Jim Carleton and Mali Bickley - Tues. Keynote

Mali Bickly and Jim Carleton from Ontario, CA were introduced. Their successful collaborative technology projects have become inspirational. They gave a

quick video introduction of these two fabulous teachers.


This is a great way to do a Keynote - Lester Holt interviewed the two with included media. Some thoughts:
They simply started with a partner in their school
2nd year it went to a school-wide collaboration project - had support of all administration
by 3rd year they went global using the iEarn.org - how lucky I was yesterday to be a partner in leading the Birds of a Feather yesterday with iEarn

Their first response from students - they took ownership and jumped in with both feet (the project joined with Sierra Leone students just coming out of war).
Some of these projects take a life of their own as opposed to the proscribed textbook learning.

If this presentation is posted anywhere, every teacher must view it. We have to move on from our "stock" methods of education into this world-wide mode of

learning if we hope to ever solve the problems of today.

Suggested teachers take a look at myhero.com as a good beginning project. Levels of achievement have gone up due to these projects.
This has brought the students into the real meaning of the world today. The students and these projects are driving the curriculum. The reading, social

studies and sciences are embedded - as mentioned previously, achievement goes up! Theirs actually increased as much as 20 percent.
Powerful learning and becoming a part of history themselves.

all teachers and students helped to support each other and everyone learned together.
I was very impressed with the ease and enthusiasm of Mali and Jim. And the tears flowed across my aisles during the examples - I'll bet they were dropping

across the room.

Jim likes to call this "The Lord of the eFlys".
They have now moved to synchronous communications within each project. Which they feel is a major part of this learning. They get it!

My thoughts - why can't we find the time to do this with every student? How in the world can these projects not be more important to our students than our

industrial model of "teaching to the test".
Is this the way to move toward world collaboration - isn't this a road to the future? And if so, what a journey!
If technology is used correctly it can change not only the students, but the world.
WOW!


sharonbetts
iearn
mali bickley
jim carleton
necc2008