Nocking the Arrow

This post was inspired by two of my giants,   Tom Whitby & Steven W. Anderson "Relevancy includes not only skills educators need to use, but educators are also charged to teach these same skills to their students. Digital literacy is now an integral part of education for teaching and learning, going beyond the application in an education setting to that of the world of work. Strategies and methodologies used for collaborative learning in education are easily carried over to the world of work, enabling lifelong learning to become more than just words in a school's mission statement." - The Relevant Educator What used to constitute relevancy in education was confined to the pages of a textbook, the walls of a classroom, and the words of a teacher. However, today relevancy in education is learning empowered through connectedness. Connectedness and digital literacies create limitless availability to information, diversity in perspective, and access to gia

Wanting a break from last week's IETC conference in Springfield, I decided to walk across the street to the AMC-8 theater to see " Big Hero 6 ". I thoroughly enjoyed my second viewing of " Big Hero 6 " with a big bag of popcorn and a large Coke. If you are a teacher or a student, you will love this movie, not only because it's a captivating story, but also because it features themes currently prominent in learning and education. A box-office hit, here are six themes from this movie that will have teachers and students laughing and cheering from their theater seats. STEM EDUCATION - 14 year old robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada uses his engineering skills to inventively help his heroic friends overcome an evil adversary. Science, math, and technology are featured problem solving tools for Hiro and his robot friend, Baymax. When times get tough, Hiro encourages his friends to find solutions through creativity and innovation. Credit to Disney for trut

No one can logically argue that current and future education won't be based largely on our ability to leverage social networks for learning. There is plenty of rhetoric describing the emergence of web 3.0, but how many educators are practicing what they readily admit is the foundation of making our students "future-ready"?  I applaud Cale Birk for suggesting talk can be cheap, and it's time to feature action. In his post, " #EDUDO - The New Hashtag ", Cale asks educators to transparently share artifacts of learning using the Twitter hashtag, #EDUDO . Several years ago, my sons became interested in downhill skiing. It had been some time since I had been on the powdery slopes, but skiing presented an opportunity for the three of us to actively learn and grow our skill together. I wanted to be able to articulate and demonstrate safe and effective skiing to my sons. In order to do this, I did some online research, talked to experts at the pro shops,