After conference---after surgery

Hey there everyone,

I apologize for the long interlude of non-blogging :)  As you know, I  had some technical difficulties the last night of the blog and didn't get to finish it.  Holly and I got home Tuesday night and on Thursday, I had major surgery on my right hand.  Since I am right-handed this is a tedious process and let me just say...Wowzer, does it hurt! 

Unfortunately, this surgery caused me to miss the best tech conference in North Alabama, the NATC!!  I never miss it and thought I would be okay to attend but I was really, really wrong. I know it was awesome!!  Shout-out to Vickey S. for all her work on this conference and to all the presenters, sponsors, vendors, and attendees.

As soon as I can do more than hunt and peck with one hand, I will be back to finish out the conference and to get into the new school year (which is coming up really fast).  Thank you for tuning in and for following me (if you are).

Until later.

Home Sweet Home

Wow, what an amazing conference!  Holly and I made it back home and she is the best roomie and travel buddy ever.  Thank you Holly!!  Thank you to all the sponsors of ISTE and to all the volunteers, coordinators, those working behind the scenes, the vendors, and the convention staff for everything you did.  Oh and guess what??  I met Kathy Schrock...yes, the Kathy Schrock!  http://www.schrockguide.net It's too bad my picture with her didn't turn out too well but that's okay because I got to meet her.

I will relay my last 2 days on here as soon as I get some rest.  It's so good to be back home

Until later.

An ISTE Monday

Well, I had my blog almost done and it disappeared...gone.  Everything I said and the pictures...poof! If you don't mind, I will call it a night and will wrap the ISTE conference up in a couple of nights.  I go home tomorrow afternoon.  I will be glad to get home,  as we usually are after a trip, but I will also miss the friends, connections and networking that has been going on.  I will also miss the information I have been receiving since Friday.

Thank you for taking this journey with me and we will end this one in a couple of days.

Until later...

Sunday at ISTE

Hey everybody,

I will try to keep this post shorter so you don't feel like nodding off halfway through it. :). Today was a day spent at mostly either Poster Sessions or on the Vendor floor.  Oh my goodness, the vendor floor was intimidating and very big.  It was full of familiar companies and products and many new ones.  There were so many new, exiting and innovative demonstrations going on.  It was hard to know which way to turn.  Such amazing technology from Hover Cam http://www.thehovercam.com , Penveu http://www.penveu.com  and PBS Learning Media http://www.pbslearningmedia.org.

Poster Sessions are like a smorgasbord of tables set up with innovative educators and some great projects that are being shared with everyone.  Some tables I stopped at were Designing your Makerspace, Gamifying the Classroom and Creating Computer Games: Resources for Teachers and Students, Beyond talk: using Ted in the classroom!, and 6 free tools for dynamic & engaging professional learning.  I scanned so many QR Codes today I saw things in black and white for a little while :).

I went to the Digital Library and Storytelling Playgrounds and really liked being able to see usage of technology directly related to the library and the classroom.  I stopped by the Tabletop green screen in miniature.  Pretty cool!

I then went to the QR Code table and saw how these can be used on books in the library. Neat!

Zombie Librarians was my last stop and we were informed that the University of Georgia has Zombie Librarians and they believe librarians should "be contagious".  The motto is "Better dead, than Unread".  I love that!!!!

I finished off the day with a session called The New and Improved Library is Digital Central. This was a panel discussion with 6 speakers in related

areas.  One panelist Ty is a graduate student at Vanderbilt and does spatial design. He discussed new library designs in Chicago and the one being done in Nashville.  Another panelist named Mark spoke of librarians as being connected and the digital/technological experts (yes we are).  Finally, Mike from Common Sense Media spoke https://www.commonsensemedia.org and talked about digital tools for educators.  Our school system is using this company to teach the students about digital citizenship.  Through Common Sense Media,  you can also use their sites Graphite http://www.graphite.org and Digital Passport https://digitalpassport.org/educator-registration.  All are free to use and I highly recommend them.  This company is uber awesome.

The day ended with an after-party for Purple Mash which is put out by 2Simple.  What an amazing product to have in a school.  An entire school system in Michigan uses this in all their schools and 95% of the schools in Britain use this program  https://www.purplemash.com/#/ipad.  Alas, this program is not free but still well worth looking in to.

Tomorrow will be another awesome day at ISTE.  Sorry for the weird indention stuff, don't know what's up with that.

Until later.

Saturday @iste

First official day of ISTE 2014 was today.  Holly and I woke up early and went to a satchat featuring Jerry Blumengarten the "Cybraryman".  It was worth getting up for, let me tell you.  Here is the link for the morning session, http://youtu.be/Bk4X5vIkkTo .

The ISTE Ignite Round 1 was awesome.  In this sessions there were 13 presenters who each had 5 minutes and 20 slides to present their topic.  Believe it or not, it can be done.  :). It is sort of like a smack down.  I will just select a few to blog about.

Rafranz Davis talked about the concept of passion and innovation through creativity and talked about  Braedon's Art Planet http://braedensartplanet.blogspot.com.  I recommend you check it out.  My favorite thing she said was, "Never underestimate the power of a kid driven by his own passion".

Matthew Newton talked about Google Glass.  I love the whole idea of wearable technology.  It takes me back to the days when I read my brother's Popular Science  and Popular Mechanics magazines.

