Our school partners know that Facilitator Support Specialist, Kim Butler, never stops thinking about new ways to help SmartLab Facilitators.  What they may not know is that Kim is also a database blackbelt. 

When we aligned our Learning Launcher curriculum to state and national standards, it created a new challenge.  How can our school partners easily navigate, search and sort such an extensive database of records?  And as we released more and more Learning Launchers and expanded our alignments to new standards such as Common Core, navigating the over 120,000 standards correlations became ever more daunting.

Kim to the rescue!

The just released Standards Tracker allows SmartLabs to easily search and sort alignments between Learning Launcher activities and a wide range of academic standards.  The Standards Tracker is now available at no charge to all SmartLab partners with an active Curriculum and Support Agreement.

Check out Kim's video overview of this great new Standards Alignment system.

We know that creativity, adaptability and problem-solving are critical skillsets in today's workplace.  At Lego, it's not just a desired skillset, it's a job description.  How can we prepare learners for a job like "Lego Masterbuilder"?  Perhaps even more critically, do we discourage the development of competencies necessary to succeed in a job like this?  Something to think about as you watch this video.

Digital Learning Day is a nationwide celebration of innovative learning strategies hosted by the Alliance for Excellence in Education. The Englewood High School SmartLab was featured in this year's Digital Learning Day broadcast along with special guest, Colorado Senator Michael Bennett. The webcast includes a terrific video produced by students in the SmartLab as well interviews with the Brian Ewert, the District Superintendent, Karen Brock, Assistant Superintendent, Sean Duffy, the SmartLab Facilitator, and Josh Fergy, a SmartLab superstar!

In May, I posted this announcement about the Ronan (Montana) High School SmartLab robotics team winning the world championships.

Now we learn that Ronan has received an invitation to exhibit their winning design in the Smithsonian Institution! Wow!!!  The robot will be featured in an interactive exhibit this spring called Math Alive.

This great news comes as the Ronan robotics grows by leaps and bounds. The Ronan robotics program has become so popular that SmartLab facilitator Jesse Gray has had to split the group into two teams. And there’s this – Montana State University is looking to enroll students from the Ronan SmartLab in their robotics degree program!

Who knew Ronan would become such a hub for robotic engineering?

And for the almost all of you who’ve never heard of Ronan Montana, Google Maps to the rescue!

I hope you’ll forgive my occasional rant, but I had to share and comment on this YouTube video I stumbled upon. It speaks volumes about today’s learners.

And here’s another video of the same child two-years later with an iPad. Understand that Nolan is not at all a unique case. Next time you’re on YouTube try searching any combination of the words “iPhone”, “iPad”, “baby”, “toddler”, “one-year old”, “two-year old”, etc., and you’ll see what I mean.  

In many schools, “educational technology” is viewed as tools we put in the hands of teachers. Teaching technology is important and certainly belongs in the 21st century classroom, but we shouldn’t confuse it with learning technology. 21st century learning requires that technology be placed in the hands of students. We will not be able to convince children like Nolan that “disconnected” learning has any relevance to the world as he sees it.

Rant over.