I spent Wednesday & Thursday this week attending the Upstate Technology Conference in Greenville, SC and had a fabulous time!

Wednesday:

Connecting With Tech Savvy Students – Bill Sheskey and Chrissy Robinson

• Oconee County Instructional Technology Integration – Specifically, click on the Teacher Resource page for links to resource that they have tested and are safe for educational use.

• xtranormal.com – type a script and make video snippets to grab students interest.

• PowerPoint with two videos side by side on the same slide – one is a recorded interview (could use the Flip cameras) and the other is PhotoStory  with just visual of what the interviewee is describing (for example, she was talking about a flood and he found photos from the event, put into PhotoStory to run as she’s talking about it)  Great example of low tech “split screen” video!  as well as examples of primary sources – the actual interview & the photos of the historical event.

• 24/7/7 – 24 hours, 7 days a week, on all 7 continents! Our students need to be able to compete globally.  You can also add 365 as everything is available online every day of the year.

• How Google hired workers based on a billboard w/ a math problem that led to a web address, with another problem, that led to another address, and so on until it led to a contact page from Google saying we want to hire you!

• News magazines have an archive of their covers online, why not use them in your research or teaching to emphasis a point/topic you are sharing?

Keynote: Chris Craft!

• AWESOME!  Chris is a dynamic speaker.  I hope you take a moment to go to his blog and watch his keynote.  Just a couple of ideas I wrote down (didn’t write more as I was too caught up in his presentation!):

• Snazzy Videos – short videos he shows at the top of the class. Something the students look forward to watching…(interest motivates learning?? I think that was what he said!)  You can probably catch some at his SpanTube website (Spanish YouTube!)  His class website – www.class326.com and uses Gcast.

• He records his announcements, instructions, reminders, etc. and plays them as soon as the bell rings to begin class.  This way he doesn’t have to repeat them over and over each class, and so he doesn’t forget to mention something to one class!  Also, a routine that the kids stop what they are doing to listen to the announcements and get right into the groove of class.  The announcements are followed by a riddle (could be any type of interesting bell work question/problem).  While they are listening to the announcement, he’s taking attendance and then begins class answering the riddle and straight on into the days lesson.  Smooth transitioning and no down time or lost time at the beginning of class!

• I also liked his sharing the quote from one of his friends that Twitter = Virtual Teachers Lounge.  That is how I view it – as a way to learn and share from educators & librarians who just don’t happen to work in my building!

What Can The Web Do For You? – Susan Isball

This session was geared more toward elementary teachers, so while the resource she shared were great, they just weren’t as useful for me.  You can follow the link to see her presentation and resources.  There was also a gentleman sitting next to me (sorry, I’m embarrassed I can’t remember your name) who is an assistant principal at a high school.  He came in and was doodling and by the time we left had the most spectacular “picture book” quality drawing I’ve ever seen.  He is such an artist.  He said doodling helps him think – and don’t get me wrong, he had a page and a half of notes from the session, too!  I wish I’d snapped a photo of it…he should be illustrating children’s books!

Shhh!  Don’t Tell We’re Using a Social Network – Avis Canty

The social network she uses with her classes is Ning.  Being a member of several Nings, I was already familiar with her topic.  I was more interested in how she organized getting her Ning up and running (research on social networks, administration support, parental permission, ning access, etc.) to pick her brain for my own blog proposal.  I will definately be contacting her in the next few days!

Socializing Time!

Of course, if I’m being entirely honest, the real reason I attend conferences is the socializing!  I had lunch with Fran Bullington and a couple of ladies from her district.  I also attended a Tweet-Up at Wild Wings in downtown Greenville after the last conference session for the day, followed by dinner out at with Cathy Nelson, Fran, and Kim Isiminger (Kim held the librarian position at Wagener-Salley HS before me!)  There was a huge group at Wild Wings – at least 20 – and just like MaryAnn said in her blog that the Twee-up was like a human twitter feed.  With conversations going all over the place and way across tables and everyone jumping in here and there!  Oh, shout out to Mary Mason who let me crash on her hotel room’s fold out couch for the night!  Photo credit: Wild Wings07 from loonyhiker – I don’t think Pat will mind I used her photo!  That’s me in the safari print shirt.

