I had the distinct pleasure of representing Durham Academy at an Executive Briefing with Apple Computer in Cupertino. The purpose was to discuss how we can move the learning at Durham Academy forward into the future and how they may help. We were treated extremely well by all Apple Executives and given a warm and relaxed atmosphere in which to discuss our needs. We asked our questions on how to create an Open Learning Community so that all members can be contributors and consumers of content. We made a strong case for pedagogy, learning, content creation, and professional development in order to successfully scale out a learning community. We found that we are on the leading edge of this movement in the United States. I feel real good about our plan and feel that we are on the correct path in adjusting our school to 21st Century Learning.

We also visited with Bob Smith at Stanford’s Walenberg Hall to see first hand how they designed a building for flexible and engaged learning. A very impressive building with wonderful tools for faculty. The chairs they used are unbelievably comfortable. Steelcase – Cachet

Thank you Durham Academy for sending us to California to see the future and develop a plan to bring it here.

David Warlick is presenting a session on A Beginners Introduction to Games and Learning here at NCETC. Handouts are at his handout wiki. Video Games are an interesting issue for me as I see students coming to the lab at lunch to get on a computer so they can play games. Runescape is huge and I see students working together to get into the same game and then helping each other play. While this game site may be against the Acceptable Use Code of DA, I am fascinated by how students are collaborating and problem-solving for the 15 minutes they have after lunch. It seems to be mostly 5th and 6th grade students. Linerider as of late is very popular as students tend to use it for two purposes. One purpose is to make really complex lines that the rider must ride that incorporate loops and jumps. A different approach is to create lines that end with the line rider crashing. Guess which ones boys do the most and which ones girls do the most. This is not a scientific study but a casual observation as I walk around the labs at lunch time. How can we harness the benefits of games in an educational setting? David said that a study has found that those of us who are over 35 years old are only 10% likely to play games.

This topic is of importance as students are engaged and interested in gaming at school. The Serious Games Initiative is a place to start looking at how we might incorporate games. Peacemakergame is a game created in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University.

Battery on laptop is low so I must stop. Game Over

I am attending the NCETC conference in Greensboro, NC where I have took a half-day workshop on Lego Mindstorms NXT. Kristie Brown showed us how to use Robo Educator so we could program the robots. I think we need to bring the instruction of Robotics back to DA in the Middle and Upper School. Her web site can be a great help to get started. RoboCup and Lego League are two competitions that students can participate in.

David Wagner gave wonderful presentation on Pixie which is a drawing and writing software that I am looking at to replace AppleWorks in the Lower School. I won a free copy of the software since there were only two of us in attendance.

I am now in a presentation from a Professor from UNC-Charlotte who is talking about how to integrate Course Management Systems into a K-12 setting. He is using Moodle as he finds it much easier to use then the commercial options.

I met Michael Silverstein from CDW-G in the vendor area. What a nice surprise since I have spent much money with CDW-G but never had met him.

There remains much to see today and tomorrow. I will keep you posted on what I learn.