Talks

What happens when we prefer AI to real teachers?

Artificial intelligence is advancing so rapidly that there is no way to stop it. It arrives, often invisibly, and we immediately adopt it because of the utility it offers us. But what does it threaten to take away? And how do we use it in education in ways that honor our desire to give students the best education possible, while also honoring our desire to keep education human?

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You will leave with a big picture overview of artificial intelligence, as well as practical considerations, to help you reimagine your life as an educator in an age of AI.

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Based on Jason’s new book, 4Four Big Ideas for the Future (Introduction by Yong Zhao), and on his newsletter, Big Ideas Bi-Weekly.

The Future is just getting started.

Based on Jason's latest book, 4Four Big Ideas for the Future, this presentation considers four major themes driving our digital evolution: 1) Writing TECHXT- navigating the changing nature of communication due to emerging media; 2) Digital Citizenship - the ethics of living a digital lifestyle; 3) Trends That Bend - technological trajectories that are changing us fundamentally in terms of how we live, learn, work and play; and 4) The Art of the Story - telling stories that will help us understand the past, and create the futures we want for our communities and our children.

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You will leave with a big picture overview, as well as practical considerations, to help you reimagine your life as an educator, entrepreneur, community member.

Based on Jason’s new book, 4Four Big Ideas for the Future (Introduction by Yong Zhao), and on his newsletter, Big Ideas Bi-Weekly.

Tech trajectories that are changing everything

This presentation addresses the following questions about the immediate future: What are the main technological trends that are cresting and entering into the educational and social mainstream? How do we prepare for them now so we aren’t blindsided? How can we use these new technologies to improve our schools and communities, while understanding and avoiding their limitations?

We will consider Big Data, the Semantic Web, Immersion, The Internet of Things, Extreme BYOD, Transmedia, Neuro/biological enhancement, artificial intelligence and other trends. Each is explained in non-technical terms in ways that can help you understand and plan for a near term future that will change dramatically. Above all, we will have fun as we journey into the near future and find inspiration from the innovation what awaits us.

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Based on books, Four Big Ideas; Digital Community, Digital Citizen; and Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning and Creativity.

Now Media, New Literacies

Digital literacy? It means students can no longer simply be passive consumers of media. They need to be able to produce whatever they consume if they are to own their own learning. Twenty years ago that involved letters and numbers. Now it involves creating original work using new and evolving “now media” that arrives unannounced to challenge, inspire, and expand our expression in the form of video, transmedia, online resources, and more. It means art is the 4th R, the language we all need to write new media. Our job? To help students become active media creators, critical media consumers, and engaged digital citizens who can use new media across the curriculum and throughout their lives. And it is our job to help students tell stories and create narrative that is articulate, original, and research-based, and in which the media supports the narrative, and not the other way around. 

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This presentation features theory, lessons, and many examples of student work.

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Based on books, Four Big Ideas for the Future, Digital Community, Digital Citizen; and Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning and Creativity.

Technological innovation is an out-of-control roller coaster without brakes. It is up to us to help students develop a keen sense of character so that they can act as inspired and humane stewards of the technology that is becoming all-powerful, omniscient and invisible. The future of the human race may well depend on it. This presentation considers the character education movement, and adapts it to the needs of today's students who are immersed in the continuous use of media and living a digital lifestyle.

Creating your narrative, telling your story, building your brand

In this presentation Jason shares the proprietary system he has been using for twenty-five years for planning, creating and telling stories. His theories and tools can be used to create digital, multimedia and transmedia stories, as well as oral narrative and more traditional stories. He shows examples, story development processes, and - depending on whether it is a keynote or workshop - works with people directly to craft a story for their particular purposes. This presentation works for anyone wanting to tell an effective story, for learning, persuading, selling, branding, therapy.

How to predict, create, own the future

Learn how to predict new technologies and technological trends - and have fun doing it. This workshop provides models for understanding innovation and for predicting and even proposing new possibilities in the world of emerging technology. Participants will develop ideas for new technologies that serve their professional and/or personal goals. They will also develop new ways “to see” the technological lifestyle that has become so normal to all of us, that it has become largely invisible. The workshop activities can be transferred to most classrooms, if participants have the interest in trying something new.

Based on his book, Digital Community, Digital Citizen.

Navigating ethics during times of extreme change, fearlessly and hopefully

For many, the thought of our kids immersed in an online world inspires anxiety about their children’s safety. But if we're wise, we'll use the current digital citizenship movement to create the digital lifestyles and online communities that reflect what's best in us.  Our goals for ourselves and our students are to navigate the online world in ways that are safe, ethical and responsible, and also inspired, innovative, savvy and ultimately wise. After all, we want students to learn how to use technology not only safely and responsibly, but also with a sense of inspiration and opportunity.

This presentation provides practical information about how to create responsible school programs aimed at helping students become good digital citizens. In addition, it models exercises I have successfully used with thousands of K-12 students to help raise their awareness of the challenges and opportunities of living a digital lifestyle. Of particular interest: how to help students “read media” so they can understand the difference between real and fake news.

