Conversations

During each of the six breakout sessions throughout the weekend, a large number of conversations will take place. This site will help you organize your plan for the weekend and provide the relevant information for each conversation. After signing in, search through the conversations below and mark the sessions you are interested in to populate your personal schedule on the right (or below if on your mobile phone).

#standardizethat

Session 1
Mike Kaechele

A critical look at the standardization of public schools and especially the Common Core State Standards. How do the CCSS and the associated testing affect learning, motivation, and student passions? What things should be standardized in classrooms if anything?

@remixeducon

Session 1
George Mayo, Harry Costner

This is not a proposal for a conversation. This is a proposal for an Educon remix experiment we would like to try during the course of the conference.

Collaborating in the Bronx to Amplify Youth Voices

Session 1
Amal Aboulhosn, Chris Sloan (in a Hangout), Paul Allison, Tricia Clarke, Jim Nordlinger

Meet four New York City Writing Project teachers who are part of a study group that has been sponsored by the NYCWP to foster and reflect on our use of Youth Voices. Amal Aboulhosn, Paul Allison, Tricia Clarke, and Jim Nordlinger will show student work that has resulted from their work together. We will also be joined in a Hangout by Youth Voices co-founder, Chris Sloan from Salt Lake City, Utah.

Educating for Changemaking: How we can ensure students become empathic leaders who can work collaboratively to drive change, address shared problems, and generate innovative solutions to social problems.

Session 1
Zoe Duskin, Kirsten Hill, Laura White

Understanding that everyone needs to practice empathy, leadership, and teamwork skills to solve social problems, Ashoka has launched the Empathy Initiative to make these “changemaking skills” a priority in education. Join us in a conversation about pedagogy, curriculum, and evaluation strategies for fostering and evaluating changemaker skill development in students.

Panel: Home & School 2.0 - Envisioning a Transparent, Connected Learning Environment

Session 1
Gwen Pescatore (P), Deb Rzepela-Auch (P), Dania Henaidy (P), Andrea Abel (T), Sara Heckman (T), Nancy Kaufman (T), Gabrielle Morrison (T), Joe Mazza (A)

A panel of parents, educators and lead learner at @KnappElementary School will share their collaborative efforts in "meeting parents where they are" using both tech & non-tech family engagement strategies to engage a diverse elementary school population in suburban Philadelphia.

Small Town School.......Global Education

Session 1
Daisy Dyer Duerr, Sabra Provence

With increasing technology and innovative educators, the World is getting smaller and our small isolated, school is "getting bigger!" Let us show you how an iPad & a caring, innovative teacher can make a student who doesn't have running water at home value their education and want to be "more." Technology + Relationships= Success

You Say You Want Tech Standards? Here Come the NITS!

Session 1
Gary S. Stager Ph.D., Martin Levins, Brian Smith

The ISTE Nets (tech standards) are approximately a decade old. They've produced endless meetings, cliché-laden documents and breathless rhetoric, but no perceptible increase in student computer fluency or teacher competence. Rather than standardizing, it’s time to amplify human potential with computers. A new diet of computing is required for learners.

Project SPACE: A Case Study

Session 2
Tyler Morales, Derrick Pitts, Matthew Ginnetti, Allen Yang, Winston Wright, Alex Johnson

Want to get some ideas on how to get your students involved in the community and excited about it? Come join 5 students talk about their experiences in the Project SPACE Program and what got them started on it.

Turning It From Sucks to Rocks

Session 2
Dan Callahan, Michelle Baldwin

Participants will generate a joint list of challenges that schools face today. After engaging in a discussion on the issues where they’ll share their opinions, small groups will work together on ways to refocus the conversation on the issues to help bring about positive change in their own schools.

Leadership & School Cultures that Effectively Support 21st Century Learning

Session 3
Tom Daccord, Patrick Larkin

While policies are an essential tool for managing technologies, effective leaders nurture school cultures that promote and exercise a vision for conscientious innovation with new learning technologies. Come discuss how to develop school cultures where stakeholders share a vision of meaningful technology integration to support 21st Century learning and examine U.S and Singaporean systems where school administrators provide structured support to develop institutional capacity for systemic reform.

Reflecting on Reflection

Session 3
Jennifer Orr

On the whole, strong teachers tend to be reflective practitioners. There is research showing that reflecting is an important skill towards improving as a teacher. Accepting that, how do we become better at reflecting and how do we help new and pre-service teachers do the same?

Video Production and Social Media: A Powerful Combination

Session 3
George Mayo, Harry Costner

This conversation will focus on the benefits of integrating social media into school film production programs. Examples of new media projects as well as simple tips for creating and sharing student films online will be included. We’ll also discuss how publishing student work online helps build essential media literacy skills.

Developing Our Online Voices

Session 4
Zachary A. Chase

In this conversation, we will examine what it means to interact with students in online environments, how that compares to physical face-to-face interactions, and the intersections of the two. How do we craft caring relations in digital spaces? How do we build culture and community? What are the ways in which feedback and commentary could or should be adjusted when leaving the physical world. Participants will be asked to share their own experiences as well as work together to draft ideas on new ways forward for deepening and broadening our practice.

