I love these weekends. I love being in a place where everyone is fired up. I love being in Napa. I love hanging with old friends, meeting new friends and secretly planning on creating our own sweet new school. A few quick thoughts from GAFE Summit Napa...
The main takeaways:
1. Engage children all the time.
Each session I was in as a learner, this concept came up. Engage them from the moment they enter the classroom. Better yet, engage them the day before for the next day. Get your students to try and break in your door, then you're good. Move forward from here with excellent content and high quality teaching and we are on the right track.
2. Push towards inquiry based models whenever possible.
Leave the kids hanging. Ask them what they wonder, what they are curious about, what inspires them. Inspiring curiosity through questions, content and media is a good thing.
3. GAFE Summits aren't all about technology. It's mostly about people, ideas, friendships, learning and students. Yes, the WiFi is important, and I tweeted all afternoon, but that wasn't the point. The point was to open up old eyes to new tricks and new eyes to what is possible. Sergio Villegas (@coach_sv) and I were chatting at lunch, "two years ago people didn't know or care about a lot of these big ideas," he said. "Being more connected has opened people up to big ideas.
Tinker Time
I am fired up to get back with my students and share new ideas with them. We will sketch, build, design, iterate and explore. We will also be using Makey Makey's for the first time ever. More on this in just a few hours.....
