Elluminate!

The Elluminate seminar I watched was called, A kids eye view of an innovative classroom. The speaker is Adora Svitak, who is just 11 years old. The original air date was May 14, 2009.

The speaker, despite her young age, is both a student and a teacher. This is what caught my interest in the first place. She wrote her first book at the age of 7, and she speaks to large groups of teachers, administrators, etc quite often. She likes to you webinars so that she can reach people that are in other countries or cannot attend her seminars.

She spoke about what interests young people in the classroom. Many of her topics were interesting and they made a lot of sense. She said that children usually like to use what they learn, and their learning assignment should have a clear purpose. She suggested that students keep blogs so that they can showcase what they have learned. Writing assignments should be approached by different perspectives. This widens the information that will be gained.
What she also mentioned, which I thought was interesting, was to introduce new words by creating a poem. The poem does not have the word in it, yet it describes the word throughout. It really seems like a great idea. She said one way to gain a child's interest is to use the "gross" factor. Find things to do with the children that they would normally find gross or disgusting. This will gain their interest and usually keep it for a period of time. She also suggested approaching learning by playing make believe, using food, or letting the child be in control.
Overall this seminar was pretty good. I was amazed at how a child could have so much knowledge. It was cool, because she is both the student and the teacher. She can deliver from both perspectives. I would be interested in hearing more of her seminars.
https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/event/playback