MACUL 2014 Presentation

My presentation slides from Macul 2014 is below….

You can also find more materials at http://lnstemac.knoxschools.org

ICE, ICE, ICE......

Okay, okay, some of you were alive and well at the time of this wonderful song and appreciate the title. For the rest of you, let's just say it refers to the cold temps in Chicago last week at ICE 2014 (Illinois Computer Educators).

On the recommendation of several colleagues, I headed off to ICE 2014 in St. Charles, IL last week and I must say it was quite the enjoyable experience. It got off to a rocky start, when my all day workshop on STEM was cancelled for a lack of numbers but my travel details were already locked in, so off I went. The conference itself set a record for number of attendees, but the message and focus was clear: CONNECT AND LEARN!!

My 3 musings from ICE:

I met some great people in person after only twittering or face booking or gliding in some cases. A few weeks back, I did the Eduwin Weekly Podcast (linked here: http://edreach.us/podcast/eduwin-weekly-034-much-stem/) with @jmgubbins @michellerussell and @fernandezc4. They are excellent educators with passion and commitment to their craft. I connected with several DEN folks courtesy of @tchilders. I participated in an EdCamp for the first time..... amazing to openly talk and learn from others. Continued an amazing partnership with TechSmith and their great people (Camtasia, Coach's Eye and FUSE).

I did learn some cool things too.... 30 Hands App awesome, Excel workshop refreshed some skills and is changing my approach to data analytics, ePortfolios can never be started too soon (find a medium you are comfortable with and run with it --- your Students will be the winners) and Innovation/Inspiration/Passion require a disruption of your routine --- @gcouros keynote!!

The last musing is more of a challenging question to myself and most likely others: What is the value of constant growing and learning? Can you truly say that you are doing what is best for your students and their futures???

I will close with a similar closing to my FETC post, which ended with a comment on networking; ICE showed me the value of true networking, true connections to colleagues, true learning best practice from others to benefit your students.......

ICE was great, off to MACUL next week!!!!!

FETC & Other Musings

On my last night here in Orlando, where I presented on STEM & Common Core at FETC 2014, I find myself wandering aimlessly in my brain with deep thoughts about how to implement the info from this year's conference. After all, it is my 3rd year in a row attending, 2nd year presenting and 1st time blogging after attending. 

FETC is loaded with one great new gadget after another; bells and whistles; video this, digital that; red bull loaded sales people; free pen here, free pen there; watch the presentation, get a T-shirt; trial license for 90 days; here's a pamphlet; keynote; more free pens; more t-shirts; gotta go to session; back to the exhibit hall for a drawing; didn't win; more free pens; where's the coffee......... and on and on it went for 3 days!!

My first musing is on the best practice of technology. A colleague of mine (Tim Childers follow at www.timchilders.com ) made this point Technology Best Practice does not always mean new tools! So, then what are we missing that we could do better with the technology we have? After all, if the 90 day trial works on the iPad all my students have now, then why do I need to buy brand new iPads? I realized that sometimes new tools show what you didn't know you didn't you know about your current technology tools.

My second musing is some of the new stuff really is great.  I am not afraid to endorse great people or great companies. So, here goes TechSmith is just great. Check out the TechSmith Fuse app for student media creation on the go.... such a good solution for the 1:1 environment. Also, Snapshot by Edmodo is  going to be a game changer for classroom assessment. 

My third musing is that networking remains a key to personal and professional growth. Okay, okay, I know what you are thinking ..... Networking has been talked about for gazillions of years. I couldn't agree more. So, here is the question: how many of us our truly skilled at networking?  How many of us lead PD on how to network effectively? I rely heavily on Twitter for my PLN, but what happens when you meet those folks face to face......can you communicate with more than 140 characters or a link or a retweet?

So, these are musings from another great time at FETC. Oh and here is a video of my presentation I gave today.... thanks for reading!