AMPLITUDE :: Innovation Support

Innovation Extra ...

In honor of officially kicking off your innovation projects ... this week we will focus the blog assignment on that.

Convey what you are doing out side of class time to work on your projects.  Are you...  Meeting a teammate?  Researching? Attending a webinar?  Meeting with teachers?   Writing emails?   Writing notes on your webpage?

All you have to do this week is share what work you are doing on your project out side of class time.

That's it!  Now go do something project-ish....

The Next Step

Innovation in Education!


As GenYES students and technology mentors, one of the most importance facets of your role is to be technology innovators.  Last week you explored the idea of innovation.  Now it's time to BE innovators!


So how do we do this? 


1.  Breeze through this document:  Up to the Challenge  (YIKES! It's 38 pages long! Are you CRAZY MsK?)  No! I just want you to get the feel for what the study* is talking about!  Read a few parts in the beginning.  Stop and look at some pages that get your attention.  Discover some critical skills needed for students (Like YOU!) to be successful.  Pause around pages 17 through 20ish and understand what we (GenYES'ers) are striving for as tech innovators.  Consider what we've built and are building. Why are we creating AMP Zones?  What are we doing with this Compass Lab?  Why did we buy a Promethean Board?  → Comment on points about what you read and how it affects what we are doing.   
Are you up for the challenge?


2. There may be things more important in education than memorization of facts.  After all, we have google for fact finding, right?  The new ideologies are: The 4 C's.   What are they?  

3.  The simple video above is analogous to the way we do classwork now and proposes the idea of discovering new approaches and ideas through ... innovation.  Think about how this movie applies to the classrooms of today and potentially tomorrow.  Be specific.  


4.  What is Compass 2015 about? 


5. In Shadow's part of Compass 2015 what Objective and Strategy are the Compass Lab and Amp Zones listed for this year?  (Listed as digital lab and Amplitude)  What other notes about 21st Century Learning does it say we are proposed to do? 


Note:  Yep this is a long blog assignment!  OK OK...it's worth 100 points AND you will have class time to work on these concepts this week!  
  
*study:  There are many, similar studies and significant data to support this thinking.

Innovation

                          What     is     innovation    ?

Lion

250+ Lion Features

Lion Video

Australia!

This week, in honor of our Australian vistors, imagine that YOU are moving to Australia!

1. Pick a city in Australia to move to.

2. Pick a place to live in that city; apartment or house

3. Pick the high school that you will attend in the same city.

Provide a picture link (use Google Short links) and comment to each task. Look at my example and model it for your entry.

This is not an easy assignment and you will be discovering some unique skills in Internet searching for this type of information. It will be interesting to see who rises to the top in this challenge!

PS Let's vote on who finds the coolest place to live in Australia. Prize? Yes.

Leadership

Considering the philosophy of the GenYES organization; sound leadership plays a major role in the programs' success, from the local perspective of students acting as campus, technology ambassadors to running a world class company.

1. Explore this Leadership link. Choose one of the topics and fully investigate the properties of leadership. Give a summary of what you read.

2. What leadership strengths do you possess?

3. List some characteristics of being a leader that you feel you might need some improvement.

Google Apps

What are the best Google Apps? Find 3:

1) One for fun, chillaxin (did I really say that?)

2) One for education (use for school stuff)

3) One for productivity (organizational, study help, notes, etc)

Give a reason why you chose that app. Just a few words why it's the best. (This is easy, schmeasy homework huh?)

Oh yeah...you have PRESENTATIONS due this week!!

Spend the Money

Say Shadow received a check for $ 200,000. to use for technology and YOU were in charge of how to spend it for our school.  How would you spend it?  (No it's not for you...it's for the SCHOOL!)

1. Research prices of the items you want to buy.  (Round out the dollar amount)  What decisions would you make?  Would you replace the labs?  Would you buy another laptop cart?  Would you buy portable devices?  Which devices?  Smartboards?  Would you mix it all up?  Come as close as you can to spending all the money to best represent current technologies.     See my (somewhat crazy) example below.

2. Provide an idea for care of the purchases you made against theft or misuse.

3. There are approximately 1750 students, about 60 classrooms at SMHS.  How many kids will benefit from your idea?

Chrome Notebooks

This week your challenge is to research information about these devices.

1. List three (3) significant specs or facts about the chrome CR-48.  No duplicate entries.  

2. What's the point of owning a chrome notebook?  Hint:
 

3.  Find the absolutely, positively, coolest, most unique way to use these devices in a classroom.  Include the website.  There is a prize on this one so ramp up your research!  

Laptops! Netbooks! Tablets! (and books..)

The past year or so,  a wide range of tablets, iPads, Galaxys, Xooms and more hit the streets.   Netbooks are making a splash splitting out the laptop market.  There are so many choices... it's mind boggling!

1.  Why don't we see more kids bringing these devices to school?  If there are so many devices out there ...who has them?  


2. What are the issues with the idea of parents buying digital devices for kids to bring to school? (Instead of paper, pencils, binders etc)


3. What about the school providing a digital device for each student?  What are the good points of this idea?  Bad points?  (Schools have only about $270/student to spend for books) 


Vote:  School vs. Parent 

4. So what's the best all around 'educational learning tool' for a high school student?  ipad?  other tablet?  netbook?  laptop?  book?  Why?