Robin Brandenburg's Blog

Last night I attended the Austin Association for Education of Young Children (AAEYC) board meeting. It was a fantastic way to meet members of the board, hear about upcoming events, and become actively involved with AAEYC.

This NAEYC chapter has a lot going on including the following upcoming events:
4/1/10 – Nominations for AAEYC Awards Deadline http://www.austinaeyc.org/awards.htm
4/5/10 – AAEYC Board Meeting
4/10/10-4/17/10 – Week of the Young Child
4/10/10 -- AAEYC Spring Conference: Preparing Leaders for the Next 50 Years: ACC Eastview Campus

I recently had the pleasure of volunteering at the Central Texas History Fair at the Austin, Texas LBJ Library and Museum. With the theme “Innovation in History: Impact and Change” students were encouraged to keep history and innovation in mind while doing their research. During the orientation for volunteers, I thought to myself how fortunate I was to have been assigned the role of a monitor instead of a judge.

The night before the conference I spent a couple of hours reviewing descriptions of the NAREA lunchtime presentations. There were nine topics to choose from and I painstakingly narrowed my selection down to five. As groups were assembling for the lunchtime presentations, I found myself forced to make a decision.
The session I chose was about using rich video clips as documentation to better understand teaching and learning. As practiced in Reggio Emilia, and eloquently described by Project Zero, “documentation makes the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’ of learning visible.”

These two amazing educators, Lella Gandini and Amelia Gambetti, didn’t need an introduction. Conference participants literally held their breath not wanting to miss a word! Gambetti began by stating that her main goal has been to “create bridges to put together different experiences.” She referenced the Model Early Learning Center (MELC).

The NAREA conference kicked off with Co-Chairs, Margie Cooper & Jennifer Strange welcoming educators. They announced that the next study group to Reggio, Italy will be May 1st-May 8th. Since 1990, Angela Ferrario has been organizing study groups to Reggio Emilia and has worked with Reggio Children as the U.S. Liaison since 1994, when the organization was established. Angela is a U.S. reference point for the Reggio Children International Network and a founding board member of the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance (NAREA).

In the spirit of uniting educators and advocates who are passionate about inspiring changes in early childhood programs, the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance (NAREA) board hosted a reception at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA. Amelia Gambetti, educator, Reggio Children International Network Coordinator and Liaison for Consultancy to Schools, and Lella Gandini, Ed.D, Reggio Children U.S.

In the featured session, Rethinking How We Teach Mathematics to Struggling Learners with Technology, Ted Hasselbring discussed how we can use technology to address the recommendations of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel for all students, including those with special needs and at-risk for school failure. The following are notes from his presentation:

More and more schools are embracing educational video game technology to engage students and improve achievement scores. During this presentation a team of educators from one Broward County school showcased the implementation strategies that took them to the top of the leader board in a district-wide math competition. The following are notes from their presentation:

•DimensionU is home to four distinct worlds where students play educational video games to practice core K-12 subject areas: Math, Literacy, Science and History. http://www.dimensionu.com/

During this presentation, by UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science and College of Education, Dr. Robert Everett and Mr. Eric Fisher described the Engineer Teacher Connection. They shared about the Internet Science and Technology Fair and explained that it is an Online competition where teams of students participate in a competition to innovate solutions to real world problems. http://istf.ucf.edu They also presented about the product they just released that connects engineers and teachers.

Cheryl Lemke is a nationally known speaker on policy, leadership and accountability in education technology. In this spotlight session, Ms. Lemke discussed designing tomorrow's lessons using the latest social, learning, and neuroscience research on critical thinking, multi-tasking, multimodal learning, collaboration, and engagement. On Monday, 1/18, her presentation will be downloadable from her company website at: http://www.metiri.com The following are notes from Ms. Lemke’s presentation: