Learning with YouTube Day 12: Reimagining Classrooms #busedu #31daysofPD #personalizedPD @TopDogTeaching

Today, I selected the TEDx Fargo talk called Reimagining Classrooms: Teachers As Learners and Students as Leaders by Kayla Delzer.

This gal seems like a pretty fun teacher in North Dakota. She talks about trying to get classrooms to stop looking like the classroom of 70 years ago to better give students ownership in their learning and where students take a leadership role.

She gave these suggestions:

1. Release the POWER in the classroom. The teacher does not have to know how to do everything. Allow students to select and "play" with apps and figure out how to learn from it  in pursuit of education.
2. Embrace PURPOSEFUL technology. Embrace their knowledge and they will embrace their learning. Don't just replace a written assignment with a typed assignment or a paper book with an iBook. Make it have meaning--project-based or collaborative elements are great.
3. Don't FEED the FEARS! There is so much power in their tech that is in their hands. She talked about some schools having "cell phone hotels" or blocking YouTube. It's the number one used search engine among students in grades 5-12 (at the time of her 2015 talk). 
4.  If it's RIGHT for kids, it's RIGHT. These kiddos have not lived without Wi-fi, don't know T9 texting, didn't have dial-up internet... technology is the language today's students speak. 
5. 93% of employers now use social media in some way to either recruit or hire employees. So, if students have a negative or neutral digital footprint, they are behind. Teachers must help students learn how to be "well-googled" when they graduate high school. 
6. Make GLOBAL connections. 
7. REINVENT the skills of today. Assess creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication skills... their grit... digital literacy. 

Are our classrooms as engaging, responsive and dynamic as the world around us? 

Man, this talk was so on point. I have been proud that recent leadership in my school district has very much embraced technology, YouTube, social media, and are allowing us to work with these tools with students. 

She also mentioned Genius Hour again (I'm hearing it all the time and it's hard in a content specific classroom at the high school level, in my opinion) and when I followed her on Twitter, she had this nice little share that has some steps for helping students to find their passions:

I wrote not long ago about how I want to "figure out" cell phone use "rules" for my classroom. I want to embrace technology. I want to help students learn the right and wrong way to use technology in groups (without hiding or fear of getting written up). I am working hard on this for the fall! I want to find a "responsible cell phone use" policy (and trust me, my Googling has just not come up with anything useful!). I need a 30 second brain break here and there when working; so, I feel like they should be able to do that to. I know that if I am taking an assessment, that's a time I can't use my phone and they need to learn to self-police that, too. But, if teachers in staff meetings can use their technology, I feel like we need to instruct students on how to respectfully do it, too. Of course, in the same breath, I don't want students rushing through projects, doing a cruddy job, or not using extra time wisely (like for homework in other classes) just to have "free phone time" so there has to be a balance. I'd like to embrace "Passion Time" and find something they'd like to learn on their own when they have time (or when I give them specific days for it). I'd like to learn guitar, but I've failed miserably trying to teach myself.... but perhaps if I was given educational time to devote to that when I was younger, I might be able to do it now!

Thanks, Kayla, for this talk.