3 Simple Rules For Attending Any Conference

As the end of June approaches that means the annual ISTE (International Society for Technology In Education) Conference is around the corner. ISTE is one of my favorite conferences because I get to catch up face-to-face with those I haven't seen in the past year, I get to learn with some incredible educators and I get to see the latests gadgets and must haves for the classroom.

If you are a social media user or a blog reader you may have seen several posts related to getting more out of ISTE. Many who attend have loads of great ideas to maximizing the impact you have while you are in attendance.

Some of my favorites for ISTE 2014:

• Planning for #ISTE2014-Tips From An OCD Educator-Erin Klein does a masterful job explaining how she organizes her conference experience from choosing sessions to planning evening activities.
• Time, Territory, Treasures: Making Time To Conquer The Exhibit Hall-This post on the ISTE Connects Blog makes a great argument for why you should take time to visit those that make the conference possible.
• 7 Ways To Do ISTE 2014 Your Way-Elana from Edutopia goes deeper into the ISTE experience and shares her thoughts on taking the road less traveled when at the conference.
• A Nerdy Teacher's Guide To ISTE 2014-Filled with practical tips for any ISTE conference, our favorite Nerdy Teacher, Nick reminds us to take it easy and learn lots.

These are just a handful of posts related to ISTE with loads of great advice.

In reading all these posts, I was reminded something was missing.

I think there are 3 things to remember, not only for ISTE, but for any conference or learning event you attend.

Put Your Thinking Cap On And Push The Boundaries Of Your Thinking-It is easy to attend conferences like ISTE or any conference and only go to the sessions lead by our friends or go to sessions where we already know a lot about a specific topic. While there isn't anything wrong with that, are you doing the most with your conference experience? Push your self. I am still a skeptic of flipped classrooms. So I make a point to attend at least one session where its discussed so I can widen my perspective. Try to find those gems of sessions that you might just walking away thanking yourself for attending. Make a point to attend at least one session where you disagree or are a skeptic about the topic. Go in with an open mind and make the most of your experience.

Reflect, Often-Because you are going to challenge yourself and your thinking, it will be important for you to reflect on your learning. Review your notes at the end of each day and write down your thoughts. I love Evernote for this. I can compile everything there (notes, drawings, pictures and handouts) and have it on all my devices. If you don't have a blog, attending a conference can be a great time to start so you have an audience for your reflections as well.

Don't Be A Hoarder, Share Your Learning-Speaking sharing, do it! Think about if you shared what you learned with 5 people and those 5 people shared with 5 and so on. The learning becomes so much more valuable. Find many ways to share both at the conference (social media is great for that) and when you get back to your school/district. Did you go as a member of team? Have your team take 5 mins and share all the resources with those that couldn't attend. Flying solo? Post your Evernote notebooks to Twitter or to your blog. How ever you decide to share, just be sure to share!

Combining these tips with the others that are out there you can have a very rewarding conference experience.

What about you? What tips do you have for doing more and getting more out of conferences? Leave some comments below.

photo credit: zo-ii via photopin cc

Quick Collection Of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Resources

More and more districts are realizing the power that Bring Your Own Device can have on teaching and learning. Students get the opportunity to use the technology they are familiar with and be exposed to how technology is being used by their peers.

But while students are embracing BYOD with loud applause, educators are taking a step back and thinking about the impact BYOD has on their teaching.

I recently worked with teachers on a BYOD initiative and the first questions I would get asked centered around how they were going to utilize all the different devices at the same time, how they would see what was on each screen and how did their teaching need to change now that every student had a device.

These were challenging questions to answer. While we spent a great deal of time working through to find solutions, inevitably they would ask for more resources.

This week I am thinking about BYOD resources. Even though we might be at the end of the school year, these sites have compiled some great tools, tips, tricks and more around BYOD for you research over the summer. Whether you’ve been doing BYOD for a number of years or just starting out there is something for everyone to learn.

Depending on where you are, the letters B Y O D together can mean "powerful impact on learning" or "another bad technology policy." There are many truths and many myths out there in the BYOD discussion. THE Journal lays out 7 myths and 7 truths around BYOD. And you might just be surprised.

Over at Edudemic, they’ve assembled a solid list of sites and apps to use in the BYOD classroom. These are great because all the tools here work on any number of devices (which is important in BYOD) and they almost all are collaborative. So if you have students working on a PC, iPad and Windows Phone they can all still work well together.

Edutopia has put together a very comprehensive list of tools, apps and sites to use in the BYOD classroom. There is a little overlap here with the Edudemic list but what I like here is the breakdown. Not only do they provide the tool but a category to which it fits, like Formative Assessment or Expression or Electronic Notetaking. Each resource comes with a small explanation which is definitely helpful.

BYOD isn’t all about great tools or apps. It’s about the structures in place too. Over at TeachThough they’ve assembled a 9 point checklist of things to consider when embarking on the BYOD journey. Consideration of things like looking at successful BYOD initiatives, researching policy changes can forming informational groups are just a few of the considerations here. This is a great document to those starting out but also for those who have been there to ensure they are on the right track.

