Presenting the Presentations…

woman in black suit
Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com

Greetings Starfighters,

Normally in this space, you’d find 10 things I found this week that I think are awesome.

This week, I’m at the KySTE Conference in Louisville, KY, leaving me with a shortened list of things to share. Next week, I’ll be back with a full set of 10.

If you’re interested, I’m giving two presentations at KySTE, one on some ideas for integrating the science of learning and development in a virtual academy and another on how we started a Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP) in our virtual academy this year (the themes in this one are specific to KY, but I’m sure there’s a version you can implement where you are).

You can find the slides and resources for both those sessions right here.

Yesterday, during my session, I looked at my watch and remembered that four years prior, I was at the same conference in a meeting to figure out how we would get learning materials to kids since we were closing in-person schooling due to COVID-19.

Of course, that was only supposed to be for two weeks…

In other news:

  1. Adobe is getting into the digital badging game. This seems like a late move, with so many edtech providers offering badges and “ambassador” programs for years now. As someone who once chased these credentials, I always worry that the mindset is more about becoming an unpaid salesman for a company rather than focusing on great outcomes for kids. Still, there is value in earning these badges.
  2. From the “We Can’t Avoid It, So We’ll Embrace It” Department – Pearson is expanding AI within its Pearson+ e-textbooks in the coming school year.
  3. If you work in education (or really any industry) and share your thoughts and work online as I do, Christy Tucker has some great advice on setting realistic boundaries for sharing freely (face it, folks, we gotta get paid somehow).
  4. In other news involving money, Accenture is buying Udacity to build a learning platform for AI.
  5. Educators are increasingly adopting the concept of play theory, which argues that play and learning are fundamentally intertwined and that children benefit from a healthy balance of both.

OK, that’s 5 awesome things to share. Have a great weekend, gang. Mine will be spent watching T-Swift on repeat with my pre-teen daughter. I’d appreciate your thoughts and prayers 😉



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