Monday, February 17, 2014

Harvey 'Smokey' Daniels - Opening Keynote Reflection/Thoughts #tcrwp



What a fun opening keynote from Smokey Daniels, so many Tweetable moments/comments from this morning. 

Giving us a pictorial tour of his travels throughout the US in working with schools. Harvey says so much is missing from the Common Core…..creativity, engagement, curiosity, choice and responsibility. Telling stories is so powerful, they engage the audience, get people excited, inspire, laugh, think about our personal interactions and make us want to write!

With the writing standards he’s concerned they’re too low. Kids need to be writing way more says Harvey, kids should write ’think pieces’ 5, 7, 20 times a day….what does that look like.  Showing us MANY examples of written notes from kids, so many teachable moments, editing, fun memories and ideas to implement at school. Share with kids, get them excited, engage them, all level of students can write these!

I think about my school (jseroadrunners.com , @jseroadrunners) and that each of our 3rd-5th graders have their own blog on KidBlog.org. In two years I’ve seen kids write more and more each year. Having conversations with each other, learning, writing, and publishing their work for everyone to read….that’s powerful! I’m not saying paper/pencil doesn’t have a place at all, but digitizing our writing is so powerful for kids to engage in, give it a shot!

More thoughts to come later…..

Also, anyone want to co-blog a post with me this week, Tweet me if you do! @awelcome 

1 comment:

  1. Wow! Blogging before and after the keynote! Thanks so much for sharing your thinking!

    We are also seeing kiddos writing more and more - I heard a student say, "I have to write it so I can remember that I thought it!"

    Smokey Daniels shares the "power of passion and curiosity" in learning!

    ReplyDelete