Sharing

My ISTE teammates are sharing their notes with me so I'm posting the websites from their favorite sessions as they give them to me.

The I Keep Bookmarks link is from a lady who sat next to me at a session on Monday. She discovered I attended a session she wanted to go to, I told her I would email my notes to her and after I emailed the notes she emailed me the bookmark link. She told me I could share it. You meet the nicest people sometimes. (And then there are those who cut in line...)

ISTE Tuesday

Where do I begin? The sessions weren't quite as good, it seemed like information was repeating. That could be because of the sessions I picked to attend. One session went into an entirely different direction than I expected and was geared towards districts setting up online classes. I left shortly after that one started. One session that I really wanted to go to was full. My favorite session was one called Enhancing Active Learning with Technology. They have a wiki with their information. Look for it off to the side under links. I didn't know there are online whiteboards. The wiki gives information about three. It was explained that these three were chosen because of the lack of advertisements and use for younger students. The third one listed (I can't remember the name of it yet) is for a student to do independently. I don't know if I'll get the links from the wiki listed individually so make sure you check it.

We have all enjoyed everything we have learned so much that we want to go again next year. We'll even present if that helps. Anybody have any ideas on funding the trip?

Rest of Monday

I don't have time to write about each individual session so I'll just say that I learned about more websites that I think can be helpful. Watch for those to show up in the links. One presenter could be Steve Martin's brother. Not only was he a hoot with Steve Martin type humor, he was very informative.

We have another full day ahead of us. Hopefully the sessions will be as productive as the others. (I've only hit one dud so far.)

Oh, for my friends reading this...here is something you'll enjoy. I got lost in the exhibits. I wondered around for a long time before I figured out which door I wanted to go through. That made me miss the last session I had scheduled. Lucky for me the others went to that session so I have the notes available to me.

Laurie, make sure you check out the Florida site. They have worked hard to compile a list of copyright free items for kids to use. They even have their own itunes.

First session on Monday

The presenter is a 5th grade teacher. Her session was about a digital platform for identifying and analyzing literary elements. After teaching the skills with picture books the teacher moved the students into a novel. She chose novels at different levels so her high readers had something challenging to read and her low readers were not overwhelmed. She uses learning.com to give students their instructions and within this program students/teachers can send messages back and forth. Learning.com is a subscription program…sounded expensive. She loves it. I think I can do the same thing using the sync program and other available free sites. She had a list of four projects for the students to complete after reading their novel. (It appeared to me that the reading of the novel and the project was independent based.)
The students created a web about the main character’s traits using readwritethink.org. This website doesn’t save responses so students will need to complete the activity and print.
Then the students used character trait words to describe their character using wordle.net. It would be fun to print in color if a color printer was available. Lauracandler.com has a list of character traits students can use.
The third project was a three panel comic strip using a paid site showing their favorite part of the story. I think the same thing can be accomplished using publisher or possibly readwritethink.org.
The final project was a book cover using readwritethink.org. She had to watch kids to keep them from going on the internet and looking for the actual book cover and copying and pasting. She wanted them to design a book cover that showed what they got out of the book.
She used a rubric to assess the finished projects. The students were given the rubric before the project started so they knew what was expected of them. Loved the reminder about readwritethink.org and the addresses for the other websites along with the ideas. I want to get a copy of her rubric. Great session.

ISTE - Denver

The teachers who are with me at the conference met this evening to line out sessions to attend. We are going to be brain dead by the time we are done. Tomorrow I have sessions like: Digital Platform: Identifying and Analyzing Literacy Elements, ABCs of Digital Content for the Classroom, Power (and Ease!) of Digital Video and more. I hope I'm able to get in to all of my sessions. It should be an informative and productive day. More later!

Links

The links are ones I've been told about and not only appear to be interesting, but I'm looking forward to figuring out how best to integrate them into my classroom. Let me know how you use them. If you have other links that you use and don't mind sharing, please post your links and how you use them.

Thousands of things to do...

And I'm not just talking about technology and teaching. First, it makes me nervous to have a blog but I'm going to try it anyway. So....creating this blog is one thing to accomplish and I'm nearly done with it for today. I have been gathering and packing as I get ready to attend the ISTE conference in Denver. I recently attended a SMART Conference (is that what it was called?) in Wichita, Kansas. I learned lots of good things there that I'd like to share. I'm trying to add a place on this blog for links to try. If you see it, then I was successful. :)