SY20/21 so Far

  This school year is certainly shaping up, not as we had hoped, but things are going well despite teaching and learning taking place from home. 

I spent a lot of time over the summer researching, taking online courses and getting caught up on EdTech changes and enhancements for this school year. I have been busily updating my training website and have been equally as busily updated lessons and trying out new tools to use in our daily online learning.

I was also privileged to participate in a ISTE STEM Spotlight publication.

A few takeaways from the year so far. 

Favourite Teaching Apps:

Google Classroom (carried over from previous years)

1. Pear Deck (I have come back to it today, after many years)
2. Jamboard, Miro (and Mentimeter for presentations and responses)
3. Kialo for online debates

The LRC

Everything is now online, all of our clubs, events, and as many books and subscriptions as we can get.

I revamped the entire website over the summer and launched it on a New Google Site. The improvement and growth of which is one of my big projects for the year. We have made interactive, user-friendly access rooms, added all of our online content to it, and are in the process of linking our online activities for the year through a central hub on the website.

We are currently in the process of preparing our Destiny library system for new users so that the community can easily log in and reserve books and we are sorting out our best practices for book quarantine and lending practices in anticipation of a partial or full reopening in January.

It has been very busy, but everyone is doing their very best to make the most of the tools and technologies we have available and working closely with the community to build positive working relationships with all members while helping them to access and navigate all of the provisions we have put in place for them.

Here's to a very different but very successful SY20/21!

ISTE Reflections

ISTE 12 Reflections

Reflecting on the ISTE 12 experience and comparing it to prior ISTE’s I have attended.

My experiences this year were in many ways similar to those at preceding conferences. There was little time to stop and reflect, eat, and see a lot of the sessions I had earmarked as interesting. It was easier to get around the convention centre than the centres in Philly and Denver and  It was really nice to have the Bloggers Café upstairs in the Sails Pavilian along with the various sig playgrounds. These were important venues for  meet ups and networking.  I attended a variety of sessions and presented on a variety of topics, and while the large venue, lecture style presentations are often very informative and occasionally entertaining, their impact on my learning was overshadowed by the networking opportunities, discussions, and sharing that went on in more informal sessions, meet ups and social activities. My PLN has once again exploded. I look at my travel envelope and there is a certain absence of business cards, both my own which ran out in just one session and those of others, QR Codes, twitter and the reinforcement and expansion of preexisting  professional relationships  were key elements this time around. A shift has certainly happened for me and it  has been building since ISTE 11 in Philly.

There were an estimated 20 000  attendees this year and  while that seems and is a huge number of people, it didn’t prevent me from constantly running into people I knew, many of them from previous conferences. It felt good to further solidify our relationships, share new ideas for project work and tighten those professional links even further.  My conference experience was not about the big name speakers and their sessions, it was about building my branch of our learning community, with professionals, both big name and not.

I was so fortunate in being able to present 3 poster sessions which were heavily attended and work at both the Google and digital AV Playgrounds with Sigms. While time consuming and taxing  at times (I spoke for 10 hours  total often 2-4 hours at a time.) These were some of the most important ISTE12 moments for me.

That said this reflection would be incomplete without reference to some of the other sessions I was at as an attendee..   So here it goes directly from my Evernote  notebook.

About Evernote: I decided that it was time to take that plunge and do more than tinker with it.  I forces myself to use Evernote alongside Diigo and Twitter to record important experiences and finds and I have to admit that it was for the most part a great decisions.  I am going to ensure that I not only use it  often and with purpose but promote its use with other professionals  and students that I work with.

Now back to what I found. Here is a listing of all the resources that I collected during the conference that I thought notable. Some of these have been around for a while, but are worth being reminded about.

Google Docs Tutorials for Teachers

https://sites.google.com/a/viedu.org/google/home

 This resource is designed to help educators and staff learn how to effectively use Google Docs.

Learn 360 Suscription Resources Online

Interactive media on demand service

Thinkfinity

Resources and lesson plans online for free

http://www.thinkfinity.org/

Kathy Schrock's Resources for Everything

http://www.schrockguide.net/literacy-in-the-digital-age.html

Tricider

Ask a question and invite friends or colleagues.
Collect ideas and vote for your favourite.

https://tricider.com/en/t/

Instagram 

Edit and add photos to twitter, fb etc...with just one click.

http://www.destinyquest.com/ 

Schoology 

Manage lessons, engage students, share content, and connect with other educators.

https://www.schoology.com/home.php

lms social

http://www.follettsoftware.com/destiny-quest

Piclits

create poems based on pics

http://www.piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx

SketchUp

Add physical behavior, rolling, gravity, hinges act…(mac put them into library manually)

http://code.google.com/p/sketchyphysics/

Google Presentations idea:

Add hyperlinks as tocs in Google presentations

Scripts

Form Emailer Script

Use for exit tickets, digital receipt for materials checked out, feedbck durng observation, walk throughs

(tools>script gallery)

Henrique's Site

10 step procedure

https://docs.google.com/a/abc-net.edu.sv/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHc0RzhQRWxjN0lscGpjODRXSGlHeUE6MQ

integrating Google Forms in to Google sites

Historical voyages and events

YouTube

Choose your own adventure video using YouTube annotations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtG6yw2IrlI

Create a Playlist Slam

How to do this.....

select playlist and playlist slam

Make a Coin go Around the World-flip a coin

inserting gadgets in spreadsheets

https://sites.google.com/a/flippededucation.com/flipacoin/

Google Cloud Connect for Windows users and Google Docs

Set to automatic to save to googl docs.

