Speak Up News - March 2015

Quick links: ▪ Announcing our first Congressional Briefing! Learn more about the date and details of our first briefing. ▪ Mobile Learning Week 2015: Catch up on UNESCO's Mobile Learning Week through Julie Evans' takeaway blog posts. ▪ Flipped Learning Report: We teamed up with the Flipped Learning Network to create a whitepaper based on Speak Up 2014 data.  ▪ Leading the Digital Learning Transition: Learn how to create Future Ready schools through the Friday Institute's upcoming MOOC.  ▪ Your survey results are now available! All Speak Up 2014 participants can access their school or district data. ▪ Speak Up on the go! Learn more about upcoming presentations with our CEO, Julie Evans.  Thanks for reading! Feel free to share your thoughts with us on Facebook, Twitter, and our Blog. -The Project Tomorrow team

National Release of Speak Up 2014 National Findings 2015 Congressional Briefing Thursday, April 30, 2015 12:00-1:30PM Hart Senate Office Building Room 902 Washington, D.C. Please join us for the release of the Speak Up 2014 National Findings. This is the first of two Congressional Briefings on the data results from the 521,000 online Speak Up surveys submitted from education stakeholders nationwide in fall 2014. The April 30th briefing will include a presentation of the national findings and a moderated panel discussion with students and educators. This year’s national report on the findings will be distributed to all attendees. Click here to RSVP to attend the briefing; click here to request a copy of the report. If your district is interested in having students participate in our student panel, please contact Lisa Chu at lchu@tomorrow.org or (949) 609-4660 ext. 12. If you need additional information about Speak Up or the Congressional Briefing, please feel free to contact Jenny Hostert at jhostert@tomorrow.org or (949) 609-4660 ext 17.

Mobile Learning Week 2015 February 23-27 in Paris, France Mobile Learning Week 2015 - hosted by UNESCOand UN Women - includes inspiring keynotes, plenary sessions, and a myriad of small, TedTalk like sessions on all kinds of topics related to girls, women, and mobile learning. This annual symposium spans the course of five days in Paris, France, and features 100+ speakers, 12 workshops, 80 presentations, and 1000+ participants from over 70 countries worldwide in order to explore the intersection of technology, education, and gender. This week, Project Tomorrow CEO Julie Evans is in Paris to participate in two workshops. The first workshop, "Inspiring girls through games and coding: A hands-on exploration," held by our friends at BrainPOP, focuses on girls' interest in playing learning games, creating their own games, and learning how to code using mobile devices - with data provided by Speak Up. The second workshop, "Designing, Implementing and Evaluating Gender-sensitive Mobile Learning Projects within Educational Settings" was held by Julie herself, along with Dr. Kari Stubbs from BrainPOP, and addresses how to design mobile learning projects that are constructed with gender-sensitivity as well as cultural awareness. You can learn more about this workshop on our website. Be a part of the experience by following Julie on Twitter (@JulieEvans_PT) for live updates. You can also read Julie's daily takeaway blog posts - which feature recaps of each day of the symposium - on the Project Tomorrow blog.

New Whitepaper from the Flipped Learning Network Speak Up 2014 National Research Project Findings Flipped Learning continues to trend for third year To continue watching the Flipped Learning trend, for the third year in a row we have partnered with the Flipped Learning Network to ask specific questions on flipped learning in the Speak Up 2014 surveys. In this new whitepaper, the Flipped Learning Network focuses on data from teachers, librarians, building and district administrators, technology leaders and students regarding their use of videos in the classroom, digital content, and other flipped learning related experiences. Additionally, educators and administrators weighed in on professional development when learning how to flip a class. Students lent their voices on flipped learning, videos as homework, and how (and how often) they use learning and social media tools. To read the full report, click here.

Leading the Digital Learning Transition: Creating Future Ready Schools March 2 - April 26 Learn more and register here This Massive Open Online Course for Educators (MOOC-Ed) is designed for school and district leaders, and any others involved in planning and implementing K-12 digital learning initiatives. Everyone involved in digital learning (also known as blended learning, e-learning and instructional technology) in a K-12 school or district is welcome to join the course. This course will help you: ▪ Understand the potential of digital learning in K-12 schools ▪ Assess progress and set future goals for your school or district ▪ Begin to develop a plan to achieve your digital learning goals. The DLT MOOC-Ed consists of five units scheduled over eight weeks. Participants are invited to work in all the units or to select those that are most relevant to their personal learning goals. A certificate of completion to obtain CEUs is available for those who complete certain requirements. There is no cost for participating in the DLT MOOC-Ed. Dr. Glenn Kleiman and Dr. Mary Ann Wolf are the program directors, with many others from school districts and other organizations throughout the country contributing to planning and facilitating the course. Other MOOC-Ed courses currently open for registration include Learning Differences, Disciplinary Literacy for Deeper Learning, Coaching Digital Learning, and Teaching Statistics through Data Investigations. More information about these courses can be found at mooc-ed.org.

Your Speak Up data is now available! If your school or district participated in Speak Up between October and December of 2014, it’s time to dig in and see what your students, teachers, parents and community members had to say. Click here to view your data, retrieve forgotten passwords, and more.

Speak Up On the Go! Upcoming presentations Paying it Forward: Leveraging Today’s Female Voice Tuesday, March 10 SXSWedu The Road To TEACH Wednesday, March 11 SXSWedu The Eight Essentials for Success in Mobile Learning Tuesday, March 17 CoSN 2015 Annual Conference

Thank you for your interest and continued support of Speak Up! Be sure to stay updated on all things Speak Up by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and our Blog. If you have any questions please feel free to contact our Speak Up Operations Manager, Jenny Hostert, at jhostert@tomorrow.org or via phone at (949) 609-4660 ext. 17.

Many thanks to our sponsors and partners for the support of Speak Up 2014: Blackboard Inc., BrainPOP, Fuel Education, DreamBox Learning, Schoolwires, Qualcomm Wireless Reach, Rosetta Stone, American Association of School Administrators, Consortium for School Networking, Digital Learning Day, Digital Promise, edWeb, International Association for K-12 Online Learning, International Society for Technology in Education, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National School Boards Association, Secondary Education Teachers’ Association, and the Southern Regional Education Board.