Wednesday, June 29, 2011

ISTE2011 - Another Great Day !

Greetings All! Day 3

Marcie has summed it up pretty well so I thought I'd let her take the lead (since I am very very tired right now & my brain is full). I will add comments along the way.../suzanne


Well another great day at the ISTE convention..it's a little bit overwhelming...actually a lot overwhelming but so useful.
Biggest thing I think we realized today is that we need to get rid of our textbooks (eventually anyway... ok maybe not math) but SS and Science are completely moving online now and they are soooo interactive! and no these aren't just the kind of textbooks you just read online, they are completely interactive so you are appealing to all your VARK (visual, auditory, read and write, kinesthetic) learners, (how's that for differentiation!) (I totally agree-these new interactive "tech books" encompass an exciting way to bring plain old text to life./smc) This was a funny video that hit home with Suzanne and me! (very funny/smc)
Joe's Non-Notebook
Our kids today need interactivity to learn, they need multimedia textbooks that they can interact with to learn. ..oh yeah and we need more laptops to do it...but that's another issue! LOL (maybe netbooks, too/smc)

Anyway we attended a seminar today that explained the brain and how engaged learners (today's digital native kids) learn more when they are having fun. It is proven research. If we create lessons that are fun, collaborative, and appealing, they learn more...that's all there is to it. (we also were given statistics on the attention span of varying age groups in relation to lectures...a hint: not very long- so kids & adults are checking out much faster than we know/smc)
This video is a good case in point. So funny! Fun Theory

We also learned about the importance of global connectivity! There were several schools on a panel for a seminar that we attended who are not only connecting (via skype) with schools from other countries to discuss topics, but they are sharing blogs and doing projects together. It is awesome. One of the panelists was a principal who assigns countries to each of her grades and they search for teachers and schools to skype with...(i.e. 1st grade Germany, 2nd Grade Australia, etc) There was another panelist, Kathy Cassidy, who is a first grade teacher (hear that lower grades, we know some of you were wondering about this) and has a blog for each of her students. You can find it at KathyCassidyBlog . The kids post pictures they've drawn and other kids from all around the world in fact comment on them. The blogs are so cute because the kids still use their creative spelling. (This was my favorite and most energizing workshop for ideas of the day/smc)

They all said the best way to work with parents is to communicate right up front early in the school year that this is what you intend to do and most of them will get on board. She avoids last names and putting names with pictures, but other than that she uses everything, photos, video, etc! But to be honest...all the talk at the convention lately is that we all worry too much about internet safety and that it is getting in the way of real student learning! One of the speakers told us to review the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) which can be found here. http://www.fcc.gov/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act (There is also a great article in the Learning & Leading magazine this month regarding the debate over using real names over pseudonyms so children learn to take responsibility for what they write...hmmm, interesting. /smc)

Great day!!!!! Tomorrow it's all over!
Marcie and Suzanne

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