KEYNOTE THREE
2:15 pm – Saturday, May 15
click on underlining for more information
| Making Learning Irresistible: Expanding K-12 Instructional Design | ||||
| The soul and substance of our human experience is nurtured by beauty, is conceptualized at least as much (if not more) by non-discursive symbolism, and thrives and attains new levels of meaningfulness and significance when authentically engaging students to help them better understand real problems in the real world. Yet, I hear only one mantra for educational reform: prepare students, by mastering a minimum set of curriculum standards, to be economically viable in an increasingly globally competitive job market. But what of our young students passionately working to solve the greatest problems of our time? Why must school be so disconnected from the complex and demanding real world in which our students live? To put it more simply: I'm an educator. I've worked over 30 years in a profession of my choice. I'm an artist. I've lived life for over 50 years in a perceptual framework that chose me. The latter informs the former in Making Learning Irresistible: Expanding K-12 Instructional Design. In our time together, explore with me an educational framework that moves beyond pedantic pedagogy that disconnects children from the joy that really is learning to an instructional design that empowers young lives lived richly today as our students' create a better world now because of what they are learning in school. The classroom today can be virtually anything we can imagine. Join me as we start to design the, as yet, unimaginable! |
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Dr. Tim Tyson, named one of Georgia's High Performance Principals by State Governor Sonny Perdue, served as the principal of Mabry Middle School in Cobb County, Georgia. The School Library Journal has referred to Dr. Tyson as the "Pied Piper of Educational Technology," and his innovative use of technology to maximize student achievement has been featured in a variety of national and international education magazines. Tim began the school's annual, student-led, digital film festival which has received attention from the Lucas Foundation, Georgia Public Broadcasting, and internationally renowned education reformers. MabryOnline.org, a collection of over 100 blogs which served as the school web presence through June of 2007, features his former students', teachers', and administrators' digital media creations, and served up over 1.5 million files a month to users all over the world. The site also offers the Global Learning Collaborative, an interactive project collaborative for educators, practitioners, and students around the world. Though a self-described geek, Tim believes that technology is neither "the answer nor the magic bullet" but a tool that, when appropriately leveraged, brings people together so that they can collaboratively create and share with unprecedented ease and facility. [Check out Tim's interactive 3D business card.] When he is not traveling, reading, dabbling with photography, digital video, or on the computer, he enjoys arranging and composing music. With a global vision for making our world a better place, he values the creation of beauty in all of the many different forms it can take – the most powerful of which, and closest to his heart, is helping children reach their highest potential. Tim's passion is unmistakable, and his goal in every keynote address and workshop is the same: to empower people by making learning irresistible. |
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