At yesterday’s Horizon Forum meeting at the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Steve O’Conner, Director of Instructional Services for Owatonna Public Schools, presented an overview of an initiative in a classroom in Washington Elementary School where a fifth grade classroom has gone mostly paperless. Desks are replaced with [...]

You are invited to join us for the final Horizon Forum meeting for this school year! Fifth Grade for the 21st Century Hosted by Dr. Tom Tapper, Superintendent, Owatonna Public Schools Thursday, April 24 11:15am – 1:00pm Conference Room 325, Education Sciences Building (University of Minnesota East Bank) Dr. Tom Tapper (Superintendent, Owatonna Public Schools), [...]

Buzz is starting to appear regarding the MediaWiki-powered free-reading.net. Free-Reading is… an “open source” instructional program that helps teachers teach early reading. Because it’s open source, it represents the collective wisdom of a wide community of teachers and researchers. It’s designed to contain a scope and sequence of activities that can support and supplement a [...]

One of the big ideas from 6.0 was that kids are not naturally good at complex games. They often have the time, resources, but they do not always have the guidance of a mentor. Many kids are playing games designed by adults for adults. This is good and bad. Good in that the adult games [...]