have members from 200+ countries and the Learning Revolution newsletter is sent to 130,000 each week. To subscribe to this newsletter, please sign up at http://learningrevolution.com/.


Updates

  • School Leadership Summit Dates Expanded! March 26th - 28th. We're extendeding the conference due to the amazing number of presentations we've received, and we will be featuring four more hours of sessions on the morning of Friday, March 28th. We are also excited to announce that Eric Sheninger will be delivering a special pre-conference keynote on Wednesday, March 26th at 5pm PDT and that Mike Lawrence will be giving the closing keynote on Friday, March 28th at 11am PDT! See the conference schedule for all the great sessions taking place next week.
  • CALLING ALL VOLUNTEERS! While the call for proposals for School Leadership Summit is now closed, we are still looking for volunteers to help moderate the sessions that we've added. Don't miss this opportunity to get involved with a great event! Please see information about volunteering here.
  • Reform Symposium (RSCON5) MiniCons. This year we are hosting 2 half-day free online events - Reform Symposium MiniCons. On April 6th, we will feature musical guest Jason Levine, keynote speaker Steven Anderson, a technology smackdown event that anyone can sign-up for, and eight Inspire Presentations that highlight RSCON4 and give you a sneak peek at what to expect at our annual Reform Symposium Free Online Conference RSCON5. RSCON5 will take place July 11th - 13th, 2014 and will feature 60+ presentations, 2 plenaries, 10 keynotes, student presenters, and much more. Learn more about our MiniCon events and how to sign up for these fun presentation opportunities here. Follow #RSCON5 for updates.

Partner Spotlight

NMC

New Media Consortium The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an international not-for-profit consortium of learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. For 20 years, the NMC and its members have dedicated themselves to exploring and developing potential applications of emerging technologies for learning, research, and creative inquiry. More information at http://www.nmc.org/.

Interested in becoming a Learning Revolution Partner? Please fill out a Partner Application today.

Partner Announcements

Become a Learning Revolution Partner and share your Partner Announcements in our weekly newsletter!

One Week Calendar

All events are listed in US-Eastern Standard Time. To become an event partner and have your events listed here, please email admin@web20labs.com.

  • Wednesday, March 19th at 4pm BrainPOP: What's up on GameUp?, Now featuring 85+ games covering more than 340 topics across all our subject areas – including both BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. – GameUp has grown tremendously over the past year. Are you getting everything you can out of it? In this webinar, we’ll cover all the valuable resources it offers to support game-based learning. Get to know SnapThought – one of our assessment tools – and the new game Sortify, which adds another dimension to playful assessment. Join here!
  • Wednesday, March 19th at 7pm Empowering Our Students to Be Digital Citizens with Kelly Mendoza from Common Sense Media, As schools continue to integrate technology, they face increasing challenges with behavioral and ethical issues such as cyberbullying, inappropriate sharing and plagiarism. To meet these challenges, educators must teach digital citizenship, an essential digital age skill that students need to become safe, responsible and respectful participants in a digital world. Register here.
  • Wednesday, March 19th at 9pm Teachers Teaching Teachers, Weekly conversations hosted by EdTechTalk, a collaborative open webcasting community. For more information, click here.
  • Thursday, March 20th Character Day - Global Film Premier, Challenging the conventional belief that people are stuck with the character attributes they are born with, The Science of Character reveals how it is possible for anyone to build up their core character strengths and use them to achieve greater personal, academic, and professional success and happiness. The film premiere will serve as the centerpiece of #CharacterDay, a 24-hour series of live events and online conversations highlighting the expanding catalog of scientific research proving that positive characteristics like self-control, optimism, and gratitude can be nurtured and developed. Learn more about how you can participate here.
  • March 20th - March 22nd in Palm Springs, CA CUE Annual Conference + Invent to Learn Workshop, The CUE Conference is the largest and oldest education technology conference in California, and among the largest in the United States. Sylvia Martinez will lead a pre-conference Invent To Learn workshop, plus a conference session. Learn more and register here.
  • Thursday, March 20th at 2pm PDT CUE Workshop - Teaching Copyright and Fair Use to the Remix Generation, CCSS recognize the importance of building media literacy skills. Understanding copyright is a central component. This workshop will reduce copyright confusion, examine fair use, and explore the possibilities of remix. Presenters: Kelly Mendoza, Common Sense Media and Gail Densler, Elk Grove Unified School District. See details and register here.
  • Friday, March 21st at 8:30am CoSN Workshop: You've Got Technology, Now What? Curating the Best Content for Learning, Spending on education technology is now in the tens of billions dollars as schools push for broadband, computer labs, and 1-to-1 tablets. But what about content? There’s a lot of great games, apps, websites, and digital curricula to go along with tablets and computers. But finding, vetting, and delivering quality content to teachers is difficult. This panel tackles this challenge from a variety of perspectives ranging from educators, administrators, policymakers, and nonprofit leaders providing insight on how to effectively evaluate the learning potential of digital content, and how the educational system can best structure technology acquisition and implementation. Learn more here.
  • Saturday, March 22nd at the Dubai Modern Education School, UAE Know.Do.Serve.Learn. - Common Core Camp in UAE, The camps will introduce American curriculum schools, leaders and educators in the UAE who are new to the Common Core Standards. Learn more here.
  • Saturday, March 22nd at 12pm CR20 LIVE Weekly Show with Erin Klein, Classroom 2.0 LIVE is an opportunity to gather with other member of the community in regular "live" web meetings. Special thanks for this go to our sponsor, Blackboard Collaborate, for providing the service that allows us to do this! Details to join the webinar at http://live.classroom20.com. Follow us on Twitter: #liveclass20
  • Tuesday, March 25th at 10:45am in Syracuse, NY A Common Sense Approach to Enhancing Technology For Learning, Digital tools are entering our classrooms at an increasing rate and with that comes the opportunity and responsibility to help students harness the potential of technology for learning and for life. Common Sense Media will review free, research-based resources that provide schools with comprehensive tools to teach students to think critically, behave safely, and participate responsibly with technology. Details here.

