BLC Conference

Presenters: Marco Torres, Teacher, Creative Director, Media Coach, Sylmar, CA and Alas Media

Marco Antonio Torres is an internationally recognized teacher and filmmaker who uses the movie-making process to make his classroom projects explode with empowerment and enthusiasm. Working along side the exceptionally talented Alas Media Team, this phenomenal workshop will take you through the entire movie making process.

This two day event will be a practical, hands-on session where teachers will learn not only valuable and practical tips on how to make a great movie, but also how to plan and manage such projects. Teachers will also find out how to market this program to their communities and also learn how to share the projects with the world! See how movies have a place in your content area classroom/ new studio. Lights, Camera, LEARN!

Presenters: Sara Wilkie, Learning Mentor and Professional Development Coach, Birmingham Public Schools, Birmingham, MI & Jordy Whitmer, Teacher, Birmingham Covington School, Birmingham MI

We will start by exploring a variety of apps, some that lend themselves to learning content such as math facts or spelling words and others that can be used in open-ended content creation such as storytelling or photography. Then we will link these apps in design to your curriculum. We will explore opportunities for mapping to the curriculum where students are creating, contributing and engaging globally on both the iPad and other mobile technologies.

Participants will:

• Explore a subset of apps from a recommended list of apps
• Consider affordances/constraints as a way to evaluate apps
• Contribute to a common sharing space where we’ll list recommended apps and links to recommended app-tivities
• Consider and comment on apps and app-tivities in the common sharing space
• Explore ways where students can create content
• Identify ways to connect students globally

Presenters: Dr. Mitchel Resnick, Karen Brennan, and other members of the Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the MIT Media Lab

Do you love stories? Do you want to learn how to create your own interactive digital stories? Join members of the Scratch Team at MIT Media Lab for a hands-on introduction to storytelling with Scratch. Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy for young people (ages 8 and up) to create their own interactive stories and share their creations online with others. As students program and share with Scratch, they learn to think creatively, reason systematically and work collaboratively, while also learning important computational ideas.

In this hands-on session, participants will be introduced to Scratch, create interactive stories, view examples of stories created by young people and hear how Scratch is being used by educators for storytelling. No prior experience necessary.

Presenters: Ewan McIntosh, CEO, Edu.blogs.com, Edinburgh, Scotland & Tom Barrett, Senior Consultant, NoTosh Ltc

Project-based learning has been let down in too many instances with "fake", academic, theoretical problems that need solving. The learning processes involved are at best fuzzy for most educators: what is "collaboration", "student-designed" and "student-led" learning?

• Learn from the creative practices of some of the best media and tech companies in the world, with whom Ewan McIntosh has spent the past three years.
• Find out what the independent and collaborative learning skills and processes these growing creative industries, and other business, require.
• Hear inspiring mini-talks, guest speakers joining virtually from around the world and participate in a series of highly engaging discussions and exercises.

Presenters: Dr. Mitchel Resnick, Karen Brennan, and other members of the Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the MIT Media Lab

Side-scrollers. Quizzes. Mazes. Simulators. Young people are using Scratch to create and share a wide variety of interactive games. In the process, they learn important computational concepts (for example, using variables for keeping score and conditionals for making game decisions), while also developing general problem-solving skills and design capacities.

Join members of the Scratch Team at MIT Media Lab for a hands-on introduction to game design with Scratch. Participants will be introduced to Scratch, learn to create games, view examples of games created by young people and hear how educators are using Scratch for game design. No prior experience necessary.

Presenter: Brian Mull, Director of Innovation, November Learning

Alan November describes the "Digital Learning Farm" as a place where students come together to make valuable contributions to their classrooms for the benefit of their classmates and the world beyond their school's walls. This session will focus on the ideas behind these contributions and will introduce participants to a toolset that will get their students moving in the direction of empowered, purposeful learning. Examples include tutorial creators, student scribes, curriculum reviewers and more. All participants in this session will get a free copy of Alan's upcoming book, within which he discusses this concept in great depth.

Presenters: Tom Barrett, Senior Consultant, NoTosh Ltc & Ewan McIntosh, CEO, Edu.blogs.com, Edinburgh, Scotland

Unpacking the broad assessment agenda we face in schools today and exploring new insights and solutions for the challenges we face. Let’s face it, the assessment agenda is fraught with mixed metaphors, blind alleys and confusing vocabulary! Let’s re-establish assessment in it’s rightful place as an integral part of any learning.

