Pure Manaʻo

The metaphor: Today was a salad with dressing on the side kind of day: healthy dose of affirmation, not too heavy on the sales pitches, not too saturated with bells and whistles, and a little bit of crunch to balance the dish. The facts: The highlight session for me was session #1 with Dr. Michael Fullan talking about "Stratosphere: Integrating Technology, Pedagogy, and Change Knowledge." In short: The session talked about the ineffective role of technology in change knowledge when it was not paired up with pedagogy. My takeaways: student motivation decreases the older they get (the above graph charts enthusiasm by grade level. At 9th grade, the enthusiasm rate drops to a low of 37) teacher satisfaction also decreases - "55% of new teachers leave the profession within the first five years" - Michael Fullan the necessary breakthrough to combat the downward trends  comes with new knowledge created with the partnering of technology, pedagogy and cha...

ISTE 2012 (International Society for Technology in Education) is in San Diego this summer at the convention center. The conference started off with the usual business affairs, then moved on to a much hyped keynote by Sir Ken Robinson , an advocate for creativity in education. The ISTE volunteers and hosts valiantly tried to control the seating in the room by cordoning off rows of seats in order to force educators into the sides of the room first. They did not realize that we are teachers who have traveled from across the country on our summer break to attend this conference. Not only that, but we breathe democracy and social justice. If we show up one hour before the talk and respectfully stand in front of the door, it's not fair to push us toward the nether regions of the room instead of the prime seats at the center. Controlling us was impossible as people started breaking the ribbons. Robinson talked about the need to personalize education, "The problem is the whole...