Before I launch back into regular librarian mode, however, I am going to quickly review some of the highlights from the trip before the details are absorbed into the indistinct, porridge of my memory. Thus, following is a chronology of the visit:
Monday Night: Upon departure from Missoula, I am stopped and hassled briefly by security because my name is spelled incorrectly on my ticket. Worse, my travelling partner, Crista, receives the full treatment from security- just shy of a cavity check! Finally, we arrive unscathed at our hotel around midnight and fall into bed
Tuesday: Crista is assisting with a pre-session class. These pre-session events are really expensive, but I appoint myself an assistant to the assistant, and thus am able to freeload on the content that I really should have paid for. The session focused on the importance of developing a strong professional learning network, primarily through social media. As a librarian, I am isolated from others with my specific interests and concerns, so I have long exploited digital communication to connect with other like-minded souls. This session was a little basic for me, but it's always good to have a review.
The afternoon was devoted to the power of Google Docs. I have been a heavy user of the Google suite of tools for many years, and will soon have the opportunity to help my staff and students discover the value of all the tools, as my district is soon adopting the gmail and google docs for education. I am very excited about this upcoming opportunity. I think the session offered a very good model for teacher training that I could easily reproduce at my own site.
Wednesday:
I learned about the theory of "Gamification" of the classroom. Proponents claim that students who are proficient gamers have a statistically higher earning potential. This idea flies in the face of what I'd always thought about gaming, namely that it numbed the mind and the sensitivities of players, and glamorized violence and antisocial behavior in general. Well. I was forced to confront my prejudices in light of what I saw demonstrated. The gaming platform exhibited really did engage students, and also actually made them get up and move. I could really see how the systems would be beneficial, especially in the primary special education room. I also learned how one school district received funding for the purchase of xBox hardware and software through a "healthy kids" grant. Another schools' efforts were financed through a Kickstart grant. It had never occurred to me to harness Kisckstart for a school project. I had always associated it with the arts or entrepreneurial efforts. Hmmmm... That's what I love about these conference events- unexpected learnings.
Thursday:
I started the morning with a session by Tammy Worschester, who is always excellent. Her topic was on the uses of google docs (a pervasive theme this year) to collect student work in the form of URLs into a central spreadsheet. She also showed us a bit of html that we can use to generate QR codes for each of the URLs turned in, so I won't have to work on them individually (Hallelujiah!) However, she didn't tell whether or not the QR codes automatically shorten the URL (which I suspect)./ If this is indeed the case, they would all be blocked by the district #%&*! internet filter.
Nonetheless, the single idea of collecting student URLs with a form on each workstation and/or library page was revolutionary to me. Why didn't I ever think of this before? This may be the one most powerful game-changer that I came away with from this conference, and I could have learned it here in Missoula, (or thought of it independently). It's somewhat annoying that I didn't.
Tammy also shared numerous web 2.0 tools for students to share their learning. I had already heard of some of them, but there were plenty of new ones. A later session from Tammy expanded the list even further.
A second session was delivered by Andrew Miller, with whom I was unfamiliar. He was a very engaging speaker on the topic of Project-Based Learning, and is a leading consultant in that area. He made quite a to-do about the distinction between PBL and simply a culminating project. The main difference being in front-loading the end result, and having numerous active, creative learning episodes interjected with traditional learning methods, rather than vice-versa. He was pretty down on most of the distance learning initiatives, which he sees as perpetuating a failed pedagogy model, in essence, the lecture method. He showed numerous examples of wonderful student projects, which could easily be adopted into our STEM initiative, Capstone Initiative, or Baccalaureate program. He blogs about PBL on Edutopia regularly, so I have begun to follow him. He gave some fabulous links in his talk to explore. They can be found here: www.2013.ncceconnect.org/T303.
More learning tools came my way with the following session, offered by Missoula's own Jason Neiffer and Mike Agostinelli. They used a Live Binder to present, which I adore, because the entire presentation is so easily added to my own "shelf" on the Live Binder site. They had a wealth of tools to share, some new and some not. In addition, they also shared their favorite ipad apps for education. Of all that they discussed, I am most interested in pursuing Simple Booklet and Sim City Edu.
The final presentation of the day was on creativity in general, and was frankly somewhat painful to sit through. Granted, by this time I was tired and my brain was full, but I thought I would diebefore the session ended. I guess it wouldn't be fair to expect every session to be fabulous though.
Wednesday evening was well-spent informally, by meeting with the Adobe Education team for a drink at a local microbrewery.
Friday:
I was lucky to attend a session by Kathy Schrock, who is a rock-star among school librarians. Her topic was on infographics, including their history and development. She explained how she used the to represent data, and how to start kids with making their own. She gave evaluative tools for assessment, as well as scaffolding lessons and ties to the Common Core standards. Her site is veritable GOLDMINE.
A visit to the vendors yielded lots of swag for Crista's children, as well as some great contacts for STEM (such as Lego for education) and the sad discovery that there really isn't an iPad solution for keyboarding at any cost. There are, however, several apps in development, so perhaps by next year the landscape won't be so bleak. I attained a little insight into our district filtering problems when I visited the LightSpeed booth for a chat and an airing of grievances. I must remember to ask Art why we aren't utilizing the mobile management module and My Big Campus. They are powerful tools for management, and I'ms sure we are paying plenty for the services.
A second session from Tammy Worcester was somewhat repetitive of her earlier one, but nonetheless hooked me up with numerous tips and tricks that I hadn't been using. She is generous with her knowledge, and provides numerous online resources. She covered under-used tools in Google, such as reading level search, research tools, and map distance tools. Other tools included: online flash-based timers of various kinds, Drawzit (online drawing tool- I think it's blocked), Thinglink (makes image maps), Dinky Page (makes easy fast web pages), Record MP3 (would be good for fluency reads or making podcasts), and Croakit (ditto). She also shared some of her favorite tools for staying current, including Stumbleupon, Twitter, and Pinterest.
I made the mistake of attending a session that was really intended for tech directors on the management of i devices. Luckily, it was a short session, and mostly gave me a preview of what I can expect from my upcoming 2 day training on using the i configuration utility to sync and drive settings for the school devices. The Apple representative also fully explained how important and easy it will be to use the volume purchasing plan for education in order to manage our apps. I will be getting 100$ at the upcoming training, and need to start thinking about what I want to spend it on, with the idea that we will be getting more full sized devices in the future (or perhaps ipad minis)
As with many conferences, some of the best learning was incidental, and unrelated to any particular workshop. Some of the better aspects of these informal learning experiences included new apps such as Videolicious, Tellagami, and DocsTeach. I also began to appreciate the power of the Dolphin browser (very twitter-friendly).
Overall, the conference was time very well-spent and I feel so grateful that I was afforded the opportunity to attend. I can't wait until next year, when the conference will be held in Seattle. Crista and I are already dreaming and scheming about what we will present together.
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| Oregon Convention Center |
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