First Full Day

On the first full day of the Flat Classroom Conference, teachers, students and presenters have accomplished a lot. The opening ceremony, speed sharing session, and boot camps flew by, and then it was time for students to share their pitch. Student groups pitched their Flat Classroom type project ideas to teachers and received feedback right away. They gave the pitch 6 times to 6 different groups of teachers, and it was great to see them incorporating the feedback from one group to the next.

After lunch, we presented. Let's take a moment to breathe a sigh of relief, relaxation, satisfaction and a little bit of pride. Dr. Z introduced our topic, instructional design, with a few brief words, and then left it up to us. Cathy O, Lisa and BDay told the story of Queen ADDIE using the Prezi. Cathy O narrated as Lisa clicked from one of her drawings to the next. BDay handled the puppet like a Henson muppeteer. Next, Carrie, Jami, Deb, Farah and I walked through the steps of Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation included in sound instructional design.

Teachers were ripped out of their conference comfort zone after our presentation when they chose groups with which to create their own Flat Classroom type projects for core curriculum classes. The groups were self selected by age level and/or curricular area taught. So there were math teachers together and elementary teachers together and elementary teachers who wanted to focus on math together. Teachers will pitch their ideas to students in a very similar round table manner tomorrow receiving critiques.

This afternoon during the Flat Learning Action Talks, Bernajean Porter spoke about digital storytelling. Students from Think Global Schools spoke to us about going to school in three different countries within the same year. Frank Guttler evoked emotion and provoked thought discussing Digital vs. Analog film making. All in all, it was a long, busy, intense, and fun day.
P.S. I know there is a real lack of links and visual interest in this blog, but I’m too tired to seek out the right links, and I was way too busy to take pictures today!