3. The illiterate of the 21st Century are
not those who cannot read and
write but those who cannot learn,
unlearn and relearn.
Alvin Toffler, Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Power at
the Edge of the 21st Century
9. Goals
• Make a new friend(s) across the region
• Imagine and build creative circuits
• Enhance prior learning through interactive elements
• Understand importance of play and open ended
challenges
• Infuse play with the classroom to reach learning goals
• Have fun!
17. 2018’s top earning YouTuber was born
in 2010, and brought in $22m -- up
$11m from the year prior.
18. Soooo, everyone’s cool with
this? Good. Great. Carry on.
• Ryan’s just your average 1st-grader with millions of
dollars, original content on multiple streaming
networks, and his own Ryan action figure -- just
classic 7-year-old stuff.
• Ryan is part of the “unboxing” worldIn his most
popular video (which has snagged more than 1.5m
views since Sunday) Ryan opens up giant eggs to
find toys from Disney’s Cars and Paw Patrol.
• But 1.5m views barely scratches the surface: Ryan
has more than 17.3m followers and nearly 26B views
since his main channel launched in 2015… when he
was 3.
28. E-Sports
• $100 Million in Prize Money for
Fortnite in 2018-2019 competitions
• 60 million viewers for League of
Legends championship matche
• $500,000 spent by SUNY for e-
sports arena
• $500-$8000 college scholarships
• 1500 esports athletes
• $50,000 guaranteed minimum salary
for Overwatch League players
32. The POWER of imagination
I gave you all the same tool. You all had the same task - build a duck - but I did not say anything about what the duck should look like – I gave you no building or design criteria. When I look at them I can quickly see that you have all succeeded in building a duck no matter what they look like.
Have everyone hold up their duck to show/share with the rest of the group.
You have all succeeded and I believe you all had the same set of bricks to start with – the same conditions, but look at how many variations we came up with.
The lesson learned here is there are many ways to reach a solution. By engaging your mind, you can create many solutions to any problem
33. Play is learning!
visual perception
systems thinking
long-term memory
mental imagery
attention
executive functioning
self-regulation
emotional regulation
self-efficacy
visual search
symbolic representations
spatial visualization
self-assessment
perspective-taking
adaptive social functioning
imitation
sensory-motor skills
cognitive flexibility
kinesthetic awareness
short-term memory
mental rotation
fine motor skills
working memory
spatial abilities
Key message 1:
We often tend to think that, of course play has a value, children enjoy it, but it’s not really serious, - what are they actually learning?
Nothing could be more wrong - being playful, like you did here, by experimenting with things, trying things out by taking them apart and putting them together again, taking risks with new ideas, is the ultimate way of learning.
While you didn’t had time to really ‘think’, during the 40 seconds you were building, - your brain was actually working like crazy.
GO TO SLIDE 3 HERE:
Let me illustrate:
Key message 2: Let me give you are few examples of what happened while you were building the duck
Executive Functioning:
It’s fundamental for your ability to concentrate and to control yourself like when you are keeping attention to ask and avoiding distractions.
This is essential for problem-solving, like when you are dealing with a complex problem or in a task or situation with many different inputs, or information.
Symbolic Representation :
The ability to associate objects, actions or symbols with a particular meaning, like when you were looking for elements that had similarities with a duck.
Important for language development when understanding the meaning of letters and words and numbers in relationship to everyday objects.
Spatial abilities:
Thinking about and manipulating objects in 3-dimensions, like when visualizing inside your head what you wanted to build, and then manipulating the elements to make the duck.
This is essential for your ability to visualize and imagine a situation, and look at it from different directions, - and maybe even more critical, this plays a key role in mathematical thinking, when children learn to sort, count and quantify objects.
Self-regulation:
Most of you got a little stressed during this task, but as Jørgen mentioned no-one failed.
Your ability to regulate your emotions and motivation, while setting yourself the goal of completing the duck and working yourself towards that goal, is called self-regulation.
Important for you to control and lead yourself when you are setting yourself a goal and trying to achieve it.
Key message 3:
Sometimes we consider these abilities like concentration, controlling yourself, visualizing ideas, understanding space for soft skills – things that are a by-product of learning.
Nothing could be more wrong, because these skills that you use when you are motivated to play and make things, are the ones that are critical problem-solving and creativity and even also the fundamental way of learning language, reading, writing and mathematics.
34. Current Reality?
Too many mandates
Pressure for higher test scores
Burden of finding quality teachers
Budget cuts
Try to squeeze 20 hours of work into an 8 hour day
Trying to lead while also trying to manage
STEM can help reduce some of these issues if done right!
Makerspaces need to be included in these conversations
35. Current Reality?
MORE
All of this MORE leads to average.
Nobody can do all of this. We must tap into our expertise and embrace what we can bring to the table.
All of this MORE leads to more SAME
36. I dare you to look into our school, take a look at the the classrooms and
tell me that they look inviting, because they do not. Bland walls, rough
carpet, stiff desks that were assembled into shabby groups placed
sporadically throughout the room. If you want kids to enjoy and
participate in school, is it not logical to make them feel comfortable in
this environment? High Tech High out in California is an extremely
successful school and renowned for its pioneering with student voice,
and it has a very unique setup when it comes to the classrooms, they
have glass walls and easily movable furniture. They foster the kind of
environment that makes students feel at home and interested, not like
they are in a bland, pastel prison.
