Fall CUE 2014. It was my first CUE conference--what a whirlwind! 10 sessions and 2 keynotes in 2 days. And no raffles won...oh well. I want to share some of my thoughts on each activity I attended, some semi-deep, some not so much. Maybe it'll be helpful for you; just skip the sections you don't need. The links will take you to the presentations or resources each presenter created for you!
The Great iPad vs Chromebook Showdown - 2014 with Jon Corippo and Chris Scott
It really comes down to preference. If we are teaching the students the presentation and not simply the technology, it really doesn't matter which one you use. iPad has lots of stuff. Chromebook has a good amount, too. If your school is 1:1, check your budget, make a choice, and enjoy learning how to incorporate the tech to deepen your content.
The Hour of Awesome with Sergio Villegas
We crammed into a classroom and heard many tips and tricks for teacher efficiency. We were encouraged to take away a few things that we could incorporate into our normal routine right away. The link below is to Sergio's resources. One thing I noted and have used since the conference is to share a folder from my school Google Apps account to my personal account. I had been frustrated with being able to only log in to one Google account per browser, but with a shared folder I can access many of my school files right on my personal Google Drive. Simple yet amazing!
Bit.ly/hourofawesome
Why I Love My (Google) Classroom with Lisa Nowakowski
Being relatively new to Google Apps for Education, I wanted to see how this whole Google Classroom thing worked. I enjoyed Lisa's energy, and she was able to walk us through how to get set up with Classroom. I introduced this to my sixth grade Language Arts students a few weeks back, and we plan to use it for the rest of the year. It's super-slick and pretty easy to understand, as is most everything Google. My students will begin writing their documents after viewing the assignment instructions in Google Classroom. They "turn in" their assignment to me, which gives me ownership, I check it, comment, and "return" it to them, which gives them back ownership. They can make changes and begin the process over. Fun stuff!
http://classroom.nowatechie.com/
The Wonderful World of Student Blogging with Travis Phelps
I attended this session because of some contact I had with Travis on Twitter about blogging, and I really just wanted to see what somebody else was doing with student blogging. Travis was spot on with his philosophy and encouraged us to set up a philosophy of our own before we started having our students simply throw ideas out into cyberspace. I set my student blogging up very carefully, and it was nice to see that he was as careful about it as I was. Some ways to use blogging in your class that we discussed in this session include genius hour, role playing, plain old writing, book reviews, and reflections. I've written a lot about my own student blogging experiences in my other posts.
http://bit.ly/PhelpsBlogging
Make Every Minute Count - Quality Instruction Using the Flipped Model with Lisa Highfill
This session was a great reminder for me to spend less time presenting in front of the class while allowing more time for students to create and explore. If I could curate video for the students to engage in at home, class time could be spent taking learning further with student activity, which is where the real learning occurs.
http://goo.gl/n1DdLp
Opening Keynote with Lucien Vattel
The founder of Game Desk offered us a huge free platform called Educade.org which includes free open source materials to use in our classes. Lucien Vattel stated that this was the "lowest hanging fruit" available to us as educators. I'm excited to explore what's available as we work with what already motivates students and add in these mechanics to our classrooms.
Stop Teaching and Start Learning with Diane Main and Karl Lindren-Streicher
If you've ever been involved in a Twitter Chat, this session was designed just like one of those, except we were all in the same room in a circular arrangement. The presenters had questions prepared for us to discuss, and the focus was on giving students ownership over their own education, encouraging them to do the work as we guide them along.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JRNAw4WPttmtTqkl9dJr6fNN_LuGlUmzbJamQfPJqp4/edit
YOU...Are the Infinite Thinking Machine with Mike Lawrence and Bill Selak
Another packed classroom found me in a corner, back against the wall. I wanted to experience the brains behind the show The Infinite Thinking Machine. The creators of the show shared some cool new tech with us in the form of the Pixton program, where teachers could have students create comics to tell a story or to report information. Again, I was reminded how important it is to get the students to create. Among other things, they showed us the latest unpublished episode on mystery skyping "hot off the press". It was a good time.
3D Printing in the Classroom with Christine Mytko
This session blew my mind! I have little to no experience with 3D printing, so what I saw in this session seemed way over my head. I felt like I stepped in to something beyond an intro college course on my first day as a freshman. As I tried to keep up with all the printing terminology, I realized that beginning 3D printing in the classroom wasn't that tough, especially with the price-drops in 3D printers these days. I also learned that a great group to be a part of was K12 FabLabs.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Ye4XmaQzzjL_1l09S1eG-cm5Y667jMpmqkjsjpZQvxM/edit#slide=id.p
Level Up! - Classroom Gamification for even the Non-Gamer with Megan Ellis
This was by far my favorite session. Megan Ellis had set up a gamified classroom and shared with us how she did it and what her students' reactions were. As you can probably guess, it works really well for middle school aged boys, which is a huge part of my own target audience. Megan shared terrific resources and ideas to use in any classroom, elementary to high school.
https://sites.google.com/site/meganroseellis/gamification
The (Google) Classroom of the Future with Will Kimbley
I hit my second Google Classroom session, thinking from the title that it would be how Google was structuring Classroom for the future. It ended up being another walk-through, but I enjoyed listening to another person's interpretation of how to use it. And it was a great motivator for me to incorporate it as soon as I could.
https://sites.google.com/site/willkimbley/google-apps
Closing Keynote with Diana Laufenberg
Ms. Laufenberg brought the audience to their feet at the end of her inspiring talk. Early on, she hit on the way information has changed, especially since the rise of the Internet. She shared that an "Information Deficit shifted to Information Surplus". She said that even though the whole reason for school changed, our classrooms did not. A few more slides in her presentation stated: "We need to shift our expectations for the work from 'what do you know' to 'what can you do with what you know?'" Diana Laufenberg spoke matter-of-factly about changing education and then posed some great ideas and instances of how this could be done. Again, the role of the teacher must change and students need to be given greater autonomy. Laufenberg said learning should be experiential and creative, and we need to allow our students to take charge of their own learning, with well-designed activities directed by teachers.
https://sites.google.com/site/fallcuelauf/creating-the-classrooms-keynote
That was Fall CUE for me. I grabbed a lot of information I haven't even attempted to incorporate into my teaching yet, but as the year goes on, I look forward to trying new things and allowing students to try new things as well.
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