Gadgets Worth Looking Into

flashcards gadget 

gadges gadget for real time election results

display results

The Writer's Club 

online collaborative writing projects

http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub/

My Big Campus 

A Site full of resources linked to standards

http://www.mybigcampus.com/

links to presentation resource live binder

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play/418977

Since ISTE I have come across a great many other resources that I don't want to forget about. They are all in my various Diigo Groups, however I plan to post several of them here too in the next  few days.

ISTE Inspiration and Possibilities so Far- List 1

What I love about ISTE
I love interacting and sharing ideas with people at sessions and the playgrounds!!!! I could do that all day long!

I love the inspiration I receive, the renewing of faith in what we are all trying to do and that little push that takes me into my zpd once again.

I am fascinated by the sheer enormity of such and event. The number of choices in sessions that are available to participate in and attend.

Two days into the conference and what have I taken away? I have a long list of  todos at this point which I am sure to add to....


My List of Todos so Far
I Must:
-Use screen-o-matic.com instead of jing for student produced tutorials on small snapshot skills and make it a regular activity in and out of class. No account is needed, it is immediate and why not have their watermark on our vids...they provided the service and for free!

-Create student friendly rubrics for all units of study and instead of hitting them with the whole rubric, give them access to the whole thing and then take it in small steps, one row or so at a time depending on the week's learning objectives.

-Try a "get to know you" activity where kids share who they are with a mashup of video and photos. Note to self: think very carefully about the parking for this.

-Share Google Patents and Google Product searches with the Business and Economics teachers.

-Figure out how to make flubaroo work with Google forms and spreadsheets.

-Collect as much as possible on iPads in schools, App collections and follow the blogs of teachers implementing them. We should really be going down this road next school year once some of the bugs are fixed with Google Docs and I mean in both Primary and Secondary.

-Discuss using Amazon reviews with Languages to encourage student book review writing.

Things that Really Caught My Eye and have Added to Diigo( need further investigation)

From the Iste Google session by Howie DiBlasi

There was a lot more than this in the session, but those applications I was more familiar with. These are the ones that stood out for me:

Google transliteration:

Use google's transliteration instead of google translate,

set language preferences under Advanced Search

Wordlens of ripped and iphone, point at sign and it will translate it to your language. 

Google App Creator

http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/

Shapeways 

sell 3d models in sketchup online(bookmark this one)

factbites.com  encyclopedias and information

quintura generates a word cloud of results based on search criteria.

Clusty groups or clusters information that is related.

duck duck go

Flying through the crusades-google earth  wiki lessons.

http://kthorne.pbworks.com/w/page/6848602/Flying-Through-the-Crusades

5o things to do with google maps mashup

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2006/12/50-things-to-do-with-google-maps.html

google patents

google products product comparisons

http://www.google.com/prdhp

ocarina App

play flute with ipod and iphone

ISTE: After the Conference

ISTE always leaves me with a ton of new ideas crashing around inside my head. This year was no exception.

Image via CrunchBase

Google came out on top for me this year. Google Lit trips, whether those already created or those we create ourselves, will provide an important next step in using Google Maps  and Earth to enhance our book studies and digital story telling across subjects. I didn't know you could embed text in Google Earth Place-marks! Just imagine the things you can add to your stories and tours with such an option. Voki and Blabberize narrators come to mind immediately. Here is a link for Google Earth for Educators for further exploration.

Google Search Stories was a new one for me. I have to wonder why I haven't come across it before. What a novel way to tell a story using Google Search!

I lined up for and was lucky to enough to get into the Google Wave BYOL Session, without a ticket (Yes it is possible and I did it a few times for different sessions, during the conference.). I learned a bit more about using bots with Wave for translations and other purposes. This is great as  I am hoping to use Wave as a collaborative platform this coming year with grades 6-8, but only after carefully planning out the structure.

Other things that got my mind revving were GPS and Google Forms for storytelling (choose your own adventure types, scavenger hunts). Now I have never used GPS before and have decided to face my fear and give it a whirl, but I have used Google Forms a lot, never however, in the ways the Google people where demonstrating. By adding pages you can incorporate many different routes within the same form for your students to follow. This is very cool indeed!

One of my fellow Poster Presenters reminded me about Webspiration, a great online idea mapper which allows for uploading media and collaboration, questioning, comments and chat. After a bit of digging around I realised I actually had an account with Webspiration!  I am now ready to say goodbye to my other mind mapping apps and welcome  Webspiration with open arms. Thank You Kevin from New Zealand!

There are too many sessions that I would have like to have attended, most clashed with other things I had to do. I haven't really mentioned Keynotes or Poster sessions which were equally as powerful as the other sessions I attended. Really a team approach is necessary for optimization of the ISTE experience, but the amount of learning and number of connections that are created for even one person at this conference, are guaranteed to stir the educational pot and get things moving at any school.