Thursday

Using & Integrating Moodle – Ryan Rucker

An nice overview of Moodle and what it can offer for your class.  Since we already use Moodle, the benefit of attending this session was I now have a contact person to help me troubleshoot my Moodle questions/mistakes!  I’ve already warned him he’s probably going to get tired of my emails!   For teachers whose district doesn’t already support Moodle, you can go to NineHub and they will host your Moodle course.  However, it does have ads and you are limited in the features available with free Moodle hosting.

I Heard It, I Saw It … Now What? – Debra Belue

One highlights from this session include recording students & teachers booktalking, sharing their own stories, and research projects and recording them for play on their MP3 players (the library has sets of them) which students can check out.  They have a recess book walking club – each student has an MP3 player and they walk and listen to booktalks the teachers, students, or downloads from StreamlineSC.  She has parents give permission for student to be able to check out MP3s as well as to join the club as they are giving up recess. High schools could do for study halls.

Place Based Stories – Michael Edwards

Very interesting.  Documenting local history for future generations – a Memory Project that students can produce to preserve stories before they die out.  Great thing, he’s at Pelion HS which is just up the road from me!  Two ways: Google Earth and iPod Museum Tours.  Geotag and upload photos, documents, audio and video to Google Earth and take virtual tours of your area.  They use different place markers to delineate eras or types of events.  For the iPod Museum tours, everything is on your iPod (text, audio, video) all hyperlinked and organized.  You drive to the location (or walk depending upon the area) and listen, watch, read about the location.  This allows you to physically experience the place.  Here are his resources.

Abort, Retry, or Fail: Management Skills for Today – Jude Hunt

Engaging speaker – very nicely done.  There were a couple of things that stood out:

• Defusing phrases: I Understand; Probably So; Nevertheless; and I’m Sorry.  All used as a complete sentence w/ nothing after them.  They acknowledge the student and his/her “feelings” without agreeing or disagreeing.  Used appropriately they can stop disruptions before they escalate.

• The other was a “refocus” space with a reflections form on why they were sent to “time out.”  This can be a place in your room or preferably a co-workers room – but never the hall or an office where students can just goof off or be seen as a get out class free card.  Gives the student time to chill out without further disrupting your teaching.  What I liked about this idea was the form asked the student what they did to get sent to time out (they have to reflect and understand what behavior sent them there) which then goes into their file as documentation – great for parent/teacher conference and if further discipline is required.  There is a lot more to this concept as well as in his presentation, but I’m trying to be brief here!

Lunch today was spent in the august company of Chris Craft, MaryAnn Sansonetti, and Fran Bullington.  We had an enjoyable hour catching up since our last get together at EdTech.  Today was jam packed with learning, laughter, and looking forward to next year with an opportunity to put some of these tools and ideas into place.  Once again I am amazed at a FREE conference being not only enjoyable, but extremely useful.  The notes I’ve shared here aren’t a tenth of the notes I took.

So a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who put together such a fabulous conference!  Let’s do it again next year!

More from Thursday:

I forgot to mention the fun I had last night at dinner with Cathy Nelson, Jessica Donaldson, Chris Craft and Fran Bullington at the Liberty Steakhouse and Brewery – after Chris made us walk all the way around Broadway at the Beach!  Not that I minded, too much, as I don’t believe I’ve ever visited there at night.  It was neat to see the lights and walk over the bridges.  And I got a kick out of watching Chris get so excited about feeding the fish.  Those were some HUGE fish – they were even biting the ducks!  Of course, I also teased him about the idea that you’re supposed to work OFF a meal, not work up to a meal!

