etech+conference+comments

 **Jill Jubach**

What I took away from the conference:  WIKI-WIKI-WIKI…in seemingly every presentation there was metion of Wiki and WikiSpaces for collaboration. Teachers are communicating across the world with this thing! I have tried (unsuccessfully) to use the Wiki to increase collaboration here, in Lancaster! If you didn’t realize I have transferred all of your comments into a Wiki and you can collaborate as much as you want! It’s pretty exciting to have everything accessible to everyone, and be able to change/edit/comment as much as necessary.   I also attended a Web 2.0 tools presentation that summarized the current tech themes in education.   A session on Collaborative learning highlighted Yahoo boards for educators, pinterest, wikis, and edumodo. All very cool things worth checking out.   One of my favorite session was presented by a librarian called “Tech Out Your Books”…She gave innovative strategies on using Animoto, Voki, Xtranormal, to create book commercials. Once the students digitally created book commercials, she used a QR code creator to link the commercial directly to the book and then also explained how to link the book commercial directly to the library catalog through Follet. Super Cool, I was texting my library associate from my seat to figure out how we can do this   <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Susan Roth:**

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I went to several sessions but two really stand out. The first was Infohio.org. There are several new things there that are very exciting. Maria has already mentioned them so I won’t go into detail but I really like the World Book Early World of Learning. The “I Know” section is everything we do in Kindergarten.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I also went to a session on the iPad. I was surprised to discover that Apple TV is only $99.00. I learned more about QR codes and was given a site where you can create your own codes, []. Many of the apps they talked about were purchased apps such as Garage Band, Thumb Jam, Keynote and iMovie. They also noted some free apps worth having, Evernote, iTHesaurus Plus, Dragon Dictation, Qwiki, Science 360, Watch Know, and iTunes U has an app now too.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">On my own, I discovered an app call OnLive Desktop. It makes the iPad look like a Windows desktop with Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2010. You first create an account through your browser and you save to OnLive’s cloud then you can access from a computer to print, save to your Z drive etc.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Very informative, as is usual.

**Judi Dawson:**

Having missed the conference last year made the event all the more impressive. The influence of advancing technology was everywhere from registration to scheduling your own event-day. Attending with a district provided iPad in hand made me feel like LCS is on track and enabled my attending a Bring Your Own Device Collaborative Session led by Atomic Learning. It was an opportunity to experience a 21st Century method of sharing and learning.

My main reason for choosing Monday, was to hear keynote speaker Michio Kaku. His presentation of future technology was astounding. Instead of being overwhelmed and speculative however [well maybe a little – a penny a chip?] I found my reaction was mostly one of anticipation and awareness that today’s students will be living in an amazingly different world. The mandate to prepare them for success was clear.

Sanderson is newly equipped to enter the world of iPad & iPod learning so I focused on sessions related to this technology by attending a presentation by Apple themselves and another by a 2nd grade teacher. She was creative and open with her lesson plans and student’s work. Her “tech-support guy” was in attendance driving the point home that support staffing plays a real part in the successfulness of her efforts in the classroom.

Here’s a link to her webpage where you will find her “apps I can’t live without”

[]

Part of the day was spent walking through the Exhibitors Hall and though we didn’t see any computer wallpaper quite yet on display we did explore newer versions of software and newer models of equipment we are currently using and enjoyed conversations with some of the support representatives we’ve come to rely on.

It was a great day spent among innovators both in technology and education.

**Amy Wilson:** I took away from the conference the following ideas to share with the teachers at East.

1. Classdojo.com A classroom behavior website that instantly records positive and negative behaviors with a click of a button. Once you register, the confirmation email gives directions on how to set the class dojo up on an iPhone or iPad. Other features of this website include the possibility to email behavioral report cards directly to parents. It is a fluent document that can be changed. Both + /- behaviors can be added or edited. You can also add as many classes as you wish. I implemented this the day I returned. My students response was immediate. I allowed them help come up with the expectations themselves.

2. [|Prezi.com]. I had never heard of this presentation tool. I think the teachers will like it. Perhaps a tool designed for intermediate or high school aged students. Basically a "Better than a PowerPoint" alternative. Fun to create and view!