It is all about the grade at the end of the day. How can I break this everlasting cycle?
I want my students to be more central in their learning, how do I take steps towards this?
I think I am doing OK with assessment in my classroom, but how does this compare with elsewhere in the world? Do others face the same challenge?

Attendees will:

• understand the key issues that swirl around the assessment agenda for schools;
• reflect on their own assessment practices and place them in the wider national and international context;
• see real world examples of how assessment innovations are being applied in sectors beyond the education sector;
• explore a range of misleading metaphors, helping to create a clearer definition of what assessment can and should be;
• leave with a better understanding about what assessment is and isn’t;
• review and debate the challenges we face as teachers, as a nation;
• find solutions to local challenges and begin to see how assessment can be a platform for students to reflect and develop higher order thinking skills.

Presenters: Julia Leong, November Learning Associate, Vancouver, BC & Dan November, Marblehead, MA

Bring your digital camera and join us on a walking tour of downtown Boston to explore night photography and to change the way you view Boston Harbour.

We will explore global projects engaging students to paint their city, home and themselves in a different light. We will investigate ways we can offer to depict stereotypes, such as inner city locations in inspiring ways.

We will be going on a photo safari around downtown Boston at night and will look at ways to investigate the how we frame our photos (what we focus on, what we edit out) as a starting point for reflective practice, for writing, art and critical thinking in the classroom. Learn about night photography and painting with light to ignite imagination and create highly dramatic photos to render the familiar a little strange.

Presenter: Brian Mull, Director of Innovation, November Learning and Google Certified Teacher, Slidell, LA

Learn how to tap Google's free online toolset and knock down the walls of your classroom, engage students and make connections in new and exciting ways. During this pre-conference session you will build robust learning solutions that you can immediately apply in your classroom. Develop a custom search engine based on your particular subject area or unit of study. Create an interactive map for your literature, history, math or science class. With these and other open-ended tools, the options are endless. When you return to your classroom in the fall your students will be stunned at what you did on your summer vacation!

Presenters: Eric Marcos, Math Teacher, Lincoln Middle School, Santa Monica, CA & Dave McCollom, Education Evangelist, TechSmith, Lansing, MI & Ryan Eash, Instructional Designer, TechSmith, Lansing, MI

Screencasting is a fun and exciting way for students to take an active role in their own learning. Student-created screencasts can be used for authentic assessment, tutoring and sharing concepts with a global audience. This workshop will start with the basics of how to get started with screencasting. With hands-on guidance and demonstrations, participants will learn how easy it is to record, edit and share their screencasts using Camtasia (a free copy of Camtasia Studio or Camtasia for Mac will be provided to each attendee).

Participants will learn to create, organize and present crisp, professionally-pleasing screencasts. Other topics to be covered include:

• Screencasting on a budget
• Pen-based input tools (Tablet PC, Electronic Whiteboard, USB Tablets, etc)
• Tips on microphones and recording high quality audio

Presenters: Lainie Rowell, Consultant and Trainer, November Learning and Google Certified Teacher, Huntington Beach, CA & Sara Wilkie, Learning Mentor and Professional Development Coach, Birmingham Public Schools, Birmingham, MI

Are you already using iPads in the classroom? Just considering an implementation? Either way, this pre-conference workshop will be a rich source of ideas, resources, and information about learning with the iPad in the elementary classroom.

This hands-on workshop will explore productivity tools, educational activities and more, using built-in and freely available applications for Apple's iPad. With the iPad, learners can perform research, collaborate, interact with experts, and produce creative works! We will examine the iPad's iOS platform, unique features that support student learning, and applications and activities that support differentiated mobile learning. We will also discover tips and tricks to get even more out of your Internet communication device. Participants need to bring their own iPad to fully participate in this hands-on session. Do not miss out on this innovative workshop! Teachers, administrators, IT professionals and technology coordinators are welcome.

