I recently had an opportunity to attend the first Digital Family Summit (DFS) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Presenters and summit attendees were both parents and students. The “summit” included families from as far away as Canada, Utah, California, and of course those from local states and cities that could make the trip.
My Mission: Takeaways to Bring Home
I went in as an observer from my school, looking for takeaways to bring back to my own school setting. While using tech tools was a focus for many of the sessions, what struck me was a love of learning within each family in attendance. I spoke with event organizer Adam Gertsacov, who shared that “parents really loved learning with their kids. Both tech-savvy parents and non-tech savvy parents loved having the opportunity to be with their kids, to learn digital techniques together, and to have fun with technology together.”
And learning happened rapidly. “In a three-hour session, several kids were able to put together some pretty amazing animations using Scratch, make some very complete video projects, and even start their own blogs,” said Gertsacov. He shared a number of blogs (that he knew of) which were started in the session, including one by nine-year-old Hannah Alper. (Her new fourth grade teacher will be inheriting an extremely creative and hard-working writer come September!)
via Plan a “Digital Family Summit” to Engage Students and Parents.