One resource that might take you all summer to go through, simply because it is jam packed with awesome stuff, is this Livebinder on Everything BYOD. Everything from the planning process to policy considerations, to ideas for BYOD PD, there is lots here to explore and learn.

Those are just a handful of BYOD resources. What are your favorites? What has helped you or what resources do you turn to when planning for BYOD in your classroom? Leave a comment below.

Happy Learning!

photo credit: miniyo73 via photopin cc

Why Formative Assessments Matter

Back in my first year, I was teaching a unit on the parts of the Periodic Table. The students needed to know where they could identify elements that were typically metals, non-metals, gases and be able to identify elements based on their Atomic number among other tasks. At the time, I believed I was doing exactly what my standards said I had to. My students needed to know the organizational structure of the Periodic Table and by golly they were gonna know. 

So for a week, I stood in the front of the room while students furiously wrote down every word that came out of my mouth. Atomic number, Lanthanide Series, electrons. I could see at the end of each day confusion on their face but I chalked that up to their needing to go home and review their notes so they would "get it." No need for me to change what I was doing. They needed to catch up. 

At the end of the week was the big assessment. I was pretty proud of myself. I had imparted all sorts of Periodic Table knowledge on my students and now we were going to see them shine with it came time to recall all that information. That weekend I got the biggest wakeup call of my, then brief, educational career. Most could not recall a single thing. Some got an answer here or there but for the most part, there were no bright spots from this assessment. 

After the anger at my students subsided, I looked inward. What could I have done differently? There had to be a better way than letting my students get all the way to the end of a unit of study to have them not know anything. 

Formative assessments changed my classroom. 

That look of confusion on my students faces was a clear sign I needed to step back and look at what I was doing and how I was teaching. Had I used some kind of formative assessment I wouldn't have needed the summative at end, nor would my students have gotten to the point of utter confusion. 

Formative assessments are simply little gauges or indicators of how students are progressing towards a learning goal. It could be anything from a simple conversation to something like a clickers or response via a website. It is the formative assessments throughout learning that give us the indication we are headed down the right path with our learning or whether we should take a right turn to get back on track. The use of the formative assessments help teachers understand where their students are and, more importantly, where their teaching is. Had I used formative assessments, I would not have had to take another week breaking things down with the Periodic Table. I could made my adjustments along the way. 

How can you use formative assessments today? Simple!

1) Ticket out the door-One of the first things I did was put sticky notes on every student's desk. at the end of class they had a chance to summarize what we did that day and ask any questions they wanted. They could put their name on it or could remain anonymous. Either way I had a good indication of whether my students got it or didn't. And I could make those on-the-fly adjustments for the next class or for the next day. Now we have virtual sticky notes like on Wallwisher and LinoIt that make this process that much easier. 

2) Real-Time Feedback- I can make those on-the-fly changes by using a real-time feedback program like UnderstoodIt. By having students simply answer "Understand" or "Confused" at various times of class, you gain that valuable feedback needed to make changes to the learning. You don't have to wait until tomorrow. And you can better understand the learning needs of your students to customize the learning environment to them. 

3) Building It In- There are loads of services and sites out there do polling, quizzing or response. Utilizing these can help in the formative assessment process by building in those natural places to stop and reflect on how the learning is going and how it might need to be improved. Again, if I can make those adjustments as I go, I can catch things before they go off the rails. 

Whether you use something at the end of class or during or both, formative assessments can change your understanding of your students and yourself. After our disaster unit on the Periodic Table, I used formative assessments in my classroom everyday and never again did we have a repeat of that week. Over time the students felt comfortable enough to tell me when they really didn't like the learning style I was using or that they enjoyed a particular way I presented the content. I had a better grasp on the learning my students were doing and they had a better grasp on the content. It was a definite win-win. 

How have you used formative assessments? Leave some insight below. 

photo credit: Benjamin Chun via photopin cc

Why Twitter Chats Matter

As a co-founder of #edchat and a life-long learner I've had the opportunity to be a part of 100's of Twitter chats over the past 5 years. From the beginning of #edchat when it was just a few people chatting to now state and specialized chats that get 100's of people following, these chats matter.

But why?

Meeting New People-Social media is called that for a reason. Twitter chats expose you to colleagues and friends you might not otherwise engage with. As I've written before, hashtags are powerful. While you might not follow me, we can still engage in a meaningful conversation because the hashtag connects us. One-way conversations don't really work on Twitter. I find engaging with new voices one of the reasons I keep coming back to Twitter chats.

