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Today at the CODE Summit we started with one of the most entertaining speakers I have ever heard. Sir Ken Robinson was humorous almost to the point of being ridiculous until he brought his humour around to highlight something extremely profound. My favourite analogy was comparing a childs gift, i.e. a human resource to a natural resource…it’s not always lying there on the surface, sometimes you have to dig for it. He also referenced a BBC program with the very telling title of “Does he take sugar” which refers to the extremely rude habit people have of asking questions of the person pushing the wheelchair instead of the person in the wheelchair. Sir Ken, who contracted Polio at the age of 5, talked about how his parents and teachers helped him find his gifts and talents and encouraged all of us to do the same.
On the heels of Sir Ken was a presentation from the Hasting Prince Edward DSB on Assistive Technology. Some of the software titles they used for their CODE project were Kurzweil, Dragon and Co-Writer. The question was asked “What structures can be put in place to eradicate the perceived stigma of using assistive software and the notion that the use of assistive software is equivalent to cheating.” I wish I had gone to this session later as I picked up a great line at the next session – “Equity is equal outcomes” meaning that it may take some assistive technology to get everyone to the finish line and that is OK! The team from Hastings put together some great resources for teaching kids how to use these programs and I hope they will be made available on the CODE website. The team also cited a big influence from Todd Cunningham
The last session was on Differentiated Instruction and was presented by a team from the Hamilton Wentworth DSB. The team from HWDSB really took the DI torch and ran with it. My group discussed the “Book Club” and “Dinner and a Movie” projects which were very clever ways of engaging their teachers in professional discussions around DI books and research. It was evident the team was walking the talk as they rolled out coloured folders, varied activities, small group discussions, clickers, clappers, candies and chocolate. We had a great discussion and shared our own board’s activities and practice around book study which seemed to be well received by the group.
Last but not least, I have to give kudos to the conference planning committee for trying out twitter. I was a little disappointed in the small number of posts but making that the only forum for feedback on the conference was a great way to tell the senior administration that made up the bulk of the conference attendees that web 2.0 is here to stay so hop on board!
Some other conference related links:
Parent Engagement
and don’t miss the CODE Chronicles
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