Discussions

Your Name and Title: Gregory Hill, Project Lead

School, Library, or Organization Name: The Disruption Department

Co-Presenter Name(s):

Allie DeSmet and Basiyr Rodney

Country from Which You Will Present:

The United States

Language in Which You Will Present:

English

Target Audience (such as primary school teachers, high school administrators, students, etc.):

K-12 Teachers, Community Members, Administrators, K-12 Students

Short Session Description (one line):
Members of the Disruption Department will describe their work building a grassroots community group focused on distributing the technology resources necessary for innovative and global learning.

Full Session Description (one paragraph minimum):

We will focus our presentation on the following areas: 1.) "A Vision for Disruption", 2.) "Disruptive Tools", and 3.) "Disruption From Below".  

During section one of our presentation, we will discuss how we will solve a crucial problem we see in schools located in low-income areas: that teachers, even really excellent ones, often don't have the resources necessary to teach 21st century skills or to introduce their students to a global community of learners.  Our "Vision For Disruption" then revolves around the belief that all students will have access to the type of creative learning that happens more often in wealthier schools.  We believe the strongest focus should not be "achieving" on high-stakes tests, but rather to achieve an environment where students can create and share their learning to the world. Our work is intended for students and teachers to connect to global audiences.  For example, with donated tech, our teachers have been able to skype with kindergartners in South texas, and share stories with students Peru.  Students from around the world have been able to learn about us too, breaking down any stereotypes they might have had about students in an "inner-city school" that is usually defined at haveing a 99% Free and Reduced Lunch Rate, not housing some incredible and creative minds.

During section two we will share the "Disruptive Tools" we've been sharing with our teachers. We will share our mechanism for collecting laptops, loading them with free and open source software, and distributing them to teachers in St. Louis.  We will share specific examples of the types of innovative learning that has been possible with these new tools in the classroom of our "Disruption Fellow". We will also describe the next wave of devices we want to use for creative learning and learning by "making".

When teachers don't have access to tech resources, there is no possible way they can go global. Instead, when we share a group of 30 laptops with talented teachers, they can instantly ask "How can I use these to do something innovative?". We can answer them by sharing with them a twitterverse of global teachers. We can connect them to students online. We can connect them to virtual explorations of global cultural sites. 

So connected resources + mindset = global impact. It's at the heart of our program.

During section three we will share our belief that education must be "Disrupted From Below". We are a grassroots organization of teachers, students, technologists, and creative members of the St. Louis community that believe strongly that these changes must happen.  While this community provides the knowledge and the tools to "seed innovation" in our schools, we know teachers and students will iterate improvements and share back with the community.  Instead of facilitating "PD's", we can connect our teachers to a global community of educators as well.  24/7 learning for teachers sounds pretty good to us.  

Since we're educators, our actions remain faithful to the reality of what educators do. Since we're urban educators, our actions remain faithful to the reality of what urban educators face.

We look forward to sharing our work, past and future.