At the beginning of December Kaitlin Sullivan and I attended the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference in New Hampshire (Casey and Maria were there as well). This 3 day conference was a whirl wind of information and ideas, it was a truly inspiring experience.

I could go on for pages about my take-aways, but, I'll try to keep it brief :)

My first take-away is.....how awesome Google Classroom is!! Even though we do not have computers yet, I can't tell you how often I think about how much better my lesson could be designed if I could do it through Google Classroom. It's such a great way to streamline information sharing as well as collecting work, monitoring work, and giving quick feedback to students. I suggest finding videos on YouTube to teach yourself all the ins and outs of Google Classroom, it's excellent.

In addition, Google Apps that can be used to help students through work you may have disseminated through Google Classroom has so many features that I never knew about before! We discussed a lot at the conference about how these tools can be so helpful for ELL students. However, they are awesome for differentiation purposes for enrichment and support of all students. Below I am including a few links that you can use to familiarize yourself with these awesome tools:

https://sites.google.com/a/amtechnology.org/treasure-trove/treasure-trove-s-greatest-hits

goo.gl/fcuvGC

http://ow.ly/Vn9Oz 

My second take-away is...how important it is to become a lifelong learner and instill this in our students as well. Technology is not just a buzz-word, it is here to stay and it is the ultimate key to being a lifelong learner! We need to inspire our students to want to utilize the technology because they are curious and want to learn. The Keynote speaker one day, Travis, founder of iSchool Initiative, said “customers drive the industry” if the customer wants something the industry responds, if the customer is comfortable without the industry will not change. He said that we need to think of our students as our customers within the education industry and that our customers are too comfortable with complying with the status quo. Things that need to happen are problem solving, critical thinking, and changing the student-teacher dynamic. These things are hard and our customers don’t want it. We need to empower students in a way that drives them to want these changes. We need to empower students to show that they can have a voice in education, they just need to set their minds to it and work for it. He gave a good example about meeting Peter, the creator of Angry Birds. Peter was viewed as an overnight success, making millions off the game in a short period of time. Travis spoke to him and asked him how it felt, finding out that, Angry Birds had been the 58th game his company produced. That means that Peter and his company failed 57 times before succeeding, this is something we need to instill in our students. Travis gave a great example of places where empowering students worked well. He said that he helped design a program where administration presents problems to students, then students come up with real life solutions. Some of the outcomes were really inspiring. So, perhaps we could apply that to Bulkeley to show students that their voices matter and they can make a impact. This type of involvement can motivate them in their education. Travis saw implementing technology into the classroom as part of fostering life long learning in our information age. We need to foster the right attitude of hunger, resilience, and 

find a way to inspire students (and staff) through the “why”. We need to teach the skills of finding, filtering, and applying. Finally, provide the tools of the mobile devices, tech. infrastructure and connecting our students. 

My third take-away is…the power of collaboration! Amongst staff as well as amongst students and staff/student collaboration. One particular session had a focus on making sure that our lessons include teaching students “hard skills” (those included in the course work) but also “soft skills” (collaboration, time management, critical thinking and problem solving). The presenters argued that cross-discipline collaboration could provide this by making students apply their hard skills in a new environment or innovative way which helps them develop the soft skills. I would love to create an environment where teachers are working together, across disciplines to create projects and assignments. It seems that students too often feel their learning for a class is confined to that specific class but that is not how it works in real life. In real life you’re using your knowledge in all sorts of new contexts, every day. Forcing students to think this way will help them be critical thinkers. 

This idea of collaboration is also SO important when implementing blended learning models. Especially with staff who are more uncomfortable transforming their traditional practices. Teachers need to collaborate to support and assist each other in development. This came up in one session about the challenges to the mobile classroom, teachers who are difficult to get on board with technology. A suggestion that was developed was having teachers who are comfortable with technology co-teach with the other teachers to support them in their implementation until they feel ready.  We are in a day of age where information is readily available and shareable. We should encourage each other by taking advantage of this and always providing what we can, like we do here!

If you want way too much information (some of which may be helpful to you) check out our notes from the conference….

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/18ddako-sZusOOZVZ9YgHKkXSUYP9eS2xMwJzahQkwRY/edit?usp=sharing