I spent a two days a couple of weeks ago with the faculty and leadership of Bloomfield Hills School District. The first day was a workshop on teaching, technology and creativity with the faculty of Model High School and Bowers Academy. Leigh and I had been invited there by Bill Boyle, the principal (read his blog). We spent the day exploring ideas of TPACK and creativity and it was great fun (see poems and images below).

Two days later I was back again, this time invited by the district Superintendent, Rob Glass, working with the entire school leadership on issues related to social media and what it means for schools and school districts. The morning was led of by Social Media guru, Shel Holtz, who talked about how social media was transforming the world of work and learning. [You can download his presentation here, though I must say that it is a 175MB download.] Building on Shel’s presentation I facilitated a series of brainstorming activities with all the administrators about specific things they could do in their schools and classrooms to meet these challenges. At the end of the day we had a series of key action items (short term and long term) for a range of different contexts.

All in all it was an extremely productive and fun day.

I am including below some of the stuff that emerged out of that meeting. The first is a slideshow of photographs from these two days.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

And of course whenever I do a workshop on creativity can bad poetry be far behind? So here are some of the poems (and a rap song!) that emerged from the first workshop on creativity.Enjoy.

1.
There once was a professor whose goal

Was to teach that creativity is whole
Effective and new
We’re making a stew
Of technology, content, pedagogy and soul

2
Some teachers on PD
Learned about creativity
They found creative products are new
From our pasts came only a few
for their own students they hope this won’t be

Deanna Vetrnone, Geoffery Parkinson

3.
Whole, roll, jellyroll
Effect, Defect, and reflect
Novel Pavel Datsyuk

Peg Pasternak, Bruce Kezlarian, Cullen Murphy

4.
There once was a girl from Nantucket
Who was so bored she said *@%& it
She developed something N.E.W.
To away her blues
And forever vowed to think outside the bucket

Matt Autha, Rosalie Burnett, Bill Boyle

5. PD Rap

I can’t believe the of change
It makes my brain feel deranged
It has my whole body freakin’
But now I’ll start my creativity tweakin’

Rapping to you in rhyming couplets
Rain my words like drops in a bucket
Like the girl on Nantucket
Who looked around and just said f%$# it

Suffering from deep amnesia
Out of lots of inertia, a little fantasia
While waiting for lunch from La Marsa.
Thinking about the old days
With nostalgia.

When we had pencils and chalk
Things moved slow
Now we start to balk
But it’s go go go
But no we know technology’s just a tool
We’ll keep up, won’t be no fool
And our whole school will rule!