Chanatown

The ticketed workshop in the afternoon was a 6-hour one, so expectations were high since I would not be able to attend several sessions during this time.  The topic was an important one, though.  " Leading Effective Technology Integration in Schools " was led by Jo Williamson and assisted by Hoke Wilcox, and I looked forward to being in a room with people interested in improving how teachers are trained to use technology.  We opened the discussion with some brief introductions followed by polling and discussion on the prompt, “What kinds of technology uses would you like to see in classrooms and why?”  I suggested to my group something to the extent of the answer of “Anything that matches a teacher’s curriculum, is “invisible”, and engages and motivates students.”  The use of the PollEverywhere site was a nice bonus, as I was unaware of the application, and I will begin using it regularly as a replacement to clickers when hardware (i.e. computers or netboo...

I used the morning before my ticketed workshop to peruse the expansive Exhibit Hall.  Although I didn't have enough time to sit in on many product demonstrations, I did manage to make the rounds of the entire hall, ensuring that I checked in with our current vendors and ask any questions that I had.  One big problem we were having was with Discovery Education's MediaShare product  We couldn't consistently get View/Embed options on materials that we were uploading.  A visit to the DES booth, and I discovered (ha!) that we needed to classify the material as either audio or video in order to enable the option.  If memory serves correctly, I believe that we were coding them as activities or other classifications, so I'm excited to test this out when I return on Thursday.

Day 2 started with a ticketed workshop on SMARTBoard Tips and Techniques with Harvey Almarode .  For a full 2.5 hours (after a brief 10 minute intro on brain theory), Harvey engaged us with tips and tricks galore.  The workshop was well structured and I’d definitely recommend Harvey as a trainer to schools (I believe he specializes in K-8).  I’m confident that everyone (author included) picked up something new and exciting to use in the classroom.  Perhaps, the most important technique I learned was how to effectively use the screen capture button.  You can really manipulate more of the objects, formatting, and placement when you take screen shots and can then treat the images as objects. Another valuable thing to remember is to use the “My Content” feature to make sure that you save your image creations (e.g. the hula hooping cow) so that they are more easily accessible.

What a great way to finish my first year as a Technology Staff Developer - a trip to Denver for the mother of all ed-tech conferences, ISTE (formerly NECC).  I'm excited to absorb, learn, network, and take lots of notes for the folks back home at Evanston Township High School.