Check out our students blogs!

I'm happy to write that we have students blogging in all 3 divisions (lower, middle, and upper) of our school.

LS: These blogs are still somewhat locked down. If you would like to collaborate with our LS students please contact me!

MS: The 7th grade science classes have just hatched ducklings! They incubated the ducks in the classroom for 4 weeks, studied embryonic development, watched them hatch, and are now taking care of them. Check out their blog for pictures, videos, and updates over the next couple of weeks: http://ducks2010.blogspot.com

Check out and please comment on the photo/video blog of ducklings being hatched and raised.

US: Students in an Intro to Computer Science are programming in Python. Links to their blogs follow:

This is Harlan's (the teacher) ipad and python programming blog:

http://howeprogramming.blogspot.com

This is Ankush's blog on programming "laser blast" in python

http://ankush1018.blogspot.com/

This is Matt's blog - he is a second year student (currently in AP, too) who is writing "Demon Attack" in Python:

http://mattrabey.blogspot.com/

This is Luke's Blog. He is writing Mario Bros. in Python:

http://pythonlv.blogspot.com/

This is Patrick's. He is writing some sort of pokemon game in python. Right now, he has his character walking around on a map.

http://pythonfinalroberts.blogspot.com/

This is Charles' blog. He is a freshman, and he's picked an ambitious program - super mario bros.

http://pythonmariogame.blogspot.com/

And this is Graham's blog. He is a former AP student and a senior. He is writing Bomberman:

http://ggpython.blogspot.com/

Day 1 of NAIS

One of the best experiences at NAIS is meeting new people. Yesterday, having just arrived, I met a board member from a school in Nigeria. We ended up speaking about possible collaborations between our students and exchanged contact information. Stay Tuned.

NAIS 2010

I'm live tweeting the sessions I'm attending at the conference. My twitter name is larry.kahn. Follow me or read my tweets.

Thanking PLP

This year 5 teachers from my school, from all 3 divisions, and I have been working in a professional development program called Powerful Learning Practice. This year-long program has each teacher explore new web tools by having them find one tool that enables them to "learn more and share knowledge with others about something they are passionate about" so that they can "own the technology" BEFORE they take it to their classroom. All of the teachers who participated have reported the program has been "transformational." Students in these teachers' classes are using technology in new and exciting ways to enrich their learning. They are engaged in project-based learning that is thinning the walls of the classroom and inspiring them to be creative. Utilizing tools such as blogger, voicethread, ning, and igoogle, students in their classes are blogging, making connections with students and adults from other parts of the world, meeting experts outside of the classroom, etc.

Best of all, I fully expect this transformational change to be sustainable as these teachers and I are in the process of creating a new professional development model, based on our experience at PLP, that we will implement this summer. This program is off to a great start. Further, we fully intend to continue to meet as a group on an on-going basis to continue our learning community after this program is over.

Creativity, Toys and Change

After watching this video of Caleb Chung at TED I reflected what I learned from Sir Ken Robinson and Dan Pink about the importance of nurturing creativity in students. Mr Chung's work balances art and science with incredible creativity. The bulk of this video, as Mr. Chung summarizes his career to date addresses the importance of this mix.

The last two minutes of the video dramatically demonstrate how toys have changed. I think it is important for all of us involved in teaching children, who are no longer regularly have contact with children outside of school, to visit a toy store at least a few times a year to fully grasp these changes.

Web 2.0 Goes to the Symphony

Last Friday night, after receiving electrical power for the 1st time in 2 weeks in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, my wife and I went to hear the Houston Symphony perform. It turned out that we were seeing the 1st concert since Hurricane Ike hit Houston. The symphony was performing 2 great works, Mozart's piano concerto 21 and Shostakovich's Symphony #13 about the massacre of Jews during WWII at Babi Yar. The printed program for the concert contained 2 interesting references: to wikipedia and to creative commons. The article on Shostakovich's Symphony #13 referenced wikipedia and included a photograph of a Babi Yar memorial licensed under creative commons. When mainstream organizations like the Houston Symphony cite new forms of reference and utilize new forms of copyright, shouldn't schools encourage students to do so as well?

Let's have an intelligent and respectful discussion about technology

Last Thursday I attended a conference on education.  The conference featured two keynote speakers.  The first speaker, Eboo Patel, spoke eloquently about the importance of having intelligent and respectful discussions about religion.  He also spoke passionately about the importance of finding common ground and building bridges between people of different faiths.  That is in fact the work he is doing with his Interface Youth Council.  He also stressed the importance of having intelligent, respectful discussions with students about religion and teaching them religious literacy.  As Mr. Patel said, "if we don't who will".

I believe that all of those points are true.  I also believe that tolerance, education, and respect are also important when addressing issues of media, culture, and technology.  Unfortunately, the second keynote speaker at the conference, James P. Steyer, of Common Sense Media approached technology, media and culture like Professor Harold Hill of the music man, speaking of "trouble in river city".   

We digital, media, and cultural immigrants must approach these topics with dignity, respect, and intelligence.  Media Literacy is extremely important.  Returning from the conference I advised my teachers to seek out wonderful sources such as NMLP and these excellent sources from the University of Connecticut.