Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

I'm excited to be presenting at the Future of Education Tech Conference (FETC) this week. I always thought it was the Florida Education Tech Conference...which makes more sense since it is being held in Orlando, FL but apparently I found out this week that I was wrong! My proposal was accepted for a poster session on the opening day of the conference - Wednesday. So I was able to go (it is easier to "sell" going to a conference to supervisors when you are one of the presenters...so I put in a lot of proposals during the year :). Poster sessions are really hard...you see a lot of people but you can't really explain anything in depth. Another team from our tech department was selected as well and our awesome supervisor helped us make poster for our poster session (see picture above).  Mine is a repeat of a session I presented in Greenville, SC in 2014 (SCEdTech Conference). It is called "Say Cheese! - 10 Easy Projects that Use a Digital Camera"....

The other day I attended a training session and our group choose this video to watch (we had a list and this was the one that seemed the most interesting to us). I really got sucked into it primarily because of the science element (using conductors). The students used a device called a Makey Makey (which I hadn't heard of). Someone in our group had used them before and said they were really cool. I liked how they tied the use of them into learning about conductors and insulators AND coding (pretty ambitious). Here is a link to what Makey Makey's are and can do . Since I work with Title 1 schools I was able to secure funding for six of the Makey Makey's (they can be purchased on Amazon for $50 each ). I thought they would make a great grant idea for anyone looking for something new and different to do with students that ties in technology, engineering, and science (hence the share).

Super excited! Next week I get to present at #FETC in Orlando, Florida. I am going to be presenting a poster session on how easy it is to create student based projects with a digital camera and free software. I presented this at SCEdtech in Greenville in 2014. I submitted some other proposals but I guess my "Say Cheese!" title was more of an attention grabber. There are two other sessions being presented by other team mates from our district. The "Where Technology Fits In" actually was submitted as "WTF? - Where Technology Fits In" (which I thought was pretty clever) but it got changed in the publication. If you are going to the conference stop by the poster session area after the keynote and say hi!

Click on THIS LINK to view the student video Yesterday I worked with two groups of third graders at the end of their matter unit. The teacher and I are working together to try and incorporate a tech project at the end of each of her science units.  I would like to claim this snowflake idea...but I got it from a friend of mine who is a science lab teacher at another school. She was showing me how she had her third graders make dipped wax snowflakes as part of their study of matter. She awesomely lent me all her supplies so I could do it with the students I had. The tech component was they had to make an iMovie (new skill for them) explaining what they did (in the iMovie they had to have one definition, they had to use at least two unit vocabulary words, and have a safety tip...we kept it pretty basic because we had to finish it that day but the requirements could certainly be increased based on grade and available time).  The teacher very nicely gave up a ...

I worked with a class of 5th graders last week making green screen videos with their TouchCast app related to Westward Expansion. The one featured above was the "best of the best" and was entered into a video contest put on by TouchCast (fingers crossed they win). The teacher will win a Studio in a Box  to use with future classes. It was the largest project I have done with students with the app. I have played around with it on my own but organizing and executing a script based project definitely was more time consuming then I originally thought. I now have a better idea of how I would go about planning it next time. I am hoping to get the app added to all 3-5 iPads in the district next year (I wish they had a web version as well for our middle/high students who use Dell tablets). The only problem is that the app is rated for ages 12 and up so principals have to agree/sign a waiver to have it added to iPads. I'm hoping that if I have more student samples that it...

I was in a classroom the other day helping with something TOTALLY unrelated to the teachers lesson. As I was working I was listening to the teacher teach math to her 1st graders. She did such an awesome job (I mean I stopped what I was doing to see what she was doing...teaching 1st graders is a rough subgroup for me...control wise). Anyway, we had to test out what I was helping her with (signing 1st graders into our science tech book) and I asked her to repeat this "call back" she used with her students as she modeled how to use the shortcut we set up. I video taped it because it was too cute not to. I tried it today in a 3rd grade  classroom and they picked it up pretty quickly. I would like to say I was as successful as the teacher in the video but alas I failed to model what "watching" looked like first (my mistake). So, if you are going to use this call back make sure students know and practice what "watching" looks like before introducing...

Last night I attended a Christmas concert put on by the Marine Corps Band and it was...as always..outstanding. My favorite piece was the one above called Minor Alterations - Christmas Through the Looking Glass composed by David Lovrien. It made me think of a Christmas themed circus (dark and light) as I was listening to it. The unusual remake or remix of all these iconic Christmas songs made it on my December music list for the classroom (for sale on iTunes for .99). I thought I would share...since I had never heard of it until last night.