Presenter: Eric Mazur, Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, Harvard University Co-founder of Learning Catalytics and Brian Lukoff Postdoctoral Fellow in Technology and Education, Harvard University Co-founder and CEO, Learning Catalytics

Most -- if not all -- of the important skills in our lives are acquired outside the traditional classroom setting. Yet we continue to teach using lectures where students passively take down information. Peer instruction is a research-based pedagogy that actively engages students in the classroom and has been shown to dramatically improve conceptual understanding, even in large classes. While successfully implementing peer instruction doesn't require any technology, using the right technology can improve student engagement, increase learning, and make it easier to implement peer instruction in your classroom. In this workshop you will learn how to use Learning Catalytics -- a web-based technology publicly unveiled for the first time last year at BLC '11 -- to bring peer instruction to your students. You will get hands-on experience designing effective questions -- not just multiple-choice but also open-ended questions where students produce textual, numerical, or graphical responses -- and using Learning Catalytics to pose them to students. You will also see how to use Learning Catalytics to manage the discussions students have during class and promote engagement and conceptual understanding.

Presenter: Ewan McIntosh, CEO, Edu.blogs.com, Edinburgh, Scotland

Data is not boring. Data is not something that's just for math or science class. Since 2010 we've never had so much publicly available data about the way our lives are run, the environment, our geography, our history… But most of us don't know how to tap into the PDFs, tables, geocodes and charts to dig out the meaningful stories hidden in there. Learning how is one of the key new literacy skills our youngsters will need if they are to be fully participative members of society:

• How can Google open up hidden data?
• How can our students become gatherers of meaningful information about the world around them?
• What stories have been told using data, and can we find authentic real world problems that our students could help solve with their own open data crunching?

Presenters: Kathy Cassidy, First grade teacher, Moose Jaw, SK, Canada & Angela Maiers, Independent Consultant, Des Moines, IA

In a world of rapidly developing technology, are you having a difficult time finding a jumping off point? In this four-hour session you will take part in a hands-on learning adventure that models an immersion process you can use with your own students. You will interact with a powerful learning community as you explore a variety of Web-based tools and learn to integrate these same tools across the curriculum in meaningful and effective ways. The results will be expanded opportunities for developing a personal learning community, authentic work, global audiences and concrete ways that your students can make valuable contributions to their learning community.

Presenter: Alan November, Senior Partner, November Learning, Marblehead, MA

How can leaders maximize student engagement and academic achievement? How can leaders encourage teachers and students to collaborate with peers and professionals around the world?

The goal of this session is to provide you with maximum capacity for effective leadership in the 21st Century. This session will outline essential skills for leaders and offer practical guidelines and creative solutions for building accountability into the planning process. Articulating vision and managing change will be emphasized, along with the following:

• Alignment of curriculum to standards
• Designing more rigorous, demanding and globally connected assignments
• Building capacity for family and community involvement
• Addressing issues related to equity
• Developing critical thinking skills
• Designing staff development programs
• Defining new roles for students
• Sharing best practices

Presenters: Eric Marcos, Math Teacher, Lincoln Middle School, Santa Monica, CA & Dave McCollom, Education Evangelist, TechSmith, Lansing, MI & Ryan Eash, Instructional Designer, TechSmith, Lansing, MI

Screencasting is a fun and exciting way for students to take an active role in their own learning. Student-created screencasts can be used for authentic assessment, tutoring and sharing concepts with a global audience. This workshop will start with the basics of how to get started with screencasting. With hands-on guidance and demonstrations, participants will learn how easy it is to record, edit and share their screencasts using Camtasia (a free copy of Camtasia Studio or Camtasia for Mac will be provided to each attendee).

Participants will learn to create, organize and present crisp, professionally-pleasing screencasts. Other topics to be covered include:

• Screencasting on a budget
• Pen-based input tools (Tablet PC, Electronic Whiteboard, USB Tablets, etc)
• Tips on microphones and recording high quality audio

Presenters: Julia Leong, November Learning Associate, Vancouver, BC

Do you like to eat with your fingers? Maybe the iPad is for you. Are you a “multitasker”? If so, perhaps the iPad is not for you. What real questions do you need to consider in implementing mobile technologies into a school culture? How does teaching and learning change when you have access to the right information at the right time.

In an age of overabundance of information what information do we need, do our students need? Learn about practical examples of how you can use iPads for empowered learning. This is not a session showing yet another list of the latest apps. Bring your iPad and be prepared to share an idea of how you are using iPads to change the structures of learning. Join Julia for this hands on popular session.