Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Good stuff from TEDxMadtown

Got this in my email this morning!  What a terrific gift.  Shannon, thanks for sharing.

Hello Tedxmadtowners,

I hope this email finds you doing well and enjoying the start of the holidays with family and friends! I have been meaning to send this email for sometime now but have been busy with a very busy crew of 3rd graders.

I wanted to share something that happened to my students and I this year, as a direct result of the tedxmadtown event last spring.

Over the summer the school board in Oregon (where I teach) got ahold of my Tedtalk and asked me to attend a school board meeting to have a question and answer session about the event. They were very impressed and had nothing but positive feedback from my Tedtalk. At one point in my talk I had stated that my ideal classroom would be one where every child had an iPad in their hands. The school board president told me that "they were going to do all that they could to make that happen." At the time I really thought nothing of it.

Fast forward to September at a Wednesday staff meeting at my school...My principal started off the meeting by introducing our school's superintendent, technology coordinator and 2 board members. They were there to surprise me with my wish! But instead of iPads they purchased 24 google chromebooks for my classroom to pilot. You can imagine my surprise!

My students have been using the chromebooks now for almost two months and are loving it. It has changed the way I have been teaching and has been such a positive and engaging tool for the kids.

I owe a huge thank you to Deb and Adam and all involved for organizing and hosting tedxmadtown and for inviting me to speak! The goal of tedtalks, to motivate and inspire, definitely did so in my case. Twenty two eight year olds (and their teacher) can't thank you enough!

I hope you have a great holiday season!

Sincerely,
Shannon Luehmann
Prairie View Elementary
Oregon, WI


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