Leio Ohshima McLaren and Faith Ty on the stage to share their perspectives.
Faith talked about how she used Garage Band to produce a radio quality track without any of the musical instruments - this was followed by a cool live demo of how she created the song. Great to see it live. What I really liked about this presentation was not the app or software itself, but more the reminder about how technology enables students to develop an authentic audience and context for their learning.
Leio then spoke passionately about why all students should learn to code. I agree! Not only has this enabled him to evidence his learning in new ways, he has even developed his own business creations apps such as phonic buddies. Please take note HPSS Code Academy!
I loved his message that students need to stop being passive consumers and should be producing and publishing their learning. I also liked his analogy of code as a 21st language that students need to learn.
Again we heard the message that teachers need to become facilitators allowing learning like this to happen. I get the sense we need to simply get out of the way and actually give some time and space to let this learning happen.
Code today, learn tomorrow!
Nice comment from Leio at the end as well - there is just too much busy work in education. You nailed it Leio.
Check out his website here: http://appappaway.com/
