Speaking on a panel tomorrow at InPlay11 and saw a couple great and inspiring panels today that I wanted to leave notes on here.
Gever Tulley’s Brightworks school
His talk was basically a derivative of this TED talk he did last year, only thing different is that he is actually starting a school with these ideas in SF this fall. 🙂
My favorite quote from @gever‘s keynote – education is suffering from “atrophy of delight” – there is a vacuum of passion in most teaching that is robbing out kids from those intoxicating “aha!” moments.
Fortune Cookies: Long and Short Term Future of Kids Tech
Left this talk totally inspired. The kind of talk that you just nod your head to constantly while feverishly taking notes and jotting down ideas. Best kind of talk.
– Education needs to focus less on the hardware and more on the content and curriculum
– Dr McEwen working on ipod/ipad work with non-verbal autistic children
– Gesture mapping and gesture guidelines for fine motor skill problems, swipe and drag are not easy – Dexteria is an example of an app like this
– Vygotsky – social interaction and instruction go together – which are 2 areas that are difficult for autistic children
– Need to continue development in sensory feedback – not just visual, but auditory, haptic, smell
– edubuzz.org, a collaborative tool where students, teachers and parents share info on school, spikes in traffic at 3pm and 11pm – parents getting invovled
– We need to encourage personal branding from an early age – being aware of personal profile building and owning that – what happens when you are googled…
– Use the tech as a tool, not as end goal – it’s the teaching/inspiration/passion that engages the kids
– Scrollmotion, with Haughton Mifflin, made Fuse – making the textbook more interactive
– I wonder, tho, how many teachers are empowered to fight for alternative teaching methods and how many schools allow that
– Jim Bower asked if the push of processing info in new digital ways might be increasing autism
– McEwen answers that continuity and reducing the amount of “noise” in the app is helpful, from matte finsh to reduce shine, to consstency in the voice used, etc
– Wifi is contenciois as there is research that exposing children to electromagnetcic frequencies may be causing problems
– Segregation of play in education – only in recess and phys ed – “not allowed” elsewhere int eh school day.
– Think in developmental stages, not ages
Joi Podgorny 
Hi!
repost you post: to my @mrulkcis twitter