Educational Origami

Well I have arrived in Arkansas. And its flat, I am missing hills. Its a pretty state farm lands indespersed with patchs of woodlands.

The process of getting here has been quite long, but I had yesterday (saturday) to recuperate in Memphis. We went out last night to BB Kings house of Blues and had 4 hours of brilliant blues.  ZDA the princess of Beale st was the star act. (Thanks to Lee and his iPhone for the Photo)

We got over to Cherry County today and had out initial briefing with the district superintendent. This was insightful and fun. Its great to see an administrator with passion and care & concern for the education of the students.

We had a look around the elementry & secondary schools. The Elementery school is new (opened this year) and each student has a desk (no suprises there) but the desktop has a clear glass panel and underneath this is a 17in monitor, a pull out draw for a keyboard and mouse and a Mac Mini.  THIS IS EVERY STUDENT FROM K-4, beyond that they have laptops.

This is exciting, they have a traditional appropriate size and height desk with which to learn in a traditional paradigm and incorperated into this is a powerful and user friendly computer. Not one or two computers but one for every student.

A major part of our focus is project based learning. Building problem solving,  supported and facilitated by technology, into a a K-12 curriculum. This is a cool project and exciting.

I can’t wait to start.