Jason B. Ohler

• Digital Storytelling
• Common Core
• Media Literacy

Workshops

• 5 Trends that Bend: Technological Trajectories That Will Change Everything: Our current technological trajectory promises unfathomable, roller coaster innovation with no braking system. It excites us and terrifies us. Above all, it changes us. This keynote considers at least 5 of the major technological trends that are just cresting and making their way into the educational arena: big data, augmented reality, the semantic web (webs 3 and 4), xtreme BYOD and transmedia storytelling. We look at what they are, where they came from, and where they are going. In particular, we look at how they will shape the nature of teaching and learning.
• New Media, New Students - New Fluencies, New Citizens: This presentation is based on Jason Ohler's 33 years in the field of digital learning. It lays out the foundational building blocks of education in the digital age (mobility, immersive connectivity, 3Rs -> 4Rs fluency, and digital citizenship) and then presents his 10 Guidelines of Digital Literacy and Fluency. At the end of this presentation, you will have a clear overview of where education came from, where it’s headed and how we can transform education through digital literacy and creativity.
• New Media Narrative and Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: What does it mean to be skilled, fluent and prepared for the world beyond school in the 21st century? Literacy now embraces not only letters and numbers, but also images, sounds, movies and other emerging media that become part of the media collage. And yet schools focus primarily on the 3Rs and provide very little leadership in the area of creating articulate, engaging new media. This presentation gets down to the business of helping students use the resources on hand to create effective new media for educational projects across the curriculum, as well as digital stories that explore personal experiences.
• Transforming your Classroom Using New Media: This session addresses practical tools and processes for teachers who want to help students create new media projects and digital stories in exciting, creative ways. Addressed are a number of topics, including how to assess student created media, and the role of research-based digital stories and media development in the curriculum. This presentation features examples of student and teacher media production, and offers practical and conceptual ways for students and teachers to participate in the world of Web 2.0 using new media they create for school projects.
• Digital Community, Digital Citizen: This presentation explores leading during a time of extreme change. It addresses how to empower students, teachers and administrators to understand and take charge of their digital lives and their educational digital environments in ways that are safe and responsible, as well as inspired and creative. It addresses home-school connections, hot button issues like cyberbullying and sexting, student activities and involvement in exploring digital lifestyle issues and long term, district-wide planning.
• Art the 4th R & Creatical Thinking- Why Art Education Is So Important to the Future of Learning: What education needs is creatical thinking- blending critical and creative thinking, that forms the perspective and skillset of the new communication landscape. Literacy has evolved beyond letters and numbers, to embrace images, sound, design, movement, and all of the elements of communication that we are immersed in whenever we turn to a screen, our second home. Art has become the 4th R and art education is the portal to becoming truly literate and fluent in the language of new media, the evolving communication forms that unfold through the internet and the discourse of international communication.
• What Will Matter - How to be a nowist, rather than a futurist: For most us, mattering happens later, in retrospect, when there’s time, when we slow down. But just think how different the world would be if we focused on what mattered right now, going forward, guiding our futures. Imagine being a nowist, rather than a futurist. Thirty five years as a pioneer in the field of living, learning, working and playing with emerging technology has taught Jason many things. Now, with new pathways in life sharpening his senses, he brings those lessons into high resolution, helping educators, everyone focus on what is important now.