From the “Encouraging Reading Through Technology” session I wanted to expand more on my notes regarding the “Senior Athletes Read” program.  The READ posters/trading cards are of only senior student athletes.  The posters are displayed around the school and at the games.  Their school has a specific block/period during the school day (4th block?) for athletic practice.  During this block, the coaches have made arrangements for the athletes to read to elementary classes.  The media specialists design the posters and trading cards and photograph the students.  The posters are printed on an HP Designjet printer and are laminated.  Other items I failed to mention include banners promoting reading are paraded during pep rallies “Win, Fight, Read” or something like that.  Another program was their book club – they read The Christopher Killer by Alane Ferguson and invited their local coroner to participate & talk about her job. Resources on their handout:

• Photostory
• Scholastic Video Booktalks
• Blogs
• CrazyTalk
• Turning PowerPoint slides into a screen saver

Friday:

I did decide to sleep in an extra hour!  So there were only two sessions I attended; however, both were excellent and ended EdTech on a high note.

Reaching Out Beyond the Walls: Distance Learning for Everyone – presented by John Woodring.  Despite some technical difficulties with the Internet access, this was an interesting session using Wiziq for distance training/meetings.  I’ve been toying with learning a system (preferably free) that we can use in our district media specialist association to provide access to our meetings/workshops for folks who can’t make it in person to our meetings.  Despite the technical difficulties, I found it interesting to chat with folks he’s been collaborating with.

Using Excel for More Than Spreadsheets! – presented by Donna Goldsmith from the SC Department of Education.  She showed examples of using Excel for interactivity in the classroom.  This session was awesome and Donna was a blast.  I so would have loved to have been in her classroom as a kid (or adult!)  Since she said her materials would be on the EdTech website, I didn’t take notes; however, as of right now they are not there.  I’ve emailed her for copies and would be happy to forward them on once I get them.

I will say the items she showed were real “wow” as well as “duh” moments for me.  For example: inserting a map of the US as the background (turning off the grid lines) then using comments to enter the state name/capitals (making sure to resize the columns and rows really small).  You could also put a picture of any diagram (cell structure, disection photo, etc.) of anything you want to label and use comments and/or create a matching type worksheet.  DUH! moment for me.

I didn’t stick around for the Luncheon.  Mom and I had a nice lunch at Margaritaville and did a little more shopping and walked around The Gay Dolphin before heading back to the condo.  You can see more of the photos my Mom snapped while we were in Myrtle Beach on my Flickr Photostream.

Saturday we had an early breakfast (well early for me since I don’t usually get up unil well after 10am if I’m on vacation or weekends) and checked out of the condo.  We stopped at the 501 Tanger outlets, had lunch, and headed on home.  Since we were passing by the Sumter Outlet mall, we just had to stop – boy is it NOT worth the stop.  There were only like 8 stores, but Mom could have stayed there and spent some money at the Antiques store.  We got home after dark and couldn’t bring outselves to empty out the car.  Spent all day Sunday unpacking and getting organized for today.  Since there was no food in the house we headed into Orangeburg to the IHOP!  Pecan Coffee Cake Pancakes, YUM! So, another fall vacation has come and gone.  Time to get back to work.

PS:  Oooh, reminder for everyone to plan for the Upstate Technology Conference: “Teach Tomorrow Today,” June 23 – 25, 2009.  The Call for Presentations is open.

Warning, long blog post ahead!

I’m finally getting around to writing about my trip to Greenville where I attended the Upstate Technology Conference (UTC) (June 25 – 26), and let me tell you I am still tired and on brain overload even now.

UTC ROCKED! Thank you Cathy Nelson for telling me about this conference. I had already signed up to attend UTC when I was told the dates for the Education and Business Summit (EBS) overlapped UTC. Thankfully, both conferences were in Greenville, SC (practically around the corner from each other) and my new principal agreed to let me slip out of our High Schools That Work (HSTW) sessions on Wednesday to go to UTC instead. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Arriving at J. L. Mann HS I couldn’t help compare the school to my own school. It is amazing: new technology everywhere; whiteboards/LCDs in every classroom; large, open classrooms; ginormous library media center; computers all over the place; TV broadcasting over the computer; message displays in the lobby/café area; a drama/journalism studio; I could go on and on, but I’m sure you can already tell I’m envious! (BTW: Did anyone else notice the stairwell lights were motion censored to come on/brighten only when you entered the stairwell?!)

