You're Invited! PBLchat for Connected Educator Month

Dab of Discussion in Tuesday night #pblchat Tweetup

A group of PBL enthusiasts use the hashtag #pblchat for anytime tweets on the topic of project-based learning. They also meet in real time for PBL twitter conversation on Tuesday evenings. This next Tuesday, August 21, in honor of Connected Educator Month, I'm sharing #pblchat hosting duties withTheresa Shafer from NewTech Network. We’re organizing discussion around the topic "What does connectedness mean for PBL?" We’ll pose several questions including but not limited to:

The teacher experience - What does connectedness do for us as PBL teachers? What are different ways you use virtual and IRL connections to enhance your practice? How does being connected feed your soul, feed your passion for teaching? Can you tell a story of an interaction that changed you profoundly?
The learner experience - What does connectedness mean for your students? What are different ways virtual and IRL connections contribute to their learning experience? Can you tell a story of an interaction that took your students someplace new, someplace they couldn't have otherwise reached?
The contributor experience - Beyond what connectedness means for us and our students, what does connecting do for others? I can tell tales about a respected author, a city council member, and a historian who were all changed by their interactions with kids. What stories can you tell?
Connectedness for change - What are the possibilities we've yet to explore? How can being connected not just contribute to our practice and to students' learning, but contribute to change in the world, too?

Please join us on Twitter Tuesday, August 21 at 9:00 p.m. eastern, set your filter to #pblchat and join the conversation.

Connectedness in PBL - Let's Tweet Up

Can you imagine carrying off a great project without connecting through technology? Is this even possible? Meet with fellow PBL enthusiasts on August 21 to discuss the ways connectedness is a game changer for PBL. No need to leave your cozy home, we'll be meeting in real-time on Twitter, organizing our conversation using the hashtag #PBLChat. This regular "tweetup" will be part of Connected Educator Month and we hope to see many new faces there.
#PBLChat is hosted by Theresa Shafer, Online Community Manager for the New Tech Network. I'll be joining as cohost for our session on connectedness.
Details:  Scroll down to Aug 21st on the Connected Educator Month Schedule, but simply put, meet us on Twitter at 9:00 US EDT, set your filters to #pblchat, and join in!

Innovating in an Era of Standards

Antero Garcia just posted a Q&A about Bringing Innovation to School on his blog, The American Crawl. As he points out in his intro, he's included in the book as an example of an innovative teacher. I first heard about him when he was launching The Black Cloud, an alternate reality game that he introduced with his high school students at Manual Arts High in L.A. He has just moved on to Colorado State University--but not before helping to open the Critical Design and Gaming School in South Central L.A. Can't wait to see what he does next.

What's Your School's Terroir?

What a pleasure it was to have Pam Moran, superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia, Skype into my ISTE session about making innovation teachable. Innovation gets special attention in her district, which has established a “seed fund” to encourage teachers and administrators to test promising ideas. No surprise that Albemarle County PS is one of the districts I profile in my new book, Bringing Innovation to School.

While Pam joined my session via Skype, four of her administrators were there in person. She teed them up to join the discussion by highlighting something unique about each school’s approach to teaching and learning. Patrick McLaughlin is principal of Henley Middle School, which has built its own renewable energy resource center. He showed us the real-time web interface that lets students track the energy produced by solar and wind installations at their school.  It’s a great set-up for inquiry-based projects for innovators-in-training.

Meanwhile, Tracey Saxon from Sutherland Middle School told us about the nature trail that her students have built for their community. It features interpretive signage that invites community members to take part in citizen science activities via mobile devices. Students have documented the building of Hollymead Nature Trail on their school blog.

Principal Gwedette Crummie from Crozet Elementary described how her students use social media to connect beyond the classroom walls and learn engineering principles to help them become better problem solvers. Kathryn Baylor from Jack Jouette Middle School explained how her students tackle inquiry and service projects in their community, using the Expeditionary Learning model.

Clearly, this is a district that doesn’t shy away from innovation, and the superintendent doesn’t look for cookie-cutter approaches from her principals or teachers. Instead, Moran invites each school to figure out its own answer to the question, “How can we teach students to innovate?"

An innovative thinker herself, Moran explained that each school should develop its own terroir. That’s a term she has borrowed from agriculture. Terroir is the sense of place that comes from the earth, giving coffee or wine grapes their distinctive character. I’ve never heard it applied to education before, but I like where she's going with this.

Innovators often think in metaphors. It’s one of the five thinking strategies I highlight in my new book. How serendipitous to have it demonstrated, right before our eyes at ISTE!

Thanks to Pam Moran and her team of innovators for enriching the conversation with their good ideas.

Slides from the session are available here.

See You at ISTE

I'm looking forward to the giant education conversation otherwise known as ISTE. It's a great opportunity to enjoy real-time meet-ups with folks I typically "see" only online, and meet others who are advocates of technology-rich, project-based learning. Here are two sessions I hope you'll consider adding to your busy conference calendars: -->PBL Birds of a Feather Jane and I will co-host a BoF for PBL'ers on Tuesday, June 26, 5-6:15 p.m., SDCC9. We have a game plan to keep things informal and fast-paced, and we'd love to know which questions about PBL are at the top of your list. Please join the PBL BoF group here. By nice coincidence, this session overlaps with weekly PBLchat. Use the hashtag #pblchat to suggest discussion questions, too. -->Inside the New Idea Factory On Wednesday, June 27, 11:45-12:45 p.m., SDCC9, I'll be leading a discussion about how to make innovation teachable. (Details here.) I'll share strategies and insights I gathered while researching my new book, Bringing Innovation to School. I'm delighted that Pam Moran, superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia, will be joining the conversation via Skype. Her district is going full throttle on multiple initiatives that encourage creativity, problem solving, and grassroots innovation. Between sessions, I look forward to hanging out in the Bloggers Cafe. Hope to see you there!

Coming Soon!

Solution Tree has set July as official launch for my new book, Bringing Innovation to School. Can't wait to start sharing the projects and strategies I learned about from savvy educators across the country. Meanwhile, thanks to Jonathan Martin for mentioning my book in his excellent review of Tony Wagner's new work, Creating Innovators. I'm just diving into Wagner's book. We have been exploring similar territory, but have brought back different stories to share. Learn more about release details for my title here.

Essential Question: How did it come to be this way?

I've been helping Indian teachers plan projects for their students, and not surprisingly, many of these focus on solving environmental challenges. Scarce water, plastic waste everywhere, bad air, no place to play, all of these issues affect the lives and health of Indian kids. Teachers' projects tend to focus on the capacity of the individual to make a difference. I guess I'm pessimistic-- with such huge problems intense collective action is required. I wonder if instead of personal action projects and awareness campaigns students should practice collective action that has a concrete and measurable result. A result they can reflect on later and think, I was part of something that made a difference and I can keep operating this way. Still muddling over this shift and how to talk about it with teachers. Any thoughts?