{"success":true,"data":[{"ID":221,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1351735971,"CreatorID":1193,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"#standardizethat","Handle":"standardizethat","ShortDescription":"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?","Description":"The wide adoption of CCSS leads us into an era of standardization never seen before in North America. What implications does standardization have on national testing and classroom learning? I feel that standardization limits students ability to pursue their passions at school and hurts motivation. It leads to one-size-fits all teaching rather than personalized, student focused learning. The conversation at Educon will focus on how standards control and limit student voice and choice. We will look at how standards make student-centered environments such as PBL more difficult by restraining learning. We will also talk about what content, skills, etc should every student master if anything. Should every student take algebra is the type of content vs. skill question that we will discuss. I envision some audience members supporting the CCSS leading to a rich discussion of their strengths and weaknesses.","Link":["http:\/\/concretekax.blogspot.com\/"],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"Shared Google Doc for note-taking; Chalk Talk for pros\/cons of standardization. Group discussion (breaking into smaller groups if there are many participants)about what should\/should not be standardized in schools. Wrap-up:How can we change the conversation at a national level on standards?","Presenter":["Mike Kaechele"],"PresenterAffiliation":["New Tech social studies teacher at Kent Innovation High"],"PresenterEmail":["concretekax@gmail.com"],"ScheduleSlotID":6,"ScheduleLocationID":8,"SubmitterID":1193,"AdditionalComments":"One idea to bring national attention to this idea is for each participant to submit an image with a short description of what they would standardize in schools that could be compiled into an e-book.","LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":2},{"ID":178,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1350966333,"CreatorID":62,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Leading When the King has no Clothes","Handle":"Leading_When_the_King_has_no_Clothes","ShortDescription":"What do teachers and leaders do while we wait for policy makers to discover that the test culture they have created is a mistake?","Description":"Many sources tell us that the test culture propagated by NCLB legislation and the Race to the Top initiative is likely to have negative unintended consequences. Students are likely to find test prep boring and irrelevant. Teachers are likely to suffer moral problems as they compete with each other for good scores rather than collaborate. With a train wreck on the way, how do teachers and leaders avoid the worst and do what\u2019s best for the students? The policy makers have created a new game. How do we successfully play this game so the students can prosper?","Link":["http:\/\/DrDougGreen.Com"],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"Key questions should get the conversation going. Something like: \"So the tests are crap, What do we do to make sure the students don't suffer?\"","Presenter":["Douglas W. Green EdD"],"PresenterAffiliation":["Binghamton University"],"PresenterEmail":["dgreen@stny.rr.com"],"ScheduleSlotID":8,"ScheduleLocationID":8,"SubmitterID":62,"AdditionalComments":null,"LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":2},{"ID":235,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1351814191,"CreatorID":62,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Entrepreneurship in Education","Handle":"Entrepreneurship_in_Education","ShortDescription":"","Description":"This conversation will engage participants in a discussion about how to facilitate perseverance, professionalism, confidence, courage and creativity among their students. We will discuss out use of entrepreneurial learning opportunities, inquiry-based methods and personal learning plans to help students discover their passions. The result is a reflective, collaborative, innovative student who makes influential contributions to the learning environment and local communities.","Link":[],"Audience":["High School","Middle School"],"Practice":"Interactive group discussions as well as sharing teaching practices and student work.","Presenter":["Iris Hammel","Analiese Smith"],"PresenterAffiliation":["LIFE Charter School"],"PresenterEmail":["ihammel@hartlake.org","asmith@hartlake.org"],"ScheduleSlotID":9,"ScheduleLocationID":8,"SubmitterID":62,"AdditionalComments":null,"LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":2},{"ID":193,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1351543384,"CreatorID":62,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Empathy THE 21st Century Skill","Handle":"Empathy_THE_21st_Century_Skill:2","ShortDescription":"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.","Description":"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. \r\n\r\nEmpathy enables students to integrate other people's perspectives with their own. It is the ability to identify with others and will become a crucial skill as the world merges into a global community. Global awareness and the ability for technology to bring the world into our classrooms is important, but only if we can use these tools to better understand ourselves and others. \r\n\r\nJoin the conversation to explore and discuss how using technology can help us understand and nurture empathy. In this conversation will explore the discussion educators are having all across the country about empathy and the tools, sites and teaching practices that encourage empathy.","Link":["https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/teachingempathy\/"],"Audience":["All