Digital Learning Day – what a great way for schools to celebrate of innovative teachers and instructional strategies.

Started by the Alliance for Excellent Education, and in partnership with organizations such as the National Writing Project, the purpose of Digital Learning Day is to showcase powerful work going on in the many districts and classrooms where educators are making thoughtful use of the potential of digital tools to provide students with the skills they need to succeed in college, career, and life. The ultimate goal is for the event to ignite a “digital learning movement that truly provides a quality education for every child.”

Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education (and former governor of West Virginia) speaks clearly and passionately in this video message on the commitment for Digital Learning Day to be more than a stand-alone event.

Across the nation, school districts and sites will be promoting the event in a number of ways. We encourage you to participate by:

• Starting a conversation –  in your school, department, library, or community-based organization about your goals for your students and how digital learning can help meet their needs. You can watch the  National Town Hall meeting on 2.1.12 and participate virtually. You can also watch the daylong webcast and pass it on to others who care about student learning!
• Showcase success – submit a video of how you are integrating technology to engage students and extend learning. Better yet, have your students take the lead and show us how digital learning works for them! To get you thinking about best (digital) practices at your site, visit our EGUSD Teach 21 collection of lessons and classroom video segments.
• Trying one new thing – sample an online lesson, start a class blog or wiki, use digital storytelling, start a project-based learning unit, but above all, challenge yourself to see what digital technology can do for you and your students.

A great starting point for Digital Learning Day resources are the toolkits, which “are designed to help you think about how technology may strengthen your instructional strategies.”  If there are some tools you’d like to bring into your teaching, but need a workshop to get you started, we’ll be offering an assortment in our after-school (4:00-6:00)  Bloggers Cafe sessions, such as:

• Blogging 101 & 102
• Intro to Wikis
• Digital Storytelling with PhotoStory3
• VoiceThread
• Podcasting
• Google Docs
• Prezi

We’ll be posting the dates  and details for the above sessions soon.

We are very excited about the opportunity Digital Learning Day offers for showcasing great teaching across our district. If you have a digital learning lesson that has made a difference to your students, or if you know of other teachers at your site that are leveraging the playing field for students through the innovative use of technology, please share with us by leaving a comment.

We look forward to hearing from you!