Digital Fabrication in K-12

Session 4
Jaymes Dec, Karen Blumberg, Don Buckley

Let's have a conversation about digital fabrication in schools. FabLabs and Makerspaces are putting the means of production (3D printers, laser cutters, milling machines, etc) into our student's hands. Let's talk about the benefits, challenges, and best practices of teaching kids to use machines that can make things!

Empathy THE 21st Century Skill

Session 4
Samantha Morra

Empathy is THE 21st century skill. It builds bonds, develops leadership skills, and brings self-awareness to seek out meaning and purpose in our lives. How can we discuss 21st century skills without first discussing empathy? How can our students understand purpose, be self-directed, and become betters learners by valuing empathy.

Make. Hack. Play: The Tools of Webmaking

Session 4
Laura Hilliger, Chris Lawrence

Playing with the X-Ray Goggles, Thimble and Popcorn, participants will explore concepts of interest-based learning through tinkering with Mozilla Webmaking tools and learning projects. This workshop will build understanding around how embedding webmaking in project based curriculum will lead to innovative problem solving, creative thinking and a desire for tinkering.

Restorative Solutions to Harassment and Bullying

Session 4
Kay Kyungsun Yu, Steve Korr, Jennifer Lowman, David Keller Trevaskis

Harassment and bullying interfere with student learning. In some tragic instances, these behaviors interfere with life itself. Join us for a conversation on creating strategies for prevention, intervention, resolution, and restoration of the community after incidents of harassment or bullying.

Self-Care for Selfless Educators & Advocates in the Movement

Session 4
Michaela Pommells, Reagen Price

Self-care is often an afterthought for educators, social justice activists, and ed reform advocates. This interactive workshop will explore the responsibility we have to connect self-care with leading change; how pop culture, race and gender shape our ideas about personal sustainability; and how to support each other in allyship.

Using Spoken Word to Inspire

Session 4
Matthew Kay, Cait Miner, Greg Corbin

In a conversation facilitated by the Philly Youth Poetry Movement, educators will discuss how they might use the performance arts, specifically spoken word poetry, to engage and inspire their students. Techniques from many different writing programs will be shared, and a dynamic writing workshop will be modeled and analyzed.

Adopting, Using, and Reusing Open Content

Session 5
Bill Fitzgerald, Jeff Graham, Andrea Burton

Despite having been the subject of increased attention over the last several years, the mechanics of using open content and the advantages of using open content remain poorly understood. In this session, we will look at the roots of some of these misconceptions, and define ways in which these misconceptions can be addressed. Additionally, this session will also help participants looking to get involved in the use, creation, and distribution of open content.

Broadening STEM, Intertwining the Arts with the STEM Disciplines

Session 5
Alistar Erickson-Ludwig, Liana Nathan

There has been an emphasis on educating students in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines. A growing movement to broaden the concept of STEM into STEAM (with the A representing arts) provides a broader framework for including creativity, innovation, and to some extent collaboration into these fields. This session will be about creating content and will be fun!

Disruptive Talent

Session 5
Claire Robertson-Kraft, Alyson Goodner, Rachel Meadows

There’s no shortage of educational innovators. The challenge is figuring out how best to bring their approaches to scale. Participants in this session will discuss what supporting disruptive talent – at the district, school, classroom, and community level – would look like and how we can better connect innovators across cities.

Performance Task Assessment & the CWRA: Better Goal-Posts for Student Learning

Session 5
Pam Moran, Jonathan Martin

Many schools are adopting visionary goals for student learning, including higher order thinking skills and creative problem-solving, and are seeking to evaluate student learning in more engaging and authentic ways. Performance Task Assessments and the exemplary CWRA offer a potentially subversive way to change the way we assess, which we will explore and discuss in this session.

Makeover: Classroom Edition

Session 6
Christie-Belle Garcia, Alexandria Garino, Sarah L. Hamilton

Have you ever experienced the Web 2.0 in a classroom 1.0? Have you had trouble using 21st century technology in a 20th century space? This hands-on, interactive conversation is seeking innovative learners and teachers who are ready to take on an extreme makeover that impacts teaching and learning.

Online Vs. Face-to-Face PLNs

Session 6
Brandon Lutz

Are we moving towards a Surrogates society? Are online PLNs taking the place of face-to-face PLNs? Let’s debate between the use of online and offline interactions to develop and advance our professional and personal learning.

Serving all Learners: Special Education in Modern Schools

Session 6
Beth Menasion, Michael Ames

At SLA, we view acceptance of students with special needs as vital to our culture of diversity. Supporting all students in the general education curriculum requires communication and cooperation amongst all members of a school community. We are always working to develop and build upon systems to support a wide range learners, with the end goal of moving them towards independence beyond the walls of our school.

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