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Based on: Digital Community, Digital Citizen: "...an important read for anyone wanting to understand technology's impact on education." Will Richardson, Also, Taming the Beast: Choice and Control in the Electronic Jungle: "...the best of the books appearing about the (effects of) media in the education of our youth."  Neil Postman

Literacy for the transmedia age

"In an era in which students design Web sites and media presentations for homework assignments, and integrate video, graphics, music, animation into school projects, art is fast becoming the new literacy for our times. The 3 Rs are now the 4 Rs: reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and art." 

To be truly literate, our students need to be able to think and communicate as designers and artists, tap into the creativity that new media encourages, and create art projects that are articulate and engaging. This presentation addresses the question, How can schools help students harness new media to create art media projects for educational, personal, and work purposes?

A fun, fictional romp through a probable future

In an age of "No Child Left Behind," what's technology's role? Should we go digital, or go ditch it all? After gobs of glizty gear, computers that teach, robots that clean house, the novel's hero asks: Then what?

Then What? is a fun, serious, roller coaster of a story about a computer savant seeking a path with a heart in a plastic and silicon world gone crazy with innovation. It's about personal transformation as our hero goes from geeker, to seeker, to teacher, to innovative designer of new schools. It's about re-thinking our schools if we are going to prepare our kids for the lives they will live, rather than the lives we are used to.

Based on his novel, Then What?

Practical digital citizenship...making ethical, savvy decisions about digital lifestyles

If we tell students what to do with their tech, they'll game the system. But if we involve them in developing their own futures, then they'll frame the system. Neuroscientists say our ethical reasoning abilities aren't fully developed until our early 20s. We can jump start this by letting students practice framing the ethical systems that impact their lives.

This presentation models an exercise used with K-12 students in which they are put in charge of developing policies for using technology and the Internet. They develop rules, repercussions and big picture perspectives to navigate the complex issues of living a digital lifestyle. In the process they develop skills that transfer to emerging, mind boggling tech we can't even imagine yet. Adapts well to any group: education (at all levels), administrators, commerce, policy makers.

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Based on Jason’s new book, 4Four Big Ideas for the Future (Introduction by Yong Zhao), and previous book, Digital Community, Digital Citizen.

Your deliberate digital footprint

The point of keeping a portfortfolio isn't just to collect work, it is to think about and improve your work, as well as present yourself to the world.

In this presentation, Jason addresses the theory behind of portfolio engagement, and then shows the methods he has used to have students create rich, engaging, reflective online portfolios. Although he focuses on using free Internet resources - so that teachers can replicate what they learn in their own classrooms - the ideas, and reflective approaches can be used with any portfolio system. "One approach to dealing with digital footprints is to represent our best selves online."

Reflections on 35 years as a virtual teacher

In this presentation Jason presents insights about teaching and forming learning communities online based on his over thirty years of being an online teacher, program director and course developer.

He offered some of the earliest online courses, pre-Internet, and continues today to teach online for a number of institutions. He synthesizes what he has learned and presents it as rules, suggestions and policies for helping ensure that teachers and students are engaged and successful. He addresses how to migrate from face to face with a sense of quality and engagement.

Telling your story with clarity, humanity and technology

What's a primary reasons teachers don't require movies, digital stories, social media and other new media narrative projects? Because they don't know how to use them in their curriculum or assess them helpfully. The fact is that kids aren’t just consuming media, they're creating it, using images, music, more. We need to be involved, to help them create media that's articulate, well researched, tranformational. Learn how to: evaluate new media in terms of story and production so you can give students helpful feedback; do all of this, regardless of your technical know-how.

Based on Jason's best selling Digital Storytelling in the Classroom, 2nd edition...

Engaging students in the new math of social media

Tell students what to do with their tech, they'll game the system. Involve them in rule making,  and they'll frame the system. Neuroscientists say our ethical reasoning abilities aren't fully developed until our early 20s. We can jump start this by letting students practice framing the system.

This presentation puts participants in charge of developing policy for using tech, the internet. They develop rules, ramifications, big picture perspectives to navigate the complex issues of living a digital lifestyle. In the process they develop skills that transfer to emerging, mind boggling tech we can't even imagine yet. Adapts well to any group: education, commerce, policy makers.

What I learned when IPF took my breath away

In 2014 Jason received the news that he had Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), a disease that scars over the lungs, eventually making it impossible for them to deliver oxygen to the body. The medical community has little understanding of IPF, and there's no cure in sight. Typically, IPF kills within 3-5 years of diagnosis. Miraculously, he was rescued by a double lung transplant lin the knick of time. A brilliant medical staff, the support of family and friends, new technology, and a magnanimous donation from a stranger gave him a second chance at life. Here Jason speaks from the heart and mind about life and what's important: breathing meaning into everything we do.