Field Report from ISTE

Tagged with: ISTE

Andy McKiel and Liz Castillo’s thoughts on the first day of the ISTE conference.

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Andy: After my first full day attending #iste11, I’m feeling so inspired by the events of the day!  I had high hopes for this conference – it’s everything I’d hoped for and more!  I took the time to fill in my conference planner with sessions I wanted to attend and I walked away from each of these sessions with so many ideas to bring back home and share with my teachers.  But what I value the most about the day are all of the little things that took place that I hadn’t planned on.  Hanging out with my fellow ‘Featured Blogger’ Bianca Hewes has been a blast and she’s even introduced me to some of her Australian colleagues.  I also stopped by the ISTE Unplugged booth a few times and saw several great presenters up close and personal.  There’s just so much to do and see here at ISTE – it’s hard to imagine this is just the beginning

Liz: Wow! I had an amazing first full day at ISTE.  Although this is not my first time attending ISTE, the incredible array of speakers, sessions, exhibitors, great ideas, and unlimited opportunities to learn, collaborate, and connect still amazes me.  It was also great to meet the awesome Edmodo team and my fellow Featured Bloggers.  I also really enjoyed the time I got to spend at the Edmodo booth introducing Edmodo to new users as well as learning from current users about the great things going on in their classrooms.  There is so much to share, so below are a few highlights from the day.

Eight Shifts for Every Classroom (Will Richardson)
Will Richardson is one of my favorite speakers.  It was a great way to start the day.  He shared eight ways that educators need to shift in order to meet the needs of our 21^st century students.  I really enjoyed and agreed with what he shared.  Below is a short summary of the eight shifts.  You can also find his presentation at http://bit.ly/wriste11.

Shift #1: Do talk to strangers
Strangers have a lot to share and teach our kids.  Our kids are already connecting with people who can help them online when they need it.  We need to teach them how to do it well and how to bring strangers (i.e. experts) into their lives.

Shift #2: Create your G-portfolio
Kids need to understand how to manage their online presence so that they can be “Googled” well.  We need to teach them reputation management and how to brand themselves appropriately.

Shift #3: Share widely
We need to share the best practices of teaching and learning with the world in order to lift up education.

Shift #4: Manage information
We need to learn to manage, analyze, and synthesize all of the information because there is so much of it.   Tools like Twitter, Evernote, and Delicious help us with this.

Shift #5: Be a crap detector with attention literacy
We need to know who we can trust and how to determine authority.  Attention is important in a world of abundance of online information.

Shift #6: Follow your passions
Provide students with learning experiences that are in context to their passion.  Personalize learning instead of a one size fits all curriculum.

Shift #7: Learn to learn
It doesn’t matter what we know in our heads.  We need to create learners who can continue to learn.

Shift #8: Solve problems
Create kids who can solve real-world problems with creativity.

Tammy’s Top 20 Favorite Free Web Tools (Tammy Worchester)
This session highlighted various 2.0 tools that can be used by teachers and students across all disciplines.  Some of the tools highlighted were Jam Studio, Google Reader, Random Name Picker, Evernote, Wolfram Alpha, and QR codes.   Click here (http://bit.ly/kOA1d6) for a link to her handout that lists all the tools she shared.  You can also check out her website (http://www.tammyworcester.com) for more great tips and ideas.

Building Learning Communities With Google Apps

This was a great session lead by some amazing educators and fellow ADE friends of mine (Christine DiPaulo, Andy Crozier, & Chris Penny).  Google apps is created around cloud computing and schools that use it don’t need to worry about backing up.  It also works with any platform and from any computer.  They shared some great ideas of how to use Google Apps in the classroom.

Collaborative Conference Planning – Work on the same document at the same time with colleagues

Seating Chart – Always available to you and the students at any time

Sign-up Sheet – Google forms makes signing up easy and students can see what others have already signed up for in real time

Formative and Summative Assessment – Pre/Post surveys, collecting data

Google Sites – Create an ePortfolio, professional portfolio (resume), project template, and showcase student work

Blogger – Promote literacy and have student collaborate and share assignments and reflections

Creek Squad – Check out this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkXd9xPzYQI) to see how one school used students to train the staff and teachers on Google Apps.

Overall it was a great day and I’m looking forward to a lot more!  Aloha!