Skip to main content

Minnesota Google Summit Keynote: Mark Garrison on Technology and Adventure

White Bear Lake Technology Director, Mark Garrison gave the opening keynote at the Minnesota Google Summit. Here are my live blog notes from the session. 
He talked about growing up in Minnesota idolizing Will Steger and Paul Schirke.
His goal: Embrace change and be a beacon for life=long learning!

Interesting times with some hanging on to 20th century pedagogy with others moving forward in the 21st. There is a professional acheivement gap today between these two practices.
IWB's went into teacher's classrooms, but the training was around using the product instead of changing pedagogy.

Great change requires vision, skills incentives , recources and an action plan to acheive lasting change.

Filling the gap between these two pedagogical realities requires a bridge of these NOSTR model, via the strategic plan of the district, building and classroom.
All of us are responsible for improving and honing our skills. 
Elliot, Minnesota is "all carrot and no stick."
We need the tools, AND an action plan. We can't think of the tech department as the suppliers and fixers of stuff. None of us can be stagnant.

Garrison showed the SAMR model, talking about ladder and pools as metaphors. Garrison likes Hooker's model here.

Garrison argues that it's ok and you can have a lot of fun in the shallow end, and by the end of the day, all of the participants should get towards augmentation. It's when you pull yourself out of the pool and take your learning to a new context where true redefinition happens. You might even start seeing new uses for water!


Garrison started his teaching career in a remote fishing village in Alaska. After 10 years of teaching he and his wife went on a 4 month canoe trip from Minnesota to the Arctic Circle. He talked about the amazing experience and bonding that happened through that experience. They created a Website so that their students could track their progress. They had to use fax to send the info to his sister-in-law to get it up on the site, as this was long before the iPhone, Twitter or other tools.
He read excerpts from their experience with images from their journal. They soon started getting e-mails from all over the world. Upon returning, he pursued his Masters in Educational technology, and has found that educational technology is much like adventure, with the planning, deployment and implementation that is required for both.

An audit of their Tech Plan showed that they had done some great things in silos, but needed to continue to improve. Now they have passed a bond referendum, and are continuing to move forward. They are also offering choice in teacher devices.

They are moving to a model where students are touching tech every day. They are moving away from labs, and trying to get the state of MN to make sure their tests work on a Chromebook! 


"Technology isn't an event it's a tool for learning!"

Areas for growth includes incorporating more digital citizenship k-12. 
He mentioned 
Teachers need a broad reach of understanding, and a digital footprint!
What do students find when they Google you? If you don't have a digital footprint today, what does that say about you?

Interaction and engagement are what the 


Learning is CREATION, not consumption!

For those who don't like the SAMR model, there's TPACK. They're pretty similar, as when you meet the middle of the TPACK model, you're at the deep end of the pool!
Boring things on an iPad are still boring things!

Moving forward, we need to:
  • Start
  • Stop
  • Share 
  • and Disrupt!
Oprah says, you need no more than 33 items of clothing in our closet. 
What old pedagogical practices are we hanging on to that are taking up space? If you don't get rid of old belongings you can't make room for new!

What are you proud of that you can share? Every staff meeting should begin with this!
Garrison ended by sharing a project he did with his students on Shackleton, where he had created a Website and content. Technology gave his students the abiltiy to become explorers and create content similar to what he had done.  

His coach asked, why not do that for every unit? He realized that he didn't. He just needed to model enthusiasm for life long learning. As educators, we have chosen to spend our careers in learning institutions. 


We are mirrors!


Tech integration requires teachers to learn from and with students. It's the perfect place to model life long learning! We need to leverage the knowledge of everyone in the classroom to raise the bar for all of us!!

We can model this for everyone!




Weinberg-If our students are not engaged in the fray, they can't be ready for life-long learning. This is the greatest time to be a knowledge seeker.

20% of students of color are more likely to use technology for drill and practice, instead of creation. This gap needs to change, as students with more hands on experience, have better understanding!

We need to give our students the tools and the skills for the freedom to thrive! 
Technology=Change
These conversations are negatives. Gone are the days of mastering one tool (The overhead) and be set for 10 years of tech integration!

Are we better teachers than we were 10 years ago? 

Sean Beaverson tweeted out a link to this great video during the talk. 



The iPhone has 240,000 times the power of the Voyager space craft. What are we doing to leverage that in the classroom?

We need to change and grow to match the change we demand in our students. 


Learning=Change
We need to span the chasm, 

From Zynga

Love to play,
Surprise and delite
Level up
be CEO of your outcomes
Move Fast
Students first
Innovate

Garrision finished by challenging us to look for things that we will


Start                 Stop                Share

He invited us to share those ideas here.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Nos Chemins vers la paix: Award Winning Video!

Valley View Middle School French Imersion teacher, Heather Palmer created this award winning video, Nos Chemins vers la paix , for the Tel.A.Vision " Vision For America " Contest. Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com Powered by One True Media , Tel.A.Vision.tv allows students to create videos that share their vision for the future. Heather wanted to use this video to promote the Wiki she and her students created for "6 Billion Paths to Peace." On the wiki, Palmer states: Our project was inspired by the program " Six Billion Paths to Peace ", an initiative of the Shinnyo-en foundation. We like the challenge the program offers us: commit to making a difference in this moment, in this day, in this lifetime! Palmer received her award last week at the National Service Learning Conference, in Nashville, TN. Way to go, Heather! NOTE: A few weeks ago while looking at the copyright free music available on the site, I notice a cover of the "Spinal

TIES 2012: Kathryn Smith: Innovative Spaces Support 21st Century Learning

Kathryn Smith , former Bemidji State professor, presented on Innovative Spaces Support 21st Century Learning. Her presentation slides can be found here . Today, learning can happen anywhere, anytime, and on any device.  She started by using PollEverywhere to ask about the status of mobile technologies and school learning environments. She thinks that the TPACK model is a good one to use when implementing professional development around 21st Century learning. We are using this model in our BYOD professional development. Smith notes that the National Educational Technology Plan , is a great road map for change. Research has shown that the appropriate use of technology and the appropriate design of learning spaces is having a significant positive impact on learning. The learning spaces today are not that far removed from 19th Century classrooms. She showed this video from the University of Michigan on research on design of learning environment. Here are more videos fro