Keynote Speaker - Courageous Edventures - Jennie Magiera
Notes:
- The purpose of school is to prepare kids for tomorrow.
- 65% of today's students will be employed in jobs that don't exist yet.
- We have to take risks in order to lead change.
- Teaching kids that they cannot fail or they will fail at life is dangerous. It creates fear of failure, which leads to taking no risks, ultimately resulting in no learning.
- We are providing far too much support because we are afraid kids won't succeed. That's still not them succeeding; it is us succeeding for them.
- FAIL - First Attempt In Learning - That makes failure the beginning and not the end.
- SAIL - Subsequent Attempts In Learning
- Failure's going to happen, and that's okay. That's when we are able to take some adventures.
- "I can't" comes from fear and disbelief.
- Find a crew, people to go on the adventure with you.
- Five tips for Edventuring
1. Relax and have fun
2. Make sure your curriculum is future ready.
3. Teach kids, not topics.
4. Don't wait to take a risk.
Tools:
- Google Expeditions
Takeaways:
- Technology should enhance our humanity, not detract from it.
- Find out if Google Expeditions has to be a literal place. Can it be to the inside of an atom or cell?
SketchNoting: Tapping Into Visual Thinking and Learning
Notes:
- Expressing ideas in a meaningful way doesn't have to be beautiful. It is a process of synthesizing information they are taking in.
- It only matters that it means something to the note taker.
- It should be done with the students' personal preference. If they will do better with paper and pencil than iPad, they should have that option.
- Start with the main idea and build around it.
- It's helpful to have "containers" for each thought. This could be boxes, scrolls, hearts, thought bubbles, etc. It needs to make sense to the note taker.
- There should be some kind of organization, but it only matters that it is organized in a way that the notetaker (read as "not the teacher or parent") understands. The differences could be shape of container, color of notes, code for information type,
- Sketchnotes may become Infographics, but they are not the same thing.
- Sketchnotes must be personally meaningful, but it doesn't matter if anyone else understands it. If you plan to have others get anything out of it, should be condensed into an Infographic.
- Using icons or images (a star or exclamation point next to an important point, a stick figure to represent a speaker, a question mark to indicate a need for further research) may also make the information more meaningful to the notetaker.
- Color choices can be used for meaning, steps, categories, or just attractiveness.
- Asking them to explain it to me will create extra processing and deeper learning.
- The research was done by having a group take notes on a TED talk on either a computer or a paper group. Factual information was assessed at about the same level, but conceptual relationships were higher for those who took notes on paper and doodled. The laptop group wrote more stuff down, but they didn't understand the connections as well.
Tools:
- ProCreate
- Penultimate
- SktchBook Ink
- Paper by Fiftythree
- Forge
Takeaways:
- Encourage students to figure out what works for them. Don't insist it look like the way you would do it.
- If they look back at it later and it doesn't make sense, it isn't helpful.
3D Animation - Student Showcase
Jaime Hartley's Set Design Class - creating animation for the set of Peter Pan because we don't have the facilities to allow students to fly. Students also applied it to other disciplines with animations of blood cells, DNA, even a colorful sweater.
Easy as 1, 2, 3D - Using 3D Printing
- Can build a 3D printer at Discovery place in Charlotte.
- Empowers students to create, the highest level of Bloom's taxonomy.
(I left this one ten minutes in. It was far more foundational than I was expecting it to be.)
Digital Citizenship - Students Impacting the World Through Passion Driven Multimedia Projects
(Came in 10 minutes late because I was at the 3D Printing one)
Notes:
- Open choice can paralyze students. A way to break the paralysis is to do a "heartbreak map." Think of something you love, and then figure out what breaks your heart within that thing. That's the thing you want to change and make better.
- Generate a million ideas before choosing. The initial idea might be crazy (Teach senior citizens to skydive), but it could lead to a doable idea (Teach senior citizens how to use a computer to connect with their grandchild who lives far away).
- Students should start with a proposal pitch.
- Use Twitter or other social media to promote what you are doing, ask questions, crowdsource the solution to a problem, and get feedback.
- Students can lead a Twitter chat for real-time feedback.
- Art Application: Find a client who needs artwork or graphic design for something they are doing. They can hire your student. It gives a reality check if the student has done something the client doesn't like.
- Get your project out into the community. If it stays within your school, it doesn't have the impact it could. Make a video or blog to get it out into the world. Then promote it via social media. The students also use better skills (video editing, lighting, etc.) if they know they will be public.
Tools:
- Angela Myers
- Kevin Brookhauser
- Next Vista for Learning - a contest for students to make a PSA for a non-profit. The winning video wins prize money for the non-profit.
Takeaways:
- Don't just have the student choose a topic that interests them. Have them figure out how that thing could be better. The resulting project is more meaningful if they are trying to take something they already love and make it better.
