Discovery Education Speakers Bureau

From the Pacific to the Atlantic, trailblazing states and districts have begun a serious conversion to digital—a move from trees to bits.  Moving classroom practice more deeply into digital resources provides major benefits for differentiation, extended learning, remediation, and accountability.  But how does it happen? What’s the immediate effect on test scores? Considering the threat of enrollment base erosion from propriety schools, adoption not an option but a necessity.  Explore these issues with examples across the country. And bring your mobiles and machines for an interactive BYOT exercise.

Social networks, web-based communication and collaboration tools, and "powered-up" student challenges are not only engaging, they teach 21st century skills while delivering core curriculum. Bring all your machines and mobiles to participate as this session becomes a giant classroom with challenges and resources reaching across boundaries --and time. Virtual environments, Web 2.0, and a network of contacts will be available and tapped for the challenges—and replicable in a classroom. Learn why bricks and mortar districts must adopt these strategies quickly or risk the growing proprietary poaching of their enrollment base.

For fantastic, connection-free classroom assets, capture or download Web 2.0 creations, mix with both subject-area resources and your original creations: video, voice, and images. Explore how content on the web can be captured for editing on your desktop with both free and low cost tools.  Incorporate curriculum-based media in wildly engaging ways. Explore the legality, the benefits, and lots of engaging examples from Web 2.0 sites. Create on the web, capture locally, and build curriculum-rich projects and lessons.

Meet the needs of 21st Century learners. Begin with curriculum-based resources then tailor them for your class. Find videos, shorten/edit them easily. Add narrations, stills, music other videos. Make and take from Web 2.0 videos. Move into presentations. Insert students inside with Chromakey. The hidden power of QuickTime Pro (Mac or PC), screen captures, websites Xtranormal, Gizmoz. Most free, some fee, all fun. Step by step walks through great tools. Target engagement with mind-grabbing resources.

From California and Texas to the Atlantic, trailblazing states, districts and classrooms have begun a serious conversion to digital--a move from trees to bits. Moving classroom practice more deeply into digital resources provides major benefits for differentiation, extended learning, assessment, remediation, and data gathering for effectiveness. Far beyond text-bound PDFs, digital resources offer links, translations, expansions, and incorporate the wild energy of Web 2.0 tools. The different needs of learners are more easily met and digital resources foster networking, innovation, and curriculum support. Digital assignments and assessments move from white boards to mobile student pockets. A snapshot of what can be done right now, and a preview of where digital is heading.

One of the unforeseen consequences into technology’s integration in the social fabric is the creation of new knowledge, including new content and new strategies for teaching and learning. The challenges of content creation especially match 21st Century learners and the digital classroom. Jobs, global problems, and communication will be intertwined with the creation of both knowledge and content, and the ability to look at and analyze what is newly created will become a 21st Century skill. Originally created as a strategy for teachers of the gifted, this approach applies to all learners and gives a new perspective on what to do with all those digital tools

The “stand alone” method of teaching is fading and being replace by a model that taps colleagues, content, experts, and communication from both around the world and across the hall.  Collaborative projects with 'real time' elements take boldness and planning but building 21st Century Learners into 21st Century citizens makes it worthwhile . Watch some case study previews of coming classroom practice that tap Web 2.0, state curriculum standards, and student dedication .

The benefits of the digital world have arrived. State legislatures recognized dynamic teaching and assessment environments match 21st Century learning styles. As a result, laws changed in states across the country, enabling digital supplementary materials to replace traditional texts. Suddenly, differentiated instruction became more effective, along with accountability and sharing. Leaders can now build an education that lifts their students into the world where they succeed.

Going digital means significant upcoming changes in education.  Explore what this means to supplemental curriculum materials, individualized teaching and learning, and communication. Assessment and evaluation can be more effective and efficient. An overview of the near future that puts you ahead of the game and an exploration of tools you could be using today. Learn how create, publish, and effectively use media on the web.  Tap the power of Web 2.0 social networking tools for professional strength. Also, learn to effectively monitor assets like instructional media in your school or district, and ways to use your cellphone and discover its secret power to make your job easier.

Media moves up the engagement scale when kids and their content move, literally, onto the screen. An in-depth look at chromakey (green screen) on both Mac's and PC's.   Chromakey allows students (and teachers) to edit themselves into curriculum videos. With technology that used to be reserved for TV studios, teachers and students go where they couldn't go before.  With either stills or videos, enter a cell, a battlefield, a geometric figure or the world of battling dinosaurs.  Captioning allows them to describe, transcribe, or transform media while emphasizing literacy skills (Note: captioning is friendlier on a PC).