Here is my speech to my Grade 9 Graduates this year:

Last year I was much briefer, but for this speech I wanted to highlight student work and really show students and parents how our laptop program makes the educational experience different.

The applause at the beginning was after my ‘Thank You’s’ to everyone for coming and to the teachers for organizing this event, which I didn’t think was needed for the video. I left the applause in because without it the opening greeting, for which I used the original video clip, seemed to be added later rather than being the introduction that it was. That greeting clip, and the goodbye clip at the end, were from a class ‘Handshake‘ video we did to introduce our students to other students in the Flat Classroom project. The languages spoken in these clips are all the ones our students in the class speak.

I think students have an incredible opportunity to be creative in how they learn today! Also, the fact that they can share that learning with the rest of the world is pretty amazing.

Here are the links that I shared in the credits, more than anything, I hope people will take the time to view some of the student videos they created.

Credits in order of appearance:

‘CREATIVE’ word art made with “Spell with flickr“.

‘The Basic Elements of Creativity’ from “Everything is a Remix Part 3” produced by Kirby Ferguson.

Flat Classroom Project 2011-2 (also see the student video master list).

Flat Classroom concept by Vicki Davis & Julie Lindsay, see information about their new book.

The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman.

Student Videos:

Ellie- Outsourcing and Globalization

9.f mobile and Ubiquitous- Julie P

SNS and PLE-OliviaK_DML

flat classroom Web 2.0 by Eunah

Google_first_person_narrative_AlexY_DML

What is You Tube final 1 by Ted

Google+Social Entrprenuership By Tom

School Limits‘ and ‘Never Alone‘ Toondoo cartoons.

Music: ‘At the Shore‘ by Kevin MacLeod (CC=BY).

Congratulations Grade 9 Grads – 2011!