21st Century LEARNERS Symposium

On Friday, October 19th, 2007, eleven other staff members and I attended the 21st Century LEARNERS Symposium hosted by CTAP region 11, Los Angeles County. This group was composed of most of the members of our newly formed Technology Task Force. We started the day with registration and a cruise around the vendor's tables. We all found each other inside the great hall and crowded around a table for 10 to listen to the Key Note Speaker (Alan November) who was both funny and inspiring. He brought humor and sadness with his stories about his son’s educational experience. Authentic activities and assessment was the theme that played out throughout his talk. At the conclusion of the Key Note we split up to attend the 1st breakout session.

I attended Alan Novembers “Teaching Zack to Think” where Alan demonstrated several great tools to support Information Literacy Skills for 21st Century Learners. As a librarian I was in heaven. For those GOOGLEites who think that the only solution to finding information is to GOOGLE something Mr. November showed us how to use ALTA VISTA. He also reviewed how to find the source of a website for its authority. Other great web sites discussed in his presentation can be found on my delicious account.

We met up again for a box lunch and discussion on our first breakout sessions. Cheryl Lemke, the luncheon speaker shared her ideas on technology as well as a great resource in TED. For the last session of the day I attended the “Leadership Training with McREL”. The session primarily focused on presenting two other workshops sponsored by McREL a research-based professional development group. What I liked about their message was that they are a non-profit research-based professional development group who’s goal is to make other groups (schools, districts, . . .) self-sustaining. They work to help groups obtain the skills necessary to for education and technology to be sustainable without their assistance. Matt Kuhn, a presenter and author shared with us the newly published book: Using Technology With Classroom Instruction That Works base on the same principles as Robert J. Marzano’s book Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement (ASCD) with a technology emphasis.

The day ended with a raffle drawing where one of my colleagues and I both won a $100.00 American Express gift card. All in all a very good day - isn’t it always when you can say you have learned something new!