The other big surprise: blogs, wikis, Flickr, and other Web 2.0 tools WERE NOT BLOCKED! Now, this may have been only to accommodate the conference, but I’d like to believe that this is always the case.

The tone of the conference was set with keynote addresses by Ewan McIntosh and David Jakes. Both were awesome speakers – witty, informative, and engaging. Definitely not boring! If you don’t already subscribe to their blogs DO SO NOW! Both speakers stressed the need for educators to learn to use the Web 2.0 tools that our students and young people today are already using and for educators to develop an online learning community (professional network). Students shouldn’t be learning (and we shouldn’t be teaching) in isolation. Connecting with others enhances the learning!

I’m thankful teachers from my school as well as other Aiken County folks attended to learn from these masters. Hopefully, we can start a movement in our district to bring the ideas and tools to our students, too! A few of the concurrent sessions that made an impression on me were:

“Making Your Podcast More Pro” – Ewan McIntosh: After attending this session, I wanted to immediately take down my podcasts and fix them. Of course, this isn’t practical. At least I have better guidelines for future endeavors. Basically, my big mistake is having long intros. They should be no longer than 10 seconds and should state the purpose of your podcast/what you’re going to talk about so people can decide if they want to listen or not. Another tip, host the podcasts where your listeners can leave comments to promote an ongoing dialog.

“Thinking Out of the Xbox: Creative Writing Through Computer Games” – Ewan McIntosh: “Play helps us understand the world around us.” He equated reading a game (level) can be the same as reading a chapter. Not being a gamer, I was unaware of just how much text could be in a video game. He showed example of a teacher using the game MYST III: Exile to have students write about their thoughts, observations, feelings the game/visual/setting evokes.

“iPod-abilities in the Classroom” – MaryAnn Sansonetti: If you click on the title link, you’ll be taken to her wiki for this session, which has links for all of the notes I took so I needn’t post them here! Since I already have an iPod and am familiar with educational podcasts, I was mostly interested in ways to incorporate them into the classroom. Thanks MaryAnn for all the wonderful suggestions.

“Digital Storytelling 2.0: What’s Next?” – David Jakes: You can click the link in the title above to go to the wiki where the keynote slides and digital storytelling information can be found. Along with various storytelling tools, the message I took away from the Digital Storytelling session is that it’s “the story within the story” that should be the focus of any storytelling project. You’re going for the emotional impact, not the “we did this and this and this…” Use sounds, visuals, music, cutting to images, etc., all to evoke an emotion in your audience. Also, script and storyboard before you put together your digital story.

“Don’t Read to Me – A Presentation on Presentations” – Chris Craft: WOW! Chris used Cognitive Load Theory to show why bad presentations cause students to revert to bad habits because they cannot process all of the information you’re throwing at them (among other reasons!) Talk about a dynamic speaker with such a needed message! I admit, I’ve been a bad PowerPoint user in the past, but I’ve never been a fan of PPT to begin with. Needless to say, I immediately Twittered Chris to come speak at our school! Great thing is, he’s practically around the corner (relatively speaking) to Wagener, and best of all he said YES! Now I have to convince my principal this is a great idea, too! (Carrie, help me out!) Oh, you can also read Ewan McIntosh’s post about Chris’s presentation here.

Of course, I have a lot of additional notes (or should I say more messages to myself), and I went to a few other sessions, but this post is already long enough! [BTW, one of my teachers won a drawing at UTC, so not only did she take away the prize of new ideas, but computer speakers, too!]

I also want to say it was great to meet so many of my Twitter friends and people whose blogs I follow…many for the first time face-to-face. It was also a thrill to have lunch on Wednesday with Pat Hensley, Cathy Nelson, Julia Davis, Chris Craft, and MaryAnn Sansonetti … but to make my day even better, David Jakes and Ewan McIntosh joined us! I also want to send out a big thank you to the folks who organized the UTC. You did a phenomenal job and I can’t wait to see what’s in store next year.