Keynote – 2008 U.S. Education Summit

Marc Prensky is an internationally acclaimed speaker, writer, consultant, and designer in the critical areas of education and learning. He is the author of Digital Game-Based Learning (McGraw-Hill, 2001), the founder and CEO of Games2train (whose clients include IBM, Nokia, Pfizer, the US Department of Defense and the LA and Florida Virtual Schools) and creator of the sites www.dodgamecommunity.com and www.socialimpactgames.com .

Marc has created over 50 software games for learning, including the world’s first fast-action videogame-based training tools and world-wide, multi-player, multi-team on-line competitions. He has also taught at all levels. Marc has been featured in articles in The NY Times and The Wall Street Journal, has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and the BBC, and was named as one of training’s top 10 “visionaries” by Training magazine. He holds graduate degrees from Yale (Teaching) and Harvard (MBA).

General Session: 2008 Education Summit

Sonny Magana welcomes Mike Horan and officials from Sarasota County Schools for a entertaining and at times, quite humorous presentation which sets the stage for a broad examination of Activclassroom technology.

Promethean Power

From an impressive classroom of young bloggers apparently taught by Deborah Daniels…

This year we were fortunate enough to have a Promethean board installed in our classroom.  That in itself was great!  I never imagined how wonderfully interactive it would be. 

One of the things that I love the most about it is the fact that the students readily grasp how to use it.  Not only are they capable of using a majority of the tools, they are very able and willing to let me know when I have made a mistake with one of them and what I need to do to get back on track. 

Even with all of the neat things we could do with the board by itself, I never realized just how powerful it could be until I introduced the Activotes or clickers.  Oh, my gosh!  Suddenly everything we did was fun, even the SOL writing test multiple choice reviews (How much fun could that be?).  For students to be able to click on their answers and see the results immediately posted was truly awesome.  Then, when they could see how they did on all of the items combined by a mere click of the Summary button, it nearly blew them away, as it did me!  Not only could I see at a glance how everyone did, but I also had an instant matrix which showed which items I needed to review in order to achieve class mastery.  No more tallying test items for me! 

The more I use this glorious teaching tool, the more I thank my lucky stars that our school system saw the value in such an item as the Promethean board.  And to think that when I bought my first computer I used to get the sweats just thinking about using it!  You just never know! 

Blog Assignment 9 – What do you like best about the Promethean board?  Do you think the Activotes (clickers) will help you in the classroom?  Why or why not?

Opening: 2008 U.S. National Education Summit

Sonny Magana opens up the 2008 Summit in Sarasota, introducing Promethean CEO Jean-Yves Charlier. Learn more about Mr. Charlier here.