Start with a Question

The U.S. Department of Education's Open Education initiative, also know as #GoOpen , came to New England for a summit hosted by Dr. Daniel Downs from North Reading Public Schools  at the Amazon offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts today. Leaders like Kristina Peters , Andrew Marcinek , and Grace Magley spoke, and I was honored to be asked to speak about how openly licensed resources and tools can be used to help create high quality learning experiences for our students. All students deserve great teachers, and great teachers deserve access to the resources they need to customize learning experiences for their students. But once they have access, what's next? How can we motivate students to want to read and learn deeper with these resources? We have to start by inspiring them with great questions. These questions shouldn't be based on standards, rather they should inspire our students to want to master the content and skills in the standards. There are examples of i...

Some criticize technology use in the classroom as a way to draw kids in with flashy colors, sounds, and games that don't promote hard work and deep learning. I see technology use in education as a way to inspire our learners to want to dig deeper into everything they learn. It can also help our students access resources and experts from the world beyond their school. So how can we make sure the EdTech is working for you and your students , and that it is not just another thing to add to the list of "things to do" in your classroom? 1. Better Professional Learning If school and instructional leaders want teachers to take risks with new teaching strategies and technology in their classrooms, they have to model that risk-taking when we design their professional learning experiences. Instead of having "technology trainings" we should embed technology into all professional learning . After all, we want teachers to embed technology only where it fits well i...