VSTE Recap

Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE) hosted their annual edtech conference at the Virginia Beach Convention Center in Virginia Beach December 7-9! I attended as a first timer and presented two sessions, 15 + Tech Tools That You Can Use Next Week and Mystery Location in Action!

One of my favorite things about conferences is connecting with other educators who are doing amazing things in their classroom. I love being surrounded by other educators who are excited about learning from and sharing with others. There is such a buzz and excitement at conferences and VSTE did not disappoint. VSTE had something for everyone, awesome concurrent sessions, engaging workshops, thought-provoking speakers (Steven Anderson, Sylvia Martinez and Rob Furman), model classrooms, exhibitors and even an interactive hackerspace! Kudos to the hard-working VSTE Conference Committee and Board Members for pulling everything together. The conference was well organized and there were lots of little touches that really made this conference stand out. The online scheduling was also so easy to use and reference throughout the conference!

I decided to share a few of my conference experiences using Thinglink, one of my favorite tech tools. Thinglink allows you to make an image interactive! I used the PicCollage app on my phone to create a collage of a few of my favorite photos from the conference which I emailed to myself, saved and uploaded to Thinglink in less than 5 minutes! Then I added captions, links and videos to briefly recap the conference! Click around on the image to interact!

 CLICK HERE to check out my VSTE Thinglink if the touch points are not appearing here! The embedding is being temperamental.

Sunday was the only day I didn't present so it was more low-key for me! I attended a few sessions, met some new friends and volunteered at the registration desk. Since I am obsessed with QR Codes, "What Are you QR-ious" was my favorite session from Sunday! 

Monday started off in the dark literally, I woke up with no power at the Hilton and one thing after another seemed to go wrong! I found Starbucks (hidden inside the Harris Teeter) and a luxurious bathroom at the conference center to quickly plug in my straightener and fix a few flyways (yes, I packed my hair straightener) and those two little things got my day back on the right track. Sylvia Marinez's keynote put a smile on my face and learning about the Makers Movement was really motivating. 

While clicking around and making last minute changes to my conference schedule online I found the "popular" tab and wanted to see if there were any sessions that I had missed or initially skipped over. I was BLOWN AWAY when I realized that my session had made the top 10 and had 158 people signed up to attend. 

I snuck out of the morning keynote a bit early to get set up for my workshop. I arrived at the room to find 10 + people camped out. 

"Filter Wall" by Adam Bellow from AdamBellow on Vimeo.

Of course wifi decided to be difficult and I started the session skipping Adam Bellow's Filter Wall video a #FETC throwback and presenting the first few tools from memory! Luckily a majority of the attendees were able to open my Prezi and handouts and the format worked until Cynthia, a fellow PWCS ITC saved me with her laptop which had great connectivity!

Google Handout

Microsoft Office Handout

Throughout the session I highlighted my favorite edtech tools. I like to share tools that are FREE, easy to use, don't take a lot of time to learn or set up and can be used across grade levels and content areas! My goal for the session was to get everyone involved and using the tools which I think is so important. 

We had a BLAST playing Kahoot and that one seemed to be the favorite tool of the session. If you don't know Kahoot, you must check it out! It is an interactive, game-based, quick response system that is HIGHLY engaging. 

Who doesn't use Google maps? But did you know that you can create your own interactive map! By this time we were running short on time but check out the VSTE attendee Google Map that a few participants added to!

I am hoping to be more active on my blog and plan to dedicate a post to go more in depth on each of the 26 tools that I highlighted during my presentation! 

On Tuesday, I presented Mystery Location in Action which is my newest edtech OBSESSION and definitely deserves and requires several more posts! I will attach my Prezi but stay tuned for MORE information on this interactive geography game! One of the best parts of this session was connecting with Mr. Vesco's 3rd grade class in Kansas for a live call. I could have shared my experiences, photos, videos, kids quotes, teacher's testimonies, etc. but I think the most meaningful thing is participating in a Mystery Location call and seeing what it looks like in action. 

I have so much more to share and much more motivation to blog so be on the lookout but I will leave you with one of my favorite videos from VSTE shared by Steven Anderson and friends, #beAWESOME #bebrave #beMOREdog!

