Day 1 of the Leyden Summer Symposium was worthwhile. The day started with quite a nice breakfast and then a welcome and overview of Leyden’s Digital Evolution. 

Jamie Casap @JCasap kept us interested throughout the keynote speech noting that

• kids don’t necessarily  believe what you tell them and will pull out their cell phones to see if what you say is really true,
• resumes are dead, and
• collaboration is the new normal—collaboration is creating together not two people occupying the same space.

Many valuable points of interest in Jamie’s speech were fun and thought provoking.

When we broke off into threads I attended a session by Katie Diebold @KatieDiebold who spoke to us about The Power of Choice and told us about the Genius Hour class she led. Within her presentation are lots of links to resources. Follow the links if you want to learn more. Many schools now have teachers who provide 20 percent of class time for their students to work on projects of their choice relating back to the class they are taking. Katie told us what worked for her, what she might change the next time, and we had group discussions about various possibilities of assessment of Genius Hour work done by students.

We had a great lunch of tacos, beans, rice, and guacamole and our table was particularly fun because three of the people had just flown in that morning from Pittsburgh to attend the session. It’s always nice to meet new people and learn how other people are doing things.

I attended the Chromebook Deployment & Management afternoon session and we heard from the Tech team about their happy experiences so far with the Chromebooks. Wow, the presentation was pretty impressive which I’m sure you can see by looking through the Sliderocket. Leyden made it easy on themselves by having much of the work done for them such as the White Glove Treatment from Google, and the unboxing, engraving, and shipping to Leyden by RTI. I love the embroidered Higher Ground Flak Jacket cases! (See slide 7.) My favorite take away from the session was the idea of showing a short 5 minute movie at the beginning of each class all day the first day of school about using the Chromebooks. What a great idea!

After the session ended I spoke to John Geiser, Account Manager, at Higher Ground and he showed me the cases they have available and dropped an iPad on the floor a couple of times to show me how strong their cases are.

John said an important thing to keep in mind when ordering cases is to order in the spring for fall delivery. Some schools delay making up their minds or placing their order and then are disappointed that they won’t receive the cases as quickly as they would have wished. For instance, the Flak Jacket is sold out until October.

One of the nicest things I noticed about Leyden, and this is my second Leyden experience, is that all the people associated with the school are so friendly, helpful, and they all smile at you as you pass them in the hallway! I’m looking forward to tomorrow.