The Tree of Knowledge Creation

It was very cool to do some creating with a graphic image for our partner project in CTL1799 this week. I think it turned out very well! This is a scanned image of a free hand drawing which was then coloured and text was added. I think this would be great to use with kids who could also scan in original art and add text to demonstrate their learning.

I had a chance to play around with some great software from Tech4Learning that I received at the premiere event of The Constructivist Consortium down in Atlanta this past June. This was done using Pixie, one of their drawing tools. There are a few others that I need to explore.

Sadly, it's rare that I have the time to re-visit some of the great resources that I gather in my teacher travels, certainly not because of ill-intentions, but mostly because I somehow don't make the time. We've been discussing Holistic approaches in class and the challenge of balancing time to explore with just getting everything done! It speaks to the value of having an exploration day, like the one Gary Stager organized for us at the Constructivist Consortium day...we need it as much as the kids do!

Amazed at Atlanta!

I've just returned from the very friendly city of Atlanta attending the NECC 2007 Conference for my self-funded PD adventure. Air Canada was great as usual and the accommodations were not exactly posh, but it was the experience that was FABULOUS!

The highlights of the conference were:

• Hall Davidson and learning how to embed media in Google Earth tours.
• Gary Stager's excellent tribute to the work of Seymour Papert
• Mitch Resnick "Sewing the Seeds of a Creative Society"
• Checking out my friends at LCSI, FableVision, GenYes, Inspiration
  
  

I couldn't believe it when I bumped into a friend of a friend here in Guelph, Maria Knee, from NH. Maria and a friend Tracy back home have been skyping with their kindergarten classes and I have been assisting this effort a wee bit by trying to get a webcam for Tracy's class. We couldn't believe our luck at running into each other at Resnick's session! Birds of a Feather flock together! That's Maria and I checking our Microworlds Jr at the LCSI booth.



Another highlight was the amazing Fondue dinner at Dante's Down the Hatch in Buckhead. I'm not at liberty to add many details here since it is classified information, but suffice it to say that I DID, boldly and unashamedly, get a taste of that chocolate fondue (thanks to some primary teachers from Altlanta) and it would be definitely worth another trip to Atlanta. Dante is the charming guy in the middle in between the two intellectual types who remain unidentified.

The Constructivist Consortium - Premiere Event in Atlanta

Lucky me! I was able to get out to Atlanta a couple of days early for the NECC conference and attend a wonderful premiere event from The Constructivist Consortium. This group of educators and software creators are interested in rekindling the constructivist spirit in education with meaningful uses of educational technology.

The gorgeous setting of the Atlanta Botanical Gardens was the perfect backdrop for an engaging and refreshing day of learning and exploring. The day began with a keynote from Gary Stager who is never afraid to publicize the truth about education, both the harsh realities of a system that doesn't always keep the needs of students at the forefront, along with the inspiring hopefulness that keeps us teachers at it, and providing a lot of chuckles along the way.

Following Gary, Peter Reynolds urged us out of the box to put our DOT on the page and create during the day. We didn't have to be designers...we could just be designer-ish, taking the plunge and becoming the risk-takers that we so often expect of our students. Not an easy task, but we were up for it!

Then, in the style of the kindergarten program (a place where some folks might say we finally get it right in education), we were provided the opportunity to explore, create, design, collaborate and share with software from these excellent sources:

• Microworlds
  
• FableVision
• Tech4Learning
• GenYes
  
• Inspiration
• SchoolKit
  

What an awesome day! I'm so pleased to be involved with this grass-roots organization from the premiere event and hope that I can continue to be involved.