- Student-led professional development - Students teach tools, skills, technology, etc. to the teachers on a PD day. It gives teachers an idea of tools students can use and teaches students how difficult it can be to teach a room full of people.
- "In 2017, your digital footprint IS your resume."
Using Escape EDU in the Classroom
Notes:
- Breakout boxes are available, but it can easily be done with different types of locks.
- The example had code breaking/problem solving but not content.
- Have students create them for the other classes.
- There are pre-made ones if you want to get your feet wet.
- It should be just hard enough to be meaningful and challenging but not so hard that they can't get the box open.
- Try not to help them too much. There are hint cards. You could have a penalty for using them so the kids will have to be strategic about whether or not to use them.
- Riddles helps keep kids going.
- Invisible ink pens are on Amazon, but if you use a yellow highlighter on a dark surface, it does the same thing.
Tools:
- Breakoutedu.com
Takeaways:
- Make sure to tie content to it. This would be easy with math-based activities.
Creating a Culture of Making
Notes:
- A culture is a shared set of values.
- We've been makers since man picked up the first tool.
- If you don't have administrative support, you're not going to get very far.
- Raid the storeroom at your school. There's a lot of stuff that is not being used.
- Once making starts to happen, donations will come in.
- If you establish a community of makers, older kids will love to help younger kids.
- Contact a local university to see if they will loan or donate materials (snap circuit kits, etc.)
- Different stations will give kids options of what they would like to make.
- There are summer workshops at the Educations Studio at Discovery Place
- Minecraft is making.
- Have a maker class in which you use: Arduinao, Mindstorm, Scratch games, MakeyMakey projects, marshmallow cannons, and Rube Goldberg machines.
- Try analog coding first before showing them computer coding. Students must communicate with a student in only three code words. Then, they understand how the computer only understands a few commands.
- Where you can, get other teachers on board. Move making out into the curriculum.
Takeaways:
- Makerspace culture doesn't happen by accident. It happens when you are very focused.
- If you don't have a budget, don't think you can't do it. You'll just have to do it in little bits and pieces.
- Don't get deflated if you don't accomplish all your goals in the first year. You are planting seeds and will reach a critical point where it takes off. Establish a foundation, and watch it grow.
Trashy Tech to the Rescue
Notes:
- The engineering design process (like Design Thinking) guides building and STEM.
- Vernier apps let you use iPads to film or measure in slow motion with tracers. It will allow you to graph and analyze data.
- Free fall lab could be analyzed.
- Give a goal and design constraints. Provide materials. Avoid being any more controlling than that.
- Start simple. It will take longer than you think.
The 5th C - Connecting Content to The Four C's
Notes:
- Discovery Education Spotlight on Strategies
- Use Advanced Search
- There are a lot of animations, activities, assignments, and 3D photos. There are more 3D photos to come.
Takeaways:
- Check on Discovery Education for non-location based VR
- Ask Zane if he's seen a plant growing through a maze.
- Tell Hannah about VR tours of National Parks.
Personalize Learning Through Student Agency
Disclaimer: I am not a fan of the concept of personalized learning and believe it only feeds entitlement. I attended this workshop to see if there were elements of it that I could apply to differentiated instruction, which I do believe in.
Notes:
- Content and pedagogy should lead technology, not the other way around.
- Top 3 words - Individualized, Differentiated, Choice
- We must students how to make the best decisions within the range of choice.
- Student agency is allowing students to lead their own learning. It is not arguing with the teacher about a grade.
- Students must understand their learning differences in order to make decisions. It's not learning styles or preferences. It's about how their brain is working individually. It requires a lot of metacognition.
- Told a lot of stories about different learners, but not a lot of practical information.
Tools:
- mentimeter www.menti.com - Kind of like poll everywhere.
- Your Learner Sketch at facesoflearning.net
Takeaways:
- Take how their brain works differently into account.
Session on Google Chrome Extension Cancelled
Fake News and Search Strategies
Disclaimer: I didn't come to this one for the topic as much as for the speaker. Richard Byrne is the creator of Free Tech for Teachers as well as PracticalEdTech.com
Notes:
- Searching is a thought process.
- Students often google with a confirmation bias in mind.
- Often they will use super-broad search terms without an understanding of what they are really looking for.
- Google is great at navigational and transactional searches. It is not great at informational searches, so get your students away from commercial search engines for informational searches.
- Think of other descriptions for your words (movie vs. cinema, British spellings of words, etc.)
- Pre-search checklist at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iN1Pp-brvVOu6z8I2Rg1pag3oeUVWjnPW5ZxginA0ag/edit to help students narrow down their search before they start.
- Search by file type to narrow your search.
- Search by domain to get a different perspective.
- Use Google Scholar for scholar reviewed articles that aren't ranked by popularity.
- It's easy to miss things you aren't looking for.