For a full calendar of all upcoming events and conferences, click here.

Deadlines

  • Reform Symposium MiniCon April, April 6th 9:30am - 1pm EDT
    Upcoming deadlines: Sign up for the Tech & App Smackdown - Share your favorite web tool or app as we celebrate our amazing presenters from 2013 and look forward to #RSCON5 on July 11-13th, 2014. Your presentation will only be 2 minutes long with 2 images as your presentation. Or sign up to be an Inpire Presenter! You are invited to do a 3 to 5 minute presentation that either (1) gives us highlights of your RSCON4 presentation or (2) gives us a sneak peek at what you are thinking about presenting for RSCON5. Space is limited for these presentations, so sign up soon.
  • Learning Revolution Conference Online, April 24th - 25th, 2014
    Upcoming deadlines: Presentation proposals are being accepted between now and April 15th for the inaugural Learning Revolution Conference Online. The conference strands include Learning Theory, Learning Practice, Learning Science, Learning Spaces, and Technology & Learning. Please see the call for proposals and submission instructions here. Don't miss out on a great opportunity to connect about learning!

Highlighted Recordings


Tracey Wilen-Daugenti from the Future of Education Interview Series - on "How Technology is Reshaping Education, Work, and Society"

wilen-daugenti
http://youtu.be/Pmmn6DYZkLQ

Larry Johnson from the Global Education Conference - on "2012 Keynote Address"

johnson
http://youtu.be/9AFRXkK4rfU

Cristin Frodella from the Global STEMx Education Conference - on "Google Science Fair"

frodella
http://youtu.be/KFBZYekjGIo

NMC Navigator Top Ten

Top Learning Tech Stories of the Week from the NMC/Horizon Project Navigator.

  1. 4 Key Benefits To Using Open Source In Education
  2. Innovative K-12 Tests: Almost Always Just Around the Corner
  3. Making Your Mark: Perspectives on 3D Printing
  4. Virtual Reality Startups Look Back to the Future
  5. Time for an Academic Bitcoin
  6. Technology Leadership Evolved
  7. The MOOC Moment and Its Impact on K-12 Education
  8. Education progression relies on technology
  9. One-to-one: School districts arm kids with digital devices
  10. Students get hands-on with hands-free crutch

Conversations

Classroom 2.0
  • Engaging and Inspiring Leaders and Learners - Virtual Event. Classroom 2.0 member, Nicole Lakusta, shares the 21st Century School Systems – Engaging and Inspiring Leaders and Learners event with us. Virtual attendance is encouraged for those of us who are not in the Alberta area, so sign up here to register and view the agenda. Thanks, Nicole!
  • Calling all Diigo users: New Jersey graduate student and soon-to-be special education instructor, Mr. Astated, has some questions for those of you who use Diigo as a classroom tool. Share your experience with Diigo here.

