SLATE Conference 2013

Last week I had the amazing opportunity to attend the SLATE (School Leaders Advancing Technology in Education) conference in the Wisconsin Dells.  I was able to attend many sessions and learned a bunch of new things.  Here are some of the highlights from my notes at the conference:

The Power of Video Enhancement
In a session presented by Michael Krill and Emily Goranson from Nature Hill, I learned that there are three types of videos:

1. Videos that show, teach and tell new material
2. Videos that enhance or review previously taught material
3. Videos that establish a routine or ritual (a call to order video)

Teachers can incorporate videos into their classrooms, but we need to teach students how to actively watch them. People usually watch video (such as TV, movies, etc) passively. In order to learn new concepts, students need to learn to watch video actively.

In order to encourage students to watch video actively, teachers need to create videos that encourage interaction. When a teacher creates a video they can use instructions such as "pause the video", "stop and jot", etc. to encourage students to actively participate in the video. Teachers also need to create videos that are an appropriate length. As you create a video, keep in mind the attention span of your students. Make sure that you tailor the content and length to your target audience.

Incorporating video in the classroom is a relatively new concept. We assume that because students have watched entertainment video that they can translate those skills to watching an educational video. This is not the case. Students need to be explicitly taught how to watch actively.

Bring in the Games: Gaming in the K-12 Classroom

This was a session that I was really excited about attending. As it turns out, the presenter did not show up for the presentation. However, two people volunteered to share their experiences with gaming in the classroom. They shared a ton of knowledge!

Ken Schroeder shared with us the difference between gaming and gamification. Gaming brings games into the classroom in order to supplement the curriculum. With gamification of the classroom, the students learn the curriculum through the game. The game becomes the center of the class and "tricks" students into learning.

Ken shared the "World Peace Game" with us. In this political-science study, students broke up into groups, were assigned to a country, and together had to achieve world peace. Here's a link to the activity: https://www.worldpeacegame.org/.

Ken also talked about different sites where students can earn "badges".  Students earn the different badges for achieving different skills.  He said that sometimes earning a badge can provide enough external motivation to encourage kids to participate and engage in the curriculum.In the session, they also talked about how earning badges could work for teachers, too.  Rather than sitting through a specified number of hours for professional development, teachers could have the task of earning a badge.  This way the focus is on the teacher learning a new skill rather than achieving a required "seat time".
In a session I attended the next day, a teacher talked about how she designed her entire curriculum through a site called KP compass.  Students could view videos and earn badges.  Students competed with each other to learn new material and earn more badges.  It looks like an interesting way to set up a classroom and I am excited to learn more about it.