Tools:
- Practicaledtech.com
Takeaways:
- Planning ahead will allow for better searching.
The Possibilities Are Endless
Disclaimer: I ended up at this one because the session I wanted to go to on designing content with Chromebooks was full. This is another one on personalized learning.
Notes:
- Presenters showed a Volkswagon video where people walked up stairs that were piano keys that made sounds, making 66% more people take the stairs.
- They asked people for takeaways. The people in this room are clearly already in the "personalized learning" camp, so all of their answers were about the benefits of personalized learning.
- We were all given a blog post that compared a person's experience in a spin class with the classroom environment. It encouraged a lot of student choice in the classroom experience, everything from where the student sits to how fast they learn. (Here's where we run into my issue with this concept. The writer thinks that because most things in life are customized, school should be too. I believe the proliferation of customization is one of the worst things about modern culture and, therefore, want to fight against that in my classroom. I won't even order personalized yearbooks.)
- We were then instructed to have a group statement for three different interpretations of this text. (By the way, I notice that this workshop is NOT personalized.)
-
Takeaways:
- Even though I disagree with this concept, there's got to be something I can take away from this that is positive. That's going to be about the use of data for goal setting. I would like for my kids to look at where they are once a week and set an intermediate goal that would eventually lead to their long term goals.
Your Digital Footprint
Notes:
- Be aware of the pictures you post of your own child because you are developing their digital footprint.
- Parents google their kids teachers. You should have your twitter account and website on your business card. You should be easily distinguishable from other people with your name. Even if it is just an About.me page, you should be google-able.
- The school website is not the best source for information on the school.
- Laura was very right about the arrogance of this speaker.
- You can have your resume ready by 9AM tomorrow, but you can't change your google search in the same amount of time. It takes time.
- If you follow someone, it indicates that you approve of them.
- You are a teacher 24/7 in the public eye. Don't try to separate school and life.
- It's polite to ask kids for permission before posting pictures of them, just like you get consent from their parents.
- It's not inauthentic to change your behavior based on context. A lot of what you would share with other adults shouldn't be shared with students or online.
Takeaways:
- If you follow someone, it indicates that you approve of them.
- If your worst ten minutes were online, would you have a job?
Fabulous Tech Finds That Make The Life of a Teacher Easier
Notes:
- Their Presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12dTapTq5Lfsq2WetlM7Ov-jVcgKh89Ws-YEd5bYEi0I/edit#slide=id.g181510314a_4_642
- You can color-code your folders in google drive. (Does Isaiah Whelpley know this?)
- This one is pretty much all a list of tools with little context.
Tools:
- www.menti.com - Like PollEverywhere
- Chrome Extensions - quick access tools - There's a web store
- Google Keep - note taking - Like Evernote
- See the presentation. She had 129 slides.
Takeaways:
- Ask Dana - This lady said her school went to Chromebooks and that students cannot plug their Chromebooks into a projector for doing presentations.
Engaging Exit Tickets and Checks for Understanding
Notes:
- Formative assessments matter because you might make decisions on the fly based on the results.
- You can set padlet to grid or free-form. Try starting with grid and then having kids sort information by switching to free form.
- Socrative - If you use it as an exit ticket as a routine, keep the room number posted. Then, it should only take about 30s.
- Quizizz - Like Kahoot but better for the teacher and for use as a study tool.
- Classkick - Students can answer in writing, drawing, or even verbally using a microphone. Students can also cross collaborate by "raising their hand" in the upper corner of the screen.
- Quizlet Live -
- Answer Garden -
Tools:
- https://sites.google.com/imesdapps.org/empowertheclassroom/engaged-exit-tickets-and-checks-for-understandings
Awards, awards, lots of awards, and some more awards
Final Keynote Speaker - Characteristics of Innovative Leaders - George Couros
- IT has the hardest job because no one calls and says, "Hey, the internet worked all day. Thanks."
- Grades to not always equate to success.
- "The world only cares about what you can do with what you know, and it doesn't care how you learned it."
- Literacy is something that continuously develops.
- We sometimes teach kids to be subversive to learn. If your kids can teach you to get around the filter, there is something wrong.
- Relationships are the most important aspect of education.
- What is the experience your kids go home and tell their parents at the end of the day?
- If you think a picture is worth a thousand words, what do you think a video is worth?
- If you surround yourself with passionate and intelligent people, that will increase in yourself.
- "To teach is to learn twice."
- How do you innovate within your constraints?
- I don't just want them to learn math. I want them to be able to do something with the math they have learned.
- Always err on the side of positive.
- Failure is part of learning, but resiliency is the part we should celebrate.
- If grades don't tell the story of a child, you've got to provide something as an alternative.
I thought I was just going to spend a few minutes catching up on your blog... But now I've spent the last half hour exploring Bryce Canyon in VR. Thanks for providing me with an interesting rabbit trail to occupy my night!!
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