School Levels"],"Practice":"We will use a variety of tools including wiki to bring together resources.","Presenter":["Samantha Morra"],"PresenterAffiliation":["Montclair Public Schools"],"PresenterEmail":["smsmorra@gmail.com"],"ScheduleSlotID":14,"ScheduleLocationID":8,"SubmitterID":62,"AdditionalComments":"I may submit more than one proposal. Please pick one. Thank you so much!","LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":2},{"ID":263,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1352217743,"CreatorID":62,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Rough Cut Schools: Developing and Sustaining Media Creation Programs for Kids","Handle":"Rough_Cut_Schools:Developing_a_Media_Creation_Program_of_Study_for_Kids","ShortDescription":"Rough Cut Media is a non-profit devoted to supporting, creating, and advocating for production-based media education programs in schools. Our mission is to help schools create and sustain comprehensive, cross-curricular media education.","Description":"Media Educator Networking and Problem Solving\r\n\r\nA chance for media, film, photography, and other digital art educators to meet, ask questions, collaboratively solve problems, or even just vent in a semi-structured group setting.  \r\n\r\nFacilitated by the founders of Rough Cut Media and current\/former students from Rough Cut's pilot program at SLA.","Link":[],"Audience":["High School"],"Practice":"Three Essential Questions:\r\n-What does media literacy\/creation look like in your school?\r\n-What would you like it to look like?\r\n-What is standing in your way?","Presenter":["Douglas Herman and Josh Weisgrau"],"PresenterAffiliation":["SLA and Friends Central"],"PresenterEmail":["dherman@scienceleadership.org"],"ScheduleSlotID":16,"ScheduleLocationID":8,"SubmitterID":62,"AdditionalComments":null,"LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":2},{"ID":250,"Class":"Conversation","Created":1351826280,"CreatorID":62,"RevisionID":null,"Status":"Accepted","Title":"Breaking down classroom walls - open learning","Handle":"Breaking_down_classroom_walls_-_open_learning","ShortDescription":"To break down the walls of our classrooms we need to consider how to blend online and face to face learning. This conversation will focus on how open learning can transform education by giving students and educators the confidence and tools to think and learn for themselves.","Description":"We can break down classroom walls by considering open learning. Open learning is transforming education in different ways. This conversation will focus on three aspects of open learning that help encourage change: 1) open resources and content, 2) open leadership and 3) open pedagogy. \r\n\r\nOpen Educational Resources (OER) have the potential to bring education to the masses and promote educational opportunities for all. What are the most widely used resources and why? How can we find these resources and how do we curate the content?\r\n\r\nOpen leadership encourages transparency and deeper communication between communities of practice. Who is demonstrating open leadership and what are some of the common characteristics? What influence does social media have for open leaders?\r\n\r\nThere are a wide variety of options in open pedagogy, from common web tools, to open online courses and even open online projects. Open pedagogy encourages educators to consider blended learning opportunities and integration of technology into all curriculum. Open pedagogy also promotes collaboration within communities of learning and alternative methods of learning like inquiry based projects. Open pedagogy engages and connects learners with people outside classroom destroying that myth that only teachers can teach. What are some examples of open pedagogy that instill confidence in in learners? How can we transfer this confidence systemically throughout the learning community? \r\n\r\nHaving a conversation around three aspects of open learning will promote more awareness and about the open movement. The conversation will also create learning networks to extend these examples throughout the world in sustainable ways. By sharing examples, we will be able to build a bigger learning village and break down the classroom walls that have limited learning","Link":["http:\/\/openlearningk12.wikispaces.com"],"Audience":["High School","Middle School"],"Practice":"I will start a wiki before the session and provide resources about open learning on the wiki. These resources will include slideshares, videos and some written text.\r\nOn the day of the conversation, I will split the participants up into groups. They will each have an opportunity to give examples about the three aspects of open learning. Each group will have 10 minutes to add to the \u201cspecific\u201d wiki page, then I will switch the topics. That way every group will have the opportunity to give examples about each aspect of open learning from their own environments.  (Total 30 minutes)\r\n\r\nThen I will ask the group to look at the combined information, and choose as a group,  the first \u201caspect\u201d to integrate into any learning environment and why. I will have an online survey on the wiki so we can see the data. (10 minutes)\r\nI will ask each group to give their answer and explain their choice. (10 minutes)\r\nWe will then have an open discussion where we can add to the wiki, or just listen. (10 minutes)","Presenter":["Verena Roberts"],"PresenterAffiliation":["ADLC Alberta Distance Learning Centre"],"PresenterEmail":["vroberts@adlc.ca"],"ScheduleSlotID":17,"ScheduleLocationID":8,"SubmitterID":62,"AdditionalComments":null,"LiveChannel":null,"Hashtag":null,"VokleID":null,"RecordingURL":null,"ConferenceID":2}],"conditions":{"Status":"Accepted","ConferenceID":2,"ScheduleLocationID":8},"total":6,"limit":false,"offset":false}