Day 1 - Unthink Schools to Rethink Learning- SXSWedu

I'm super excited that I was invited to attend SXSWedu with Jessica this week.  I'm very much out of my league but am so excited and energized by everything I'm learning. 

((Side Note-  Jessica Johnston is an Instructional Technologist for BISD and is awesome.  She is one of those people that completely motivate you in just a few minutes and make you want to be better at your job.  Read her blog- http://edtechchic.blogspot.com/ and follow her on twitter- @edtechchic.))

Session 1- Unthink Schools to Rethink Learning #FOLSXSW
Panel: Bryan Setser, Caprice Young, Javid Jamae, Malik Mott

The presentation started with this video:

The panel discussed what we dream of in education...what we dread in education...and the fact that the design of education falls somewhere in between. They discussed that technology allows for personalization of instruction- am I teaching the right lesson, to the right student, at the right time, in the right way?

From my notes-

• Be intentional in design.  Keep in mind a problem you are trying to solve.
• Maximize what technology means for students to optimize their learning experience.  Do not allow learning to be sacrificed for technology.  
• Competency based performance to prove skill set.  How does this fit in? 
• Before we can decide how to assess individualized learning, we need to assess the technology tools available.  Movement from multiple choice assessment to looking at "Do they know the the pieces of knowledge that they need to know" 
• Re engineering of technology for competency based assessment, move to e-portfolios, etc
• How to meld new process of assessments within current testing system?  Be as creative within constraints as possible and when you meet a constraint that needs to be changed- speak for a change.
• Don't look within to change the same problems.
• Anything that can be read and processed independently...post online.  Use time together for create problem solving processes.
• Kids are way ahead of us-  The existing system can not possibly catch up. 
• Tests are indicator of a goal, not the end goal themselves. 

What I'm taking from this session into my classroom- 

• E-portfolios - At this point it is just an idea....but I think it would be so cool to have my students create portfolios in their google drive accounts.  They could choose items that they feel show understanding of a topic to save to a specific portfolio folder and this folder would stay linked to their account throughout their years in BISD.  
• This was not the point of this session...but it is something I'm taking from it regardless... During the session there was a twitter feed showing on the screen.  I was listening to the panel and following conversation on twitter related to the discussion.  Our students are multitasking  too.  What if I created a discussion board using something free (TodaysMeet maybe?) that could support discussion/questions/answers during a lesson?