ISTE Day 3: Learning Together

San Domenico School's Assistant Head of School, Cecily Stock, shares highlights from Day 3 of ISTE as experienced by teachers from diverse grade levels of our School:

It has been an exciting learning opportunity for me to be able to accompany teachers from all three divisions of San Domenico to this conference.  We have spent our days attending a wide range of presentations, some focused on specific apps and techniques, and others addressing some of the broader conceptual and philosophical issues around technology and education.  In between, we have be meeting up in pairs or small groups to discuss what we are learning and brainstorming on how to best bring back this wealth of information to our colleagues at San Domenico.

Day 3 of the ISTE conference began with an inspiring keynote speech by Dr. Yong Zhao, Presidential Chair and Associate Dean for Global Education, University of Oregon College of Education.  SD high school math teacher and department chair Mike Sloan shares that, "Dr. Zhao challenged policymakers' interest in emulating 'high-performing' education systems (measured through international testing such as PISA or TIMMS,) arguing that the prescriptive nature of such systems fails to produce creative or entrepreneurial individuals.  To paraphrase his concluding remarks, 'The goal of education should not be to teach to increase test scores.   The goal of education should be to teach each child so that they may reach their maximum potential.'  Both entertaining and convincing, Dr. Zhao's presentation was a great start to another informative and compelling day at ISTE 2012, filled with so many resources and so much information, that one can only hope to collect and absorb as much as possible and to further explore in the days, weeks, and months ahead."  Mike also enjoyed a presentation later in the day on "Metacognition in Mathematics."

Primary school teacher, Nancy Goralski, also enjoyed the keynote speech and shares that, "Technology provides intellectual laboratories that will allow us to go further in education by providing a greater range and depth of projects from which to learn.  I'm looking forward to thinking of ways to stimulate the creativity of my students using technology as an essential tool to springboard greater possibilities."  Nancy also attended a presentation on  "Creativity Re-examined in Light of Piaget, Papert, and Bloom" in which she learned about four simple observations (knowledge, comprehension, application, synthesis) that teachers can make during the learning process that are easily understood and redefine creativity.  Within this context, technology is viewed as the most enabling and the least restrictive tool.

Middle school technology facilitator, Kali Baird learned about a new resource:  Apps4iSchool that will be launched this summer.  This app will filter and rate the thousands of educational apps that are currently available for teachers and students.  Math teacher, Valerie Davis learned how to do 3D drawings using Google Sketch-up, while I attended several presentations on digital citizenship, seeking out new resources and assessing what schools around the country are doing in this area.  The high point of the day for 6th grade moderator and math teacher, Brooke Gelber, was meeting the two educators who started the flipping "revolution", Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams.  Brooke and Mike Sloan have been flipping their instruction in both middle school and high school classrooms this year, and meeting these two pioneers was in Brooke's words, "So cool!"