Perhaps no summer camp is complete without a camp fire. A camp fire provides light, reflection and often inspiration.
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. William Butler Yeats
We recently gathered 40 of our Catholic Schools principals for a Tech Summer Camp for School Administrators. Held at Bonner Prendergast High School, it included 3 days of learning, reflection and interaction. Though our summer camp didn’t have a real camp fire, our educators were greatly inspired by all that was shared with them and among them and Yeats would have been proud.
Scott McLeod led the 3 days. Excellent resources on school leadership for effective use of technology were presented and discussed. Scott’s work with CASTLE supports school leaders as they make the important shifts necessary to embedding effective technologies into schools. Assessment tools, relevant research and implementation examples were just a few highlights of our 3 days.
Additionally, our Administrators learned how to use 3 tools that were new to many
Eighty of our educational administrators attended a 3 day summer conference based on building Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for the 21st Century. This was held from July 7th to July 9th, 2010. Resources and highlights are shared below.
On day 1, Sr. Pat McCormack, IHM talked to us about STEWARDship.
On days 2 and 3 Ken Kay from the Partnership for 21st Century Schools was a speaker. P21 has been a leader of policy change for 10 years and has worked with districts across the country as they strive to provide a relevant 21st Century education which focuses on the skills students need in our rapidly changing world.
The 4Cs
Kay cited an recent survey done by P21 with the American Management Association. This study points to the 4 C’s. These are four skills noted as critical for success in today’s world. The more we can encourage these skills in our students, the better we are preparing them for college and the work world.
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Communication
Collaboration
Creativity and Innovation
These are time honored skills of course today’s world makes them more important than ever. The ability to change and adapt are key.
Kay notes, “The skills needed for being a good 21st Century citizen and those needed for being a top notch employee are absolutely identical. The 4 Cs are a student’s ticket up the economic ladder of the 21st Century.”
Materials for reflecting on the use of the 4C’s in our schools were shared and distributed to all schools.
Quotable Quotes
“Anytime that people tell you that technology is the goal it is not… it is the means for bringing a 21st Century education to our students.” Ken Kay
Technical Information is doubling every 24 months. By 2020, the amount of technical info in the world will double every 27 hours. Ken Kay
Technology’s Role
You can not have the 4C’s without Technology. Framing the 4 C’s as the outcomes that students need to have makes a stronger case. You can not do these things so well without technology.
Suggestions for all schools
Curriculum and Instruction is critically impacted. Project based learning is one critical strategy.
Have a new tech school come to present. Take a school or a group of teachers and have them master PBL so that knowledge and practice is shared.
Model professional development around this. Find measurable changes and be able to enumerate them.
Collective action around the 4Cs
PD
Capstone
Find a way to get students into context instead of into only content.
