I went to several great sessions and here are the highlights:
I went to "So what does a technology enhanced intermediate classroom look like?" presented by some Naperville, IL teachers. This had some lesson ideas, but they didn't go much beyond the use of wikis, video, and Comic Life. One of the presenter did have two phrases in his presentation that I took note of: "make the content your own" and "interact with the content". He stressed the importance of letting the students pick their own way of expressing the content. I am going to strive to provide more options!
I went to Rushton Hurley's "The ease, power, and cool multimedia" session. This, as usual, was very entertaining. I love Rushton's style of presenting, very inspiring. He has a useful website with a lot of cool technology tools & ideas.
I went to a session called, " Bloom's textonomy-Cell phones in the classroom". This was interesting because it is a constant battle to keep the students from using their cell phones during my class. In this session I learned that you can text Google and they will texxt you back anything from a definition to a list of pizza places...amazing. Google's phone number is 466453. They also talked about using Google Forms to create surveys or questions and having the students text their answers. Also, about QR codes, which was new to me (QR is short for Quick Response (they can be read quickly by a cell phone. They are used to take a piece of information from a transitory media and put it in to your cell phone). They showed the web tool, Poll Everywhere, which was new to me.
I went to "Mash-up your subjects with Web 2.0 Tools", because it was presented by my doctoral cohort member and friend, Joan. While I already new how to embed stuff from one tool to another, she showed some fun sites that I have never used like blabberize. So funny to make a picture talk, I used it in my son's dinosaur project...fun stuff.
I went to Tammy Worcester's "Quick and easy computer activities for kids". She is an author of many teacher idea books. She had some very useful PowerPoint lessons.
I went to "WOW, playing with learning, learning through playing". This was supposed to be how to use World of Warcraft as an educational tool. They spent a lot of time showing the game and then when asked how they could justify students playing during the school day, they said the game has the potential to be a communication tool where students can meet and collaborate.... ridiculous. I see no educational value in World of Warcraft...sorry.
I went to "Igniting 21st century learning through the school library". This was a group of librarians and how they use technology in their library programs. One of them mentioned NoodleTools for note taking, sounds like a good tool for my students during science fair time.
I have yet to look over all the materials that are on the conference wiki, I'm sure there is a wealth of further information there. I have been inspired, renewed my enthusiasm for technology in education!