Technology Centers

I am absolutely LOVING technology centers which I have worked collaboratively on with MOST grade levels (1st - 8th) ! Initially it took some extra work on my part to get the "buy in" because it can be time consuming and there is a lot of preparation up front. Once I convinced them that it wasn't "something else" to do or more time away from instruction and it could be their science lesson (or whatever subject) with a ton of integration of content and technology they were in! I have worked the centers a little differently with each grade level and experimented with setup! One thing that is kind of fun about teaching the same lesson three times is that by the third class you have worked out all of the "glitches"!

The 2nd grade team has fallen in love with centers and they now come to me asking to schedule time together which is a-w-e-so-m-e! This was our first round of centers (above) to help them prepare for a unit ia (interactive achievement) test and to begin researching ecosystems.

Laptop/Clicker Center:

At the Laptop/Clicker Center students watched the Solid Shape BrainPopJr  and then took a 10 question Clicker Quiz to review the areas they were having trouble with! Our school has had "Clickers" (SMART Response LE System) for years and have been taking whole group assessments but this allows for students to work at their own pace, read the quiz on their own and refer back to the video for help. It was also a great opportunity for the teacher and myself to help anyone who was struggling. All of the data was nicely collected as usual and made an easy grade for the teacher!!! The SMART Notebook file was housed on the computer lab page which made for an easy download.

Laptop Center:

At the second laptop center students accessed PebbleGo which is a phenomenal resource where students began researching an ecosystem of their choice (looking for three living things, three nonliving things and three interesting facts). If you are not familiar with PebbleGo it is a website that has leveled nonfiction/content text and will read out loud. It is a bit pricey but the students love it and it seems to be a favorite new site for my kiddos in 1st and 2nd grade! I love that it is bright, colorful, easy to read, easy to use, has great pictures and graphics, highlights academic vocabulary words and provides definitions, etc. Check out one of the demos.

iPad Center:

The third center was the iPad center where students used an app called Ecosystem HD to continue finding out information about their chosen ecosystem. The app is paid but it is well worth the $1.99 as it will read to the students and has awesome facts, pictures and videos.

At a later session we used the ecosystem research from the app and PebbleGo to create a Prezi! Since this was 2nd graders first time with Prezi they worked in pairs. First they watched a screencast I made using Screenr (I am also in love with this tool). Then they got to work! Check out a few Prezi's that they created and aren't they so much better than a POSTER?!

Prezi

For those of you who have been affected by Hurricane Sandy, please know you are in my thoughts! While northern Virginia appeared to be right in the path of the storm my area did not get hit nearly as hard as meteorologists were anticipating although we were beyond prepared. School was closed Monday and Tuesday and we resume as usual tomorrow morning.

Are you ever amazed at what even the tiniest kids can do? I never underestimate the little ones as I've worked with first graders for years but it still blows me away when they are able to produce awesome products while using technology. I think sometimes people think that they are just too little to handle technology but that is NOT true at all!

I have been working with third graders on their animal research. They created QR Codes linked to a cool fact and a picture during our last two lessons. This past week I introduced them to Prezi and the app Scribble Press which I blogged about over here. The third grade teachers were not familiar with either so I had to come up with a way to make this lesson work while being in two places at once. I have been reading a lot on the flipped classroom and I decided to create a video tutorial for the students doing Prezi. This couldn't have worked more P E R F E C T L Y! I was able to get both groups started and then circulate and help everyone. This is three tech tips in one.

1. I used SMART Recorded which is a SMART Technology resource that I adore but didn't even know about until I found it on accident. If you have SMART Notebook you likely have it! It is a great screen recorder.
2. YouTube can be such a powerful "tool." Don't discount it :)!
3. "How to" videos can be extremely beneficial for students! Everyone was able to watch at their own pace. I gave little instruction on the "how" part of video watching. Some students watched the whole thing through and got right to work, others watched a part, paused and completed the step then went back to the video watched a part, paused and completed the step, so on and so forth and some watched in entirety and then used the video to troubleshoot when they couldn't remember what to do or if something went wrong.

I was so impressed with how well that this lesson went and the amount of work that was completed during a short time period! I am VERY interested in learning more about "The Flipped Classroom."