3. Special education tool created by Franklin called Any book Reader Pen. Also very valuable for ESL students. This pen records your voice with a tap of a microdot. Can be very useful with IEP students who are allowed to have math/science/social studies questions read to them. Do ahead of time so you do not have to sit beside them. The student taps the microdot placed near the question to hear your pre-recorded voice Holds up to 60 hours of recorded messages. A new version with head phones will be available in March.

4. Numerous, numerous iPad apps. Show me- interactive whiteboard for iPad is my favorite.

**Kelli Marvin:** <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">This was my first year at the conference, and I thorougly enjoyed it. I saw many presentations and thought, "we do that." I heard a lot about Evernote, Movie Maker, Schoology, voicethread...all this reinforces what I already do. There were a few apps that I discovered like "remember the milk." The google chrome browser presentation was awesome; I learned so much that the browser does, including apps for the computer and googleexperiments, and synching all devices to a google account. I need to share that with my colleagues. I learned a lot about iBooks, and iBooks author and will be doing a bit of epub this year. I heard a lot of project based learning and that is where we are headed!

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">I'm going paperless very quickly now and dragging those darn students with me. I would love to present digital research, kind of a "ditch the old note cards" thing, showing teachers how to teach research papers totally digitally.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">We need to keep working on getting our software and hardware to work seamlessly together, for example, gaggle and the iPad, but from what I understand, we are guinea pigs for gaggle. I would also like to get diigo to work with the iPad. I cannot get PDF articles to display on the iPads...grrrr...

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">David Savage, the closing speaker, was so powerful. It gave me the spark I needed to start planning the end-of-the-year project required by our grant.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">I really enjoyed this year’s conference. It looked to me like our district was right up there with the types and amount of technology we had in the classrooms. To improve, we need to get more teachers using 21st century learning in their classrooms.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Maria McDaniel: **

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Below is a few things I learned. I haven’t had a chance to personally check out all of these resources, but they come highly recommended. (I sent this to my teaching staff.)

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">The first session I went to was run by a guy from McGraw-Hill. He surprisingly didn’t push their stuff very much, but was a wealth of information! Here are some of the thing he shared: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">If you go to[|http:\\science-teachers.blogspot.com], down on the right hand side under Handouts, click on Technology 2.0. This will bring up his powerpoint presentation with additional links from those listed below. § <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">[|teachersdomain.org][|merlot.org] teacher education website
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">vimeo- <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;"> an alterna <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">t <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">e <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;"> to <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">YouTube
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">better image search than Google <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;"> images: - <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;"> [|flickr.com] great picts <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">- <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;"> [|gettyimages.com] image site with copyright in inconspicuous spot
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Prezi: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">free online presentation software (alternate to PowerPoint)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">[|zamzar.com] - file converter CONVERTS PDF to doc!!!!!!! <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;"> If you ever wanted to edit a pdf file, this is awesome!
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">[|camstudio.org]: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Does screen shots and can do a video of your desktop as you work on something.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">freeplaymusic <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">.com <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">- royalty free music
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">jeopar <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">d <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">ylab <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">s.com: great jeopardy games and can make your own- better than the powerpoint based ones.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">timetoast.com- create interactive time lines
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">gamesalad <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">.com- <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">make games for <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">iP <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">ad <span style="color: black; font-family: 'arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">, iPod, iPhone
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">great teacher resources:

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">I also attended a session on INFOhio- this has great classroom and teacher resources. Links might move around, but you can always click on the site map to find everything. Here are a few of the things I discovered: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">I have some handouts from INFOhio for additional resources. See me to make a copy.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Their digital video collection can be an additional place to search for videos. It has a batch of Bill Nye videos.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Mango- teaches foreign languages (including “Pirate”!) You need to create a login.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12px;">[|ProQuest Ancestry Library Edition] **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12px;"> i <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">s like ancestry.com, but you can’t save your progress and you need to use a district computer.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12px;">[|World Book Early World of Learning]- **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;"> a great resource for early learners. Navigation is by picture as well as text. Subjects are limited though.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Learning Commons- has great prof. development for 21st century skills. Can earn CEUs if you pay for it.