Education Revolution Google+ Community
  • 2014 MoonBots Challenge. George Bartan reminds us that the 2014 MoonBots Challenge is under way. Do you have students or library users ages 9 - 17 that can answer the questions Do you have what it takes to put a robot on the Moon? Can you answer 'Why We Should Go Back to the Moon for Good?' Do you want to win a trip to Hawai'i and other great prizes? Consider helping them enter this fantastic contest! Learn more here. Thanks, George!
  • Ultimate Checklist for Using Video in eLearning. Christopher Pappas has shared a great tool for those of you using videos in eLearning environments. The checklist provides some simple guidelines that could really improve the learner experiences for our students, coworkers, clients, or guests. Thanks, Chris!

Global Education Conference
  • Reminder: Google Science Fair. Global educator, Ibrahim Bahati, reminds us that the Google Science Fair is currently accepting submissions from students ages 13 - 18. In partnership with our friends at National Geographic Education, the Google Science Fair is a challenge based learning project that gives participants an opportunity to identify a global problem and develop a solution. What an excellent way to learn to do something new, and make a real difference! Secondary teachers and YA librarians: this is a great opportunity for special programming. Check out the resources available here.
  • Calling multilingual families to participate. Global Education member, Joel Josephson, shares this opportunity for multilingual parents and teachers. Join our project reference group, to help evaluate the resources we make for the project to help families, educators and stakeholders raise children multilingually. The EU large-scale “Multilingual Families” project is targeted at preserving the languages and culture of immigrants and the many families with parents with more than one language. Learn more about participating in this project, and sign up here. Thanks, Joel!

Submit a Video or Quote

We'd like to feature a user submitted video each week. Get creative! Post your short video answer to the question: What does the learning revolution mean to you? We'll be highlighting one video each week, and sharing the rest on our YouTube channel. You need to include #learningrevolution in the title of your YouTube video.

OR

Do you have a great quote on education? Send us your favorite education quote to add to our collection and we'll be sure to give you a shout out in our next newsletter.

Kudos

Just a week left before we kick off the 2014 School Leadership Summit with opening keynote, Eric Sheninger! We have more than 50 presentations lined up for this year, and several impressive keynote speakers. Here's what participants had to say about last year's Summit - and a hint of what you have to look forward to next week!

  • I cannot believe how much new information I was able to receive in the 3 hours I was able to attend from my office! Just in time training and wonderful resources that I plan to infuse into our summer technology workshop schedule.
    -Elizabeth Kohut
  • Really enjoying it. Great learning. Great selection. Wonderful new connections.
    -Jason Flom
  • It's been an intense, but gratifying and exciting day of learning and building knowledge capital! I have been in sessions since the beginning of the conference. This is too great and free none the less! PLEASE KEEP DOING THIS!
    -Helen Marie Stevens
  • Espero que se repita muy pronto ha sido un placer asistir a esta Cumbre.
    I hope this happens again very soon, it has been a pleasure to attend this Summit.

    -Mada
  • Love learning from national and international experts in the field right from my desk! Thank you!
    -Anonymous

For a full list of the 2013 School Leadership Summit kudos, click here.


Final Notes

This past week I spoke at the annual Fresno-Pacific Leadership Day conference for Teacher Librarians. Preparing my remarks allowed me to think about libraries and librarians, and their important roles in encouraging intellectual curiosity, independent study, and deep engagement. It's increasingly clear to me that societal narratives for education revolve around two very different aims: to liberate or to control. While we often describe education as providing a framework and skills for critical and independent thinking, our practices more and more focus on mandatory compliance to standardized objectives. The tension between the educational goals of liberation and control are as old as civilization, with the cultural strength and wisdom to educate for free and rigorous thought being the exception rather than the norm. If there were ever a time in the history of mankind when we truly needed a public that is educated and capable of important dialog, it is now. The Internet has created a huge virtual commons, where information and ideas are no longer primarily mediated by institutions, and we have a choice: we either commit ourselves to strengthening the capacity of everyone in our society to understand and to participate well in the increasingly difficult conversations and challenges ahead; or we accept a model of education based largely on compliance and tracking, and where independent thinking is not a virtue but a nuisance. I simply do not think we can afford the latter.


See you online!



Steve
Steve Hargadon
www.stevehargadon.com

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