Leading Learning 2006

February 13, 2006
Keynote Speaker - Tom Wujec

RETURN ON IMAGINATION.
Fostering Imagination through Technology in an Accelerating World.
This presentation explores approaches educators can adopt to foster student imagination using digital technology. Drawing from a wide range of emerging practices and insights from business innovation, visualization and cognitive psychology, it asks and strives to answer the following questions: - Why foster imagination? - What exactly is imagination? - How can one foster imagination through technology? The key conclusion is that technology is effective only when it serves the broader goal of augmenting human skill. Technology for technology's sake can improve efficiency, but does little to create knowledge and wisdom, the virtues of imagination.

Tom Wujec, author of Return on Imagination: Realizing the Power of Ideas will be the headline keynote speaker at Leading Learning 2006. Wujec, is a Fellow, Principal Consultant and Thought Leader at Alias, the Academy Award winning leader of 3D computer graphic technologies. Working with remarkably diverse organizations, such as Nike, P&G, GM, DreamWorks and many others, Tom strives to foster dramatic innovation through visualization technology. Enhancing innovation in our sped up world of better, faster, cheaper, involves investing in imagination - understanding the inner worlds of customers and clients, increasing the authentic flow of ideas within teams, and deepening personal connection to personal imagination. Tom speaks on the need to invest in imagination.

February 14, 2006
Keynote Speaker - Mitchel Resnick

SOWING THE SEEDS FOR A MORE CREATIVE SOCIETY.
In the 1980s, many people talked about the transition from the "Industrial Society" to the "Information Society." In the 1990s, people began to talk about the "Knowledge Society." I prefer a different conception: the "Creative Society." As I see it, success in the future (for individuals, for communities, for companies, for nations as a whole) will be based not on how much we know, but on our ability to think and act creatively. Unfortunately, current educational practices are woefully inadequate. In this talk, I will discuss new technologies and new educational initiatives developed specifically to help children learn to design, invent, and express themselves creatively - so that they are engaged and prepared for life in the Creative Society. The ultimate goal is a world full of creative people who are constantly inventing new opportunities for themselves and their communities.

Mitchel Resnick, Associate Professor at the MIT Media Laboratory, explores how new technologies can engage people in new types of creative learning experiences. Resnick's research group developed technologies and ideas underlying the LEGO Mindstorms robotics construction kit, and he co-founded the Computer Clubhouse project, an international network of after-school learning centers for youth from under-served communities. Resnick earned a BA in physics at Princeton University (1978), and MS and PhD degrees in computer science at MIT (1988, 1992). He worked for five years as a science/technology journalist for Business Week magazine, and he has consulted around the world on the uses of computers in education. He is author of the book Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams (1994), co-author of Adventures in Modeling (2001), and co-editor of Constructionism in Practice (1996).