Equity Issues in Technology and Education - February 24th Event Announcement

I am real excited about an event I have been coordinating on February 24th at Hamline University. As part of both my role at EMID 6067 and my role at Hamline University and through the grant funding that brought me to EMID this year we are hosting a day-long symposium on equity issues in technology and education. We are also partnering with the Office of Equity and Integration to provide free admission and pay for a sub for teachers in our 10 member districts:

• Forest Lake Area Schools (ISD #831)
• Inver Grove Heights Community Schools (ISD #199)
• Roseville Area Schools (ISD #623)
• St. Paul Public Schools (ISD #625)
• South St. Paul Public Schools (SSD #006)
• South Washington County Schools (ISD #833)
• Spring Lake Park (ISD #16)
• Stillwater Area Schools (ISD #834)
• West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan School District (ISD #197)
• White Bear Lake Area Schools (ISD #624)

The event is also open to anyone else who would like to attend for a fee of $75. (Click here to register.) Space is limited to 150 people.

We will also be streaming our morning sessions and at least one of our afternoon sessions online using Elluminate. Anyone can attend for free online and we will do our best to make sure any questions for our panelists posted online are addressed at the event. (Click here to attend online).

S. Craig Watkins will be keynoting the event in the morning followed by a panel discussion featuring Ira Socol, Cassie Scharber, and Daniel Sellers. The afternoon will be filled with two sections of break-out sessions, one preset and the other attendee driven. For one of these sessions we will even have a third grade class come and hold class at our event. We often hear that students should be involved with teacher professional development but it rarely gets done. We are going to give it a try.

For more information about the event visit our official event website:


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Weekly Tech Tip - Game-Based Learning Environments and Self-Selection

Weekly Tech Tip:

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Video Festival:

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Link Stew:

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Blog Carnival:

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Retweetable Tweets:

MDE approved two more charter schools authorizers: Audubon Center of the North Woods and Northfield Public Schools, http://ht.ly/3sQpuless than a minute ago via HootSuiteMn Dept. Education
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I find it odd that an infant will ask "why" 300 times a day yet adults are infatuated with asking just "how".less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneJoe Bower
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#TIES10 STEM Panel Discussion

On Monday at the TIES Conference I attended a panel discussion on STEM. I was most impressed with what third grade teacher Ananth Pai was doing with technology in his classroom. Mr. Pai is a second career 4th year teacher who says that in his first year he realized that he had to make a change in his classroom. He started collecting technologies that could enhance learning in his classroom including many that some would find surprising like the Nintendo DS and other small portable devices. What struck me most about his approach was not so much how he integrated the technologies but how he selected them. His principal, three of his students, and their parents attended the session to support and share the good things that Mr. Pai is doing in his classroom. What struck me was their testimony about how much their teacher listens. Mr. Pai says he starts with what technologies the kids tell him they think they should be using admitting that they know more about what will engage them than he does. I absolutely love this approach and hope to visit his class sometime in the next couple of weeks to discuss more with him about his strategy for assessing technology and creating a student-centered learning environment. I highly recommend you check out his class webpage.