Lastly, Pat Yongpradit spoke about code.org at learn.code.org and code.org/k5.  Pat stressed the importance of three tenets: educate, advocate and celebrate.  Code.org was responsible for the hour-of-code that many classrooms participated in.  This coding hour introduced the concept of basic computer coding and was a big success.  Some school systems are adding this to their educational curriculum now.

I went to the Community Network Fair where I was able to talk to ISTE folks that are representative of specialized networks within ISTE.  A few of those are the ISTE Librarian's Network, the 3D Network, the Mobile Learning Network and Online Learning Network.

Poster sessions came next and that was so much fun.  It is sort of like when you browse booths at conferences or window shop.  Groups have tables set up and you go to the ones you are interested in and get information, watch something informative about their session and then move on.

For instance, EduSlam Eduslam.me gives you short 5 minute presentations from other educators doing best practices on varied subjects.  Minecraft in Education http://minecraftedu.com puts this very popular game in the hands of the students in a pratical way and let's the teacher control what the students can do.

Global Nomads Group http://gng.org is really neat and offers twinning with classes internationally, plus it is free!  This group Is all about fostering dialogue and understanding in kids around the world.  Last but not least is the International Virtual Schooling http://website.iveca.org.  This table had actual students presenting at their table and they reminded me of some of our student leaders at my school.  Polite, able to converse well and shake your hand.  Awesome!

In between the Community Network Fair and the Poster Sessions was the Keynote with Ashley Judd but unfortunately many of us did not get to be present since it was completely packed.
It was such a good day and thank you for letting me share my amazing experience with you.

Until later.







 

Today was a great day at ISTE!  The conference actually doesn't start until tomorrow, Saturday, but they held a Hacked Education session this morning and Holly and I went to that until 12:00.  I attended a Makerspaces session that had quite a few librarians in it.  Yay for the librarians.  :). There was also a session on Gaming for the classroom.  These sessions were very informal and it is always so wonderful to network with others and to share ideas.  We also got to see Jerry the cybrary guy, http://cybraryman.com, who is awesome.

In the afternoon I attended a Mobile Megashare and it was amazing!  The first session was on Gamification (not the same one as before).  This was so informative about how to insert games in to a lesson.  I already use games in centers in the library but this would help take it to the next level.  They recommended a site called RPG.com  for game design help.  Some other helpful sites/information given were: Kodable.com http://www.kodable.com, Gamestar Mechanic https://gamestarmechanic.com (teaches the mechanics of game design) and
Code Monkey Island Board Game to start students out with coding and gaining a basic understanding of coding before actually moving to the computer.

The next session was on Augmented Reality using a site called Aurasma http://www.aurasma.com/about-us/.  The presenter was named Paul Hamilton and he is from Australia.  Now you know he was very interesting to listen to and his tips were good too (ha).  If you should find you are interested in Aurasma, you should definitely look his site up.  His site under aurasma is Ar Educational Experiments.  Some of the helpful sites he mentioned are:
Explain everything http://www.morriscooke.com/?p=134 which is great for overlaying information over your images (an example would be explaining the water cycle).  You do the images and then overlay the explanation over the images through 'Explain Everything'.  Topia World Builder which is an app that let's you create world simulations, Hopscotch https://www.gethopscotch.com which teaches kids to code using simple, intuitive building blocks (borrowed from the google site).  There was so much more but I will move on.

The next session was Makerspaces and Mobile-the Perfect Comapanions!  Led by Laura a and Jim Briggs.  Their site is Bit.ly/makerspacesandmobile and will give you a good idea of what this session was about.  Are you sensing a pattern here?

The last session of the day (I know, I have about put you to sleep but I just have to share) was on BrainPop and Beyond, presented by Andrew Gardner.  Our school actually used Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr. and it is used all the time.  The videos starring Mobie the robot with his bleeps and note are very engaging and the kids love them.  Andrew told us of a new offering coming soon called Brain Pop ESL which will offer more direct instruction

Holly and I made it to Atlanta for the ISTE conference.  I'm so excited to be here!  Thank you Holly.  I will register in the morning and begin my adventure here at what I am told is the most amazing conference.  We already met a presenter in the hotel elevator.   

Check out what all the hubbub is all about at ISTE https://www.isteconference.org/2014/.  I'll post about my experience along the way so we can all share the journey together...even though I am such a newb :)

Our hotel is awesome and we are within walking distance to the Georgia World Conference Center where ISTE will be held.  Look at this awesome little guy waiting outside the hotel for 2 lucky librarians to find him...it's the Book Dolphin!  According to the hotel clerk, this cute guy was given to them by the Atlanta Aquarium.  I would love to bring him home and put him in my library.

 

Until tomorrow then.  Goodnight from Atlanta.

First Blog Post Ever!

Well, this is my very first post on my new blog!  I am excited and hoping this works out.  Since I am most definitely a newbie this may take a little while to get the hang of so be patient please. 

Next week, I will be going to the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in Atlanta!  EEEE!!!  I am excited and maybe a little nervous.  Despite being a long time librarian, I have never been able to go to a 'Huge' conference before (well except for a Renaissance Learning conference for Accelerated Reader but I'm not sure that counts)...nothing against AR but I have a feeling this conference size will be much larger than that conference was.  I have been warned already :)

I am really looking forward to networking and learning from amazing people from all over the world.  Plus, I am going with a wonderful friend and librarian.  You are my hero Holly!!

Stay tuned for information from ISTE.  I will try to post during the conference to share what I am seeing and learning.  I think I might like this whole blog thing.