Digital Education Leadership Conference - Goin' Hollywood!

This week I was honored to be among a group of invited educators, technologists, district IT gurus and some of the leaders in the space where technology and learning collide...often with unintended results at the DELC 'Let's Go Hollywood' Conversation.

The world famous Magic Castle was the site of an amazing kick-off reception on Wednesday night where conference opening speaker Mark Seigel dazzled the crowd not with his inspiring insights about the possibilities for education but with...wait for it...Card Tricks!

The conference room at the Hollywood Renascence Hotel may have been small but the ideas were big, from Mr. Seigle's quite elegant connection to a quality education today solving the problems of tomorrow to Matt Federoff's demonstration VICCI, a beautiful, simple and intuitive online curriculum management system he created for the Vail, AZ School District.

Matt told us how they made Empire High School a textbook free zone. Sounds radical right? Well, to hear him tell the story it just made more sense economically to take the money they would spend on textbooks that become quickly out of date and spend it on laptops that can access a world of information and resources that's always current and relevant. Crazy right? Revolutionary? No, as it turns out just incredibly smart! Seriously, who do these people think they are?!

How does dynamic and appealing media like video games fit into classrooms in urban and rural areas? Pretty easily it would seem for those willing to try was the message I got from Adrian Hall who came all the way from the UK to show us how he hacked a PS2 dance mat to help schools teach 2nd language skills and how applications for the DS and other systems, and social networks are challenging what constitutes 'educational technology'.

There were also great conversations with Rowan Trollope of Symantec about cyber-citizenship and Ben Hope of Fox Network with the skinny on how a fully digital production, post production and distribution model saves money but is also pretty good for the environment.

I think one of the most intriguing activities the group engaged in was what I can only describe as a Constitutional Convention for a Student's Bill of Rights and I think the DELC got much more for the convention than they expected as the conversation touched on digital privacy, the importance of safe learning communities, what choice and voice does the student have regarding who teaches them what they learn. What does 'going to school' mean for the future of education...how about a world where we don't use the word school? Can a quality education be guaranteed for all learners if learning spaces don't have 4 walls and a whiteboard?

Having conversations like this with anyone passionate about education would be a thrill, in my case it was extra cool to be in to company of friends like my buddy (and fellow AFI exile) Mitch Aiken, Julie Drake & Chrystal Maggiore from the LA County Ed Office and some of my favorite Screen Ed workshop grads Barbara Barkemeyer my Google Teacher Academy classmate Jeremy Davis, and Kieth Lawrence from the Mary Pickford Institute. Thanks to the folks at the Center for Digital Education and their sponsors for a great couple of days of ideas, arguments, demos and Magic in Hollywood!
As they say...That's a wrap!

Comments

Matt Federoff said…
A couple corrections for your posting. It's Matt Federoff , not Mark, and I'm from Vail, Arizona, not CO. you were very complimentary to my work (and I'm grateful, thank you).... yet a few lines down seem somewhat dismissive of it overall. Which is more accurate?
December 14, 2008 at 8:51 AM
Frank Guttler said…
Hi Matt-
Thanks for reaching out, and I'm appreciative of your corrections.
I think the work you are doing is truly amazing for teachers and your students. My voice, which is new to blogging, sometimes does not do justice to my sense of genuine awe at what I encounter at these gatherings. As a new teacher, I'm inspired and hugely respectful of what you've done. You are boldly and creatively innovating.
December 14, 2008 at 12:49 PM
Joe B said…
Wow! What a gathering! I look forward to picking your brain more about this next time we meet. And give my best to Mitch the next time you run into him.
December 15, 2008 at 5:18 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

iPod Nano video camera in professional development...who knew?

Image
This iPod Nano Video workshop has just been named Best of CUE, as evaluated by the attendees and participants of the CUE 2010 Conference in Palm Springs. It's pretty easy to be a snob about video cameras if you went to film school. It's a Hi-Def, progressive-scanned, 1080i pixel resolutioned, cine-geek's wonderland! I have learned since then, most often by necessity, that good work can be done with the simplest tools at hand.   So when I was challenged by my friends at the recent Computer Using Educators Conference to present a Lights, Camera, Learn! workshop featuring the video camera on the new iPod nano , I was intrigued. This new 5g iPod Nano is certainly cool, it boasts a video camera, FM radio, pedometer among its extra features and absent a world with flying cars, the new nano is strong proof that the future is here! It captures certainly 'good enough', cell-phone quality video and sound, but it's so light and small you wonder if a strong gust of w
Read more

My First Class

Image
This week International Polytechnic High School in Pomona graduates it's class of 2009 and with it, the students of I-Poly Video. This year was my first year as a classroom teacher, these were my first students! The California state sponsored career-track outreach called ROP gave me opportunity to pilot a video class at a high school, which was a big change from the professional development training I was doing at AFI. Piloting a program in this case also meant designing a curriculum with engaging projects. I was lucky in that my class was motivated, adaptable and creative. Qualities any career counselor will tell you are critical keys to success. So, I had that going for me...which was nice. So, the kids were learning to be filmmakers and I was learning to be a teacher. We had a lot of fun this year. Here's what we came up with. Filmmaking is part of the curriculum at I-Poly, every student makes a movie as part of their study of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. So, I wanted to
Read more

A Thousand Words - Storytelling and Editing

Image
A picture is worth a thousand words, as the popular saying goes. The poetry of that statement belies the underlying truth of just how powerful images can be. A picture can show a view of reality, but the objectivity of that reality can be profoundly affected by how that picture is framed, how an individual's eye travels across the image, and how that image is interpreted by a viewer's own point of view and life experience. How an image is composed, read and interpreted can give that image the power to inspire and arouse great passion and sometimes great change. I wanted to develop a lesson for my ROP Video class at I-Poly H.S. that would challenge my students to 'read' a picture and to really think about how they use, and often misuse, editing tools such as transitions and effects. First, I set up a series of photo buckets with my Picasa account containing some historic photographs by Dorthea Lang and Lewis Hine from the Library of Congress' collection.
Read more