Day #3

Tuesday June 29, 2010

Today I headed down to the conference at 9:30am. I started the day by going to a few more vendors. I sat in on a demonstration of the new Adobe 5 suite. There are great updates! You can easily get rid of a character in a picture and move items in a picture with a few simple clicks! Man…wish I had that for Photoshop class!

I watched a presentation on an online database that a school can purchase to belong to called limelight. It is a great database with an item bank for each of the four core subjects from grades 2-12. A teacher can log in and create assessments using the item bank. (Great for common assessments) You can also use responders, bubble sheets or online assessments when the students take the actual assessment. I really like this program!

I stopped by Google to see what they were showing off. They were showing the use of Google docs, etc. (The things we use!)
I couldn’t spend too much time with the vendors since I had class from 12:30-7:00.

My class today was on Leading Effective Technology Integration in Schools by Jo Williamson, Ph. D. from Kennesaw State University in Georgia. She teaches Masters students in technology leadership.
The following are my notes that I took while we were there. Some highlights, etc that I though were important.

Main Questions to ask Yourself:
What kind of technology use do we want to see in our schools? Why? How can we make it happen?

Our Tasks (with Technology for today)
Define “Next Steps” technology use
Identifying it for practice
Practice coaching for it
Practice designing it
Practice selecting resources to encourage it
Establish a way to share resources

“Teachers should have an IEP to show where they are with Technology and what they need assistance with!”

Interesting Facts: 25% of youth are disengaged. 6% have a embarrassing picture posted online. ½ of all black and native American students do not graduate.

Preferences of Digital Age Learners
Generate Original Content
Communicate with Others
Express Themselves
Pursue their own interests
Access to tools that they have outside of school inside of school
Challenge
Caring, personal environments

Engagement
Students should be involved in worthy intellectual effort
Wiggins, G. 2006 UBD

Understanding
To think critically, deeply, and insightfully about a topic or discipline—as an expert in the field is able to do.
Wiggins, G. 2006 UBD

Asked Jo—What is you view on the use of Twitter in Elementary School?
Her response: I think there are ways to make it work effectively. Students should not use their names as their screen name. You have to convince your IT department to unlock it. Show them how you can make it work.


Click Here to see a great way to assess technology projects and the levels of technology used. The projects should always be at a level 4 or above.

When trying to get teachers to do full and strong technology based learning projects, start with only one per year. Maybe add a second. But, wait until they are strong and feeling successful until you add more.

Four Types of Websites
1) Reference (Learn About)
2) Games, Simulations, and “Discovery Learning”
3) Next-Steps Projects
a. Authentic Publishing Opportunities
b. Contextualized for Classroom
c. Indicators of EL
4) Cool Tools
a. Tools that aren’t contextualized, but have potential to support the creation of original, publishable “Next Step” projects

Great Website with a list of sites that foster strong technology use and collaboration. Feel free to browse the sites to find great ones to use!

A great site I got from today's presentation is Poll Everywhere. You can create questions that your students can answer online, text with their cell phones and even tweet from twitter. Its free to sign up!!!! I think if I posted a question each day and allowed my students to use their cell phone to respond they would all jump to do the assignment.

I was expecting something different out of today's workshop. She did give us a good website with great resources of websites to use, but she didn't really go into how to use technology to reach high levels of learning. She showed us examples of work that students had done, but did not go into how they did it or what software they used.

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference. I have not visited even half of the vendors in the conference hall. I plan to spend some more time tomorrow checking them out!

Day #2

Accessing Text to Struggling Readers

I attended a great conference today run by Dave Edyburn from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His focus was on how to make text from any resource available to all students in all areas.

He used some great websites that I plan to put into practice right away! He showed us how to take text from the Internet, copy and paste it into the following website and it will read it. This is great for my Special Education students that are reading below grade level. I can find text online for them and they will be able to hear it read to them.
Check out the site!

He also showed us a great way to take a word document and summarize whatever it is about. You can copy an article from the internet that is VERY LONG and paste it into word and then use word to summarize the article. You can summarize it to 10%, 20%, etc. He brought up the point that some students can start with 10% and then move up to continue to learn more at their own pace while using the same article as any other student. The link below will take you to an article he wrote about what he has developed and how he uses different resources to make text accessible to students.
Check out the site!

Where’s the Beef? Assessing Digital Products for Rigor, Relevance and Craftsmanship

This was another conference I attended where they discussed ways to tell if student technology products involved rigor and if they were relevant to the task.

When you score technology tasks:
½ should be content and ½ should be craftsmanship
How are the students designing their work? What are they doing? Where are they on Blooms?

Use Student Work
1) External Evaluators
2) Internal Evaluators
3) Staff Training
4) Peer Collaboration
5) Individual Student Scoring

New Term I Learned:
Machinimas- Virtual world recording with sets and scenes. You put them into the recording software. (Go Animate Website would be an example of a Machinima)

Day #1

Nicole, Michelle and I have landed in Denver! We spent a long time on a plane and are now ready to explore the convention. Things seem to be pretty easy to navigate here in Denver. There is a free shuttle from the airport to our hotel and our hotel has a free shuttle that runs every 15 minutes from the hotel to the convention center. Can't ask for anything better!

We checked out the convention tonight, although the main convention area was not open yet. We looked through some great books and bought ourselves a T-Shirt.

We also went to the keynote tonight. The president of ISTE began by telling everyone about the exciting things they have accomplished through the past year. Its incredible how far ISTE reaches around the world. Check it out!

Click here to visit the keynote!

Denver

Hello All! I have been given a great opportunity by the GSA at CCSU to attend the ISTE conference in Denver, Co with Nicole Bishropic and Michelle Kepple from June 27th- July1st. This is a conference that is devoted to Educational Technology. There are people from all over that attend this conference. I have signed up for some conferences and workshops and plan to attend workshops offered by the different vendors that come out to Colorado.

Please feel free to follow my adventures in Denver from my blog!

Any questions/comments? Let me know!

Thanks!