NEWTON, MA | September 12, 2011
Shelley Pasnik, director of EDC’s Center for Children and Technology, is one of 400 education leaders, innovators, philanthropists, and investors invited to participate in “Schools for Tomorrow,” an education and technology conference sponsored by the New York Times on September 22. Through facilitated workshops and debates, the conference will focus on how schools can use technology to design a more engaging classroom and enhance the learning experience.
Pasnik’s session will focus on technology tools currently available to K–12 students, including mobile phones, PDAs, and tablet computers, and how they can be used as integrated learning tools. She will discuss using games to support learning, drawing from EDC projects such as Possible Worlds. This five-year research effort, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, developed a series of game-based activities for the Nintendo DSi to aid science and literacy instruction. Pasnik also will address the importance of teacher professional development in facilitating new technologies in the classroom.
Other speakers will include former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein; David Levin, co-founder of KIPP; Mitch Resnick, professor of learning research at MIT; and Dan Shine, former senior innovation adviser for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Moderators from the New York Times will include columnists David Brooks and Thomas Friedman, Education Deputy Editor Jodi Rudoren, and Education Reporter Jacques Steinberg.
“This conference will be highly interactive and will employ technology to drive conversations about the best environment for student learning in this digital age,” said Gerald Marzorati, the Times’ assistant managing editor. “We’re calling together thought leaders in education to assess the most effective ways to incorporate digital tools into the classroom and, through dialogue with students, consider how the students of tomorrow want to learn.”
Workshop highlights will include creating two classrooms—one K–12 and one college level—to represent the classrooms of tomorrow and prompt discussion on how schools should concentrate their budgets in the future and what tools and applications may be helpful to both affluent and underfunded schools.
The conference, to be held at The TimesCenter in New York City, is by invitation only, but workshops will be streamed live over the Internet at http://www.nytschoolsfortomorrow.com.
Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), is a global nonprofit organization that designs, delivers, and evaluates innovative programs to address urgent challenges in education, health, and economic opportunity. EDC manages 350 projects in 35 countries. Visit www.edc.org. EDC’s Center for Children and Technology investigates the roles technology can play to improve teaching and learning. Its work covers a range of activities, from prototype design of technology applications to professional development for teachers, to strategies for ensuring equitable access to technology resources. Visit http://cct.edc.org/.
