{"id":834,"date":"2012-12-02T10:53:44","date_gmt":"2012-12-02T18:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/?p=834"},"modified":"2012-12-03T19:38:25","modified_gmt":"2012-12-04T03:38:25","slug":"extreme-learning-extreme-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/?p=834","title":{"rendered":"Extreme Learning: Extreme Influence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nKaren Lirenmans is an extreme learner. This is not much different from how she trains. We rode our bikes out to the tip of River Road and back again. It was on the way back and in the last five minutes of our 90-minute ride that she dropped me.\u00a0 I was actually stunned. I had forgotten she had completed five Ironmans. She is unassuming in her endurance and remarkable in her tenacity. She brings the same intensity to her learning and her teaching. Perhaps what is most remarkable about Karen, however, is the measure of influence she is having across North America. Tucked away in the corner of Bonnacord Elementary School in Surrey, B.C., she spends her days teaching six year olds. This is her first love. She cares passionately and deeply about her students.\u00a0 She is determined to see them be successful. By night she shares her stories, her struggles and her passion for learning and her students around the globe.<\/p>\n

Karen is focused on good instruction. She only recently fell into using technology. Initially, she didn\u2019t even have an iPad. She borrowed the district\u2019s loaner iPod set for a short time.\u00a0 Seeing her intensity for integrating technology, my team found a way to get her one<\/span> iPad. That was how it started. We smuggled \"\"<\/a>her into an Apple Canada Bootcamp at the Richmond Headquarters with a secondary school staff so she could get some intensive hands-on instruction. From that small beginning she has since been catapulted into the limelight as an oft-requested presenter, speaker and writer. \u00a0She has even been asked to write a book. Her post about Using One iPad in the Classroom (click here<\/a>)\u00a0went viral, receiving over 7600 hits.\u00a0 She has written for the International Reading Association on three separate occasions (click here<\/span><\/a><\/span>). \u00a0She has written for Kidblog as well (click here<\/a>).\u00a0Her podcast is featured here<\/a>.\u00a0 Her upcoming webinar is scheduled December 8th<\/sup> and you can register here<\/span><\/a><\/span>. She just became a DEN Star (see what that means here<\/a>). Besides her prolific popularity in the digital world, she is frequently asked to present after school workshops or pro-d sessions in our district. She is one of our district\u2019s Innovators (also referred to as a \u201cmover & shaker\u201d) as well as a Digital Coach. She is now involved in an Innovative Learning Designs Project (Phase 2) at her school as well as the district\u2019s Making Thinking Visible (one-to-one literacy pilot). She is recently became part of a joint initiative between the district and the union focused on Teacher Inquiry<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In her words:<\/p>\n

In July 2011, I joined twitter and almost immediately became a connected educator learning from some amazing global educators.\u00a0 Seeing the potential of being a connected educator, I felt it was important for my students to be connected learners too.\u00a0 We set up a class blog<\/a> where we shared our learning with the world (over 20,000 hits).\u00a0 My students were given their own individual blogs<\/a> to write for a global audience.\u00a0 We regularly visited class blogs, and left comments and responded to the comments that left for us.\u00a0 We skyped, and face timed with classes in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Illinois, sharing our learning with them while learning from them too.\u00a0 We took part in twitter chats with other classes, and even started our own hash tag where we shared secrets about Santa with the world.\u00a0\u00a0 We learned how to draw a comic character<\/a> from a student in Ontario through a video his teacher had.\u00a0 We connected globally and learned from students around the world.\u00a0 In addition we were involved in several global projects including Quad Blogging<\/a>, Full of Beans Project<\/a>, and a Flat Classroom<\/a> Pilot Project.\u00a0 We worked collaboratively with many other classes in the Flat Classroom project. While my students learned from me, their teacher, they also learned from one another and from children and teachers around the world.\u00a0 We were true global learners. Oh and did I mention, my students were only in grade one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n