InnEdCO18 - Reflecting on a great conference

Last week I attended the Innovative Education Colorado Conference (InnEdCO) in Keystone, CO. Throughout my four days, I spent most of my time learning about personalized professional development, online tools to support students, and STEAM activities. I also presented on Wednesday afternoon about 3D printing and the use of TinkerCAD for students to create 3D objects.

I used this blog to take notes about my experience. Here's a break down of my notes:

Personalized PD:
1) Sarah Thomas Keynote & Workshop during the morning of Day 1 (@sarahdateechur)
2) Session 2, Day 2: Personalized Professional Development using the EdCamp model
3) Personalized Learning with the Beacon Network in DPS for the 2nd session of Day 2
4) Personalized PD -- planning tools for all levels and types of teachers

Online Tools:
1) HyperDocs with the Denver Public Schools Digital Coaches during Day 1
2) Gamifying your Classroom during my final session of Day 1
3) ELL Toolbox - finding tools to assist our English Language Learners for the first session of Day 2
4) Shark Tank Tools -- a fantastic set of tools within one website built by Candy McGregor and Megan McQuinn

STEAM:
-STEAM with Eric Carle -- I love the idea of using picture books and STEAM activities

Also, on Wednesday, June 13, I offered a 2 hour workshop during the conference. I've linked my presentation below:

InnEdCO Workshop 2018

InnEdCO18 - Shark Tank Tools

 The talented Candy McGregor and Megan McQuinn built an incredible bank of tools on their Google Site (linked below). Here are some of the ones I was able to find.

Google Site of Tools:
tinyurl.com/2018sharktank

1) I viewed the Live Webcams tools:
https://sites.google.com/dpsk12.net/2018sharktank/live-cams?authuser=1
-great way to show students actual locations around the world
-show kids live animals
-virtual field trips

2) PDFCandy
-This tool just changed my life!
-Allows you to do anything you ever wanted to do to a PDF: convert, edit, rearrange, etc.

3) TakingIT Global
-Connect students to global issues like human rights, environment, poverty, education, etc.
-Students have access to a global community & resources to begin to solve the problem

EdCamp -- Session 2 -- Audience for Kids

I'm attending my 2nd session of the day at EdCamp Denver:

How do students share their ideas and reach an authentic audience?

Sharing platforms:
-Kid Blog
-Edublogs
-Seesaw -- this can be used as a digital portfolio as well

Ways students can use blogging:
-sharing essays beyond 4 walls (parents, community, etc)
-sharing their understanding of the daily goal and what they learned
-sharing resources they've discovered
-reflections
-answering prompts
-sharing anything they've created (podcasts, 

Importance of students reaching an authentic audience:
https://www.edutopia.org/article/value-of-authentic-audience-monica-burns

Teaching how to blog:
-Citizenship -- how to share and respond appropriately
    -practice on paper --> write a post on paper; gallery walk w/ sticky notes
    -provide exemplars for responses
-Peer review & feedback -- have students use a rubric to guide their responses
-Writing in short, concise paragraphs

Ditching the Textbook

Here's an interesting podcast on TeacherCast. It helps teachers move away from textbooks to using an online format. As a school, we've been looking into cutting out paper bill and moving homework online to save money, resources, and time for teachers.

Open Education Resources

There's a big push in the Education world to find, create, and share resources for FREE. They're being called Open Education Resources (OER) and are extremely important to meet to growing needs of teachers and students.

Steven W. Anderson, Web 2.0 Classroom, recently published a blog post about the importance of OER and where to find them. In his post, he lists numerous websites housing OER. Great resource!

Tech Tool Tourney

In the spirit of March Madness, MindShift has coordinated an effort to choose the year's best educational technology tool. You can vote for your favorite or just learn about widely used tools available for teachers. Also, follow the voting on their twitter hashtag: #techtooltourney.

Literacy for ELL's

It's a challenge to teach the writing process to students who's primary language isn't English. Many of them struggle just to access the content. EdSurge has some excellent ideas of how to scaffold the writing process for ELL's. I particulary like the tools they provide to "develop, implement, and evaluate" they're learning as they move through the process.

Open Educational Resources

There's a big push in education to create and house free, viable, and complete resources for teachers to use. It can be anything for online textbooks, rubrics, lessons, etc. to help schools. You can learn a ton about Open Educational Resources from this article by Edutopia.

STEM/STEAM Projects

With the creation of our Makerspaces projects, and, fingers crossed for grant money, our new STEM/STEAM lab next year. I'm digging for STEM and STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, ART, and Math) projects and resources. Edutopia has an extensive collection of resources whether you're looking for STEM, STEAM, or Makerspaces projects. Great resource!

Become a Learner

Here's an interesting website for the learner in all of us: Highbrow. Highbrow allows users to create accounts linked to your email, choose content/subjects you're interested in, receive a 5 minute lesson everyday in your email inbox. How cool is that? It's so easy to learn new things these days :-)

Here's a full review from Free Technology for Teachers.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Next Monday is MLK Day, so I'll be collecting resources for students to learn more about this influential and important figure in United States' history. According to Free Technology for Teachers, ReadWorks.org compiled "a collection of articles, videos, and question sets for teaching about Martin Luther King, Jr. Learn more at ReadWorks.

Websites across Content

Graphite recently posted a list of "great websites for learning" which includes multiple content areas. Each content area includes a list of about 5 websites, so it's a good starting point when collecting online resources for your class.

Student Engagement

In this article from Edutopia, The 8 Minutes That Matter Most, it outlines the importance of the first four minutes and the last four minutes for student engagement. It also gives a few good ideas to begin class, end class, and most importantly, to keep it engaging.

Ed Tech Tool review

Welcome back from our SNOW DAY here in Denver!!

Graphite is offering $50 to review you're favorite Ed Tech tool. Here are the steps to review your tool:

1) Search your favorite edtech tool on Graphite.
2) Go to the Graphite review of the tool you're thankful for.
3) Click on the Twitter icon in the upper-right hand corner of the review.
4) Share.

Go to Graphite to learn more.

Common Craft

I stumbled upon CommonCraft browsing through my Twitter Feed. They house educational videos for teachers to use. Their mission: "We want to make the world a more understandable place to live and work by helping professionals like you become better explainers.  More explainers means better explanations - and that’s a good thing." Seems like a great resource!

Hour of Code

The week of computer programming is next week:

Dec 7-11

Learn more at Hour of Code

Makerspaces in the Library

Are you a librarian? Curious about incorporating the Makerspace Movement into your library? Diana Rendina, a library media specialist in Hillsborough County School District, has Slide Share presentation showing librarians ways to include STEAM projects in their library program. She states, "Makerspaces and the Maker Education movement are quickly taking hold of the library world. In this session, you can learn what the Maker Movement is and find some ways to get started bringing Science Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics into your library program."

Thanksgiving Resources

Happy Thanksgiving!! We have the next week off, so I won't post as much next week. In the spirit of the upcoming holiday, Teacher First has numerous resources for Thanksgiving. Enjoy your time off and rest up!

Google Classroom Updates

For all those using Google Classroom, there are 6 important updates to work with this fall. Alice Keeler outlines the 6 updates on her blog, Teacher Tech. Also, if you're on twitter, follow her @alicekeeler.

Static Electricity

I recently had a student ask me about static electricity. It led us on a search through the wonderful world of the internet. We stumbled upon this post from Free Tech 4 Teachers: The Science of Static Electricity. It helps students understand why rubbing a balloon on your head makes your hair stand up.