These are my notes from the “One More Thing” session at the 2016 FETC conference.
Presenter
- Adam Bellow, @adambellow
- Founder, eduClipper
Notes
- As participants enter, he is playing a Jimmy Kimmel skit on the screen: “Movie: The Movie“.
- Started as a teacher, then tech director, then did start ups.
- On a resume, you can say “I have been teaching for x number of phones”. The slide shows a lineup of several dozen smartphones that he has used.
- Presentation philosophy
- Slides are free
- Say it now, you could be dead tomorrow.
- “Edupreneur”: I make stuff
- I even bought Applecare for my Kool Aid.
- Overtime, our personal computers become portable.
- Reviewed history of release of iPhone, App Store, and the iPad.
- Portable learning has a long history.
- Classroom technology misses the point because it puts too much emphasis on presentation devices.
- We have 1:1 since the chalkPad.
- Netbooks were not successful.
- First iPad was not well received.
- As a tech director, he refused to let a school to have an iPad for each teacher because they weren’t planning to let the kids use them.
- There are no apps to fix the eduproblems.
- Districts give technology, but not time.
- Ed tech is often just digital replication.
- Innovation is not just iteration. Innovation requires bravery.
- “Solutions get cooked up in board rooms and fed to us in classrooms.”
- “Date the device, but marry the abilities.” Don’t get attached to one type of device, but think about how other devices offer similar functions, and be ready to switch platforms.
- Being an early adopter can be painful, “we are from 5 years in their future”.
- Consumption vs. creation. Our job is to teach kids to cook, not just to eat.
- Teach kids to upload apps, not just download them.
- Learn to code because it gives you the keys to unlock your imagination.
- Demonstrates apps that allow creation:
- GarageBand – you can try any instrument.
- Shows a full functioning CAD program.
- Floors: draw a Mario level on paper, scan it, and it creates a game you can play.
- Super Mario Maker for the Wii U.
- It’s not hour of code, it is hours of code.
- If you want to build a ship, give people a love of the sea (quote from the Little Prince)
- Shows video of old man learning to read so he can read his son’s book. It turns out to be a scotch commercial.
- The worst f-word is “fear of failure”. That is the greatest barrier of success.
- Old arcade games made you fail every 30 seconds so they could take your money, but you would keep coming back.
- Uses Tickle app to fly a drone over the audience. Shows journal entry of his son describing the experience in his writers notebook, and merely got a check from his teacher.
- “The beauty of technology is differentiation of creation.”
- #edchat and Ed Camp are bringing teachers together.
- The magic is what students create with the tools.
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