Hearing New Ideas-These new colleagues that you are engaging with will bring new ideas to the table. Twitter chats not only expose us to new people, but we hear new ideas that could be a great takeaway afterwards. I've had many experiences where after I chat I think what great ideas to share with my teachers or administrators or something new I wanted to try for my own professional learning. This exposure to new ideas and sharing of what works is what drives many to engage in Twitter chats

Opposing View Points-Twitter chats often get knocked as "an echo chamber" or "pats on the back." Sure, are there times when everyone agrees? Definitely. When it comes to how students should be learning or how students should be engaging with technology, many people in the Twitter space have similar ideas or thinking. But the reality is we all are doing something different and even thinking a different way. This is my favorite part of Twitter chats. I don't engage with people because we all think the same. That would be boring and frankly we wouldn't learn anything. I engage because I want my thinking to be pushed. I want to see an opposing view point. I want to learn.

Finding New Resources-It usually never fails. I sit down to a Twitter chat and by the time I am done my Pocket list or Evernote notebook has grown exponentially because of the number of blog posts, new tools, videos and more that are shared. Because of the educators involved, the new ideas and the opposing view points, I will find a new blog to read, video to watch or website to check out. These are not only times for me to push my thinking, they are times for me to be a learner too. And I like that.

Creating Action-Since Twitter chats provide valuable information, resources and thinking, many take to blogs afterwards to chronicle what they are doing as a result of their conversations. I am a believer in establishing, at the end of the chat, what you are going to do as a result of your conversation. Turn your words into actions and then report back. Write a post on your blog, tweet out using the hashtag, share your learning with someone else. Don't let the benefits of the chat stay with you. Share them with the world.

What about you? Are you drawn to Twitter chats for a particular reason? What benefit do they provide you and your learning? What is your favorite Twitter chat(s)? Leave some comments below.

Looking for a chat to join? Check out the official EDU Twitter Chats List: http://bit.ly/officialchatlist

Happy chatting!

photo credit: eclecticlibrarian via photopin cc

Why Curation Matters

I spend a great deal of time looking up stuff. Whether that stuff is blog posts to get a pulse on what is happening in the edusphere or researching new tools to share with teachers, I come across a wide variety of resources that I need to save, catalog and be able to come back to later. Curation is a large part of my day. 

But what is curation? Why is it important and how can you do it easily? 



I absolutely love this video. The definitions everyone gives for what curation means to them are so totally different yet the same.

The Internet has allowed us to retrieve as much information on any topic from pretty much any source we want. Wading through the junk can be tough. We have to rely on the collective knowledge of our friends and colleagues to help us sort the good from the bad. (Because remember, alone we are smart but together we are brilliant.)

But that is only half of the curation process.

Once we find the good we have to be able to store it and find it again. Having good tools at our disposal is crucial so that the hard work we go through to vet resources doesn't go to waste. These tools also allow us to share our learning and curated resources, adding to the global knowledge.

Curation is an important part of my learning and professional development process. I get a great deal of information from serivces like Twitter and blogs I read. That's the easy part. The more challenging is the filtering of the information and saving it for later so I can find it.

For that I rely on 3 important web tools in my arsenal.

Evernote-Hands down, my favorite app for organizing. Not only do I have it installed on every computer I have but on my mobile devices as well. With it I can organize everything I am doing into notebooks and notes. On the web I have the Clipper installed so I can snip quotes, references or parts of blog posts that I want to come back to. Best part? All the annotations come with it so it makes the citation later much easier. From my phone I can add to or edit my notes, insert photos or audio. No matter where I am or what I come across I can add it to my notes and notebooks in Evernote.  

Pocket-This is another app/program that I have everywhere. Since I do much of my information gathering through things like Twitter I need an easy way to save information without adding to to my master repository. I think of it like a way station. An opportunity to vet the resource before deciding I don't need it or transitioning it to a place for long term storage. With this browser extension I can, with the click of a button mark the site as something to read later. I can search by tag or key word and since I have it installed on my mobile devices I can read my saves when I have a moment or save something to my list when I am out and about. 

Diigo-This is another place I save web resources. Again with a browser extension I can take the items I am ready to permanently save and add them to my Diigo list. Oh and I can use the various tools there to annotate and mark up the pages and add any notes. I add tags to organize them and I can share all my saves with a link or two. If you are an educator you get even more perks like the ability to create accounts for your students, sharing lists of sites easily and creating groups so students can share resources. 

Curation is becoming increasingly important. Being able to filter information quickly and retrieve the saved information even quicker are skills we all need to develop and help kids develop too. These skills are going to prove very valuable in the future.

What tools do you use to curate information?

What tips or tricks have you developed along the way?

Thinking About Redefining Professional Development

As a former Director of Instructional Technology my job was to provide technology embedded professional development (PD) to a district of 4000 teachers. Each day was filled with new and exciting challenges, trying to figure out how we could best help our teachers understand technology integration, while keeping our PD fresh and engaging. I’ve been a part of a lot of successful PD and been a part of a lot of not so good PD.

The traditional forms of sit-and-get PD are giving way to MOOCs, webinars, Edcamps and flipped learning. But what does all that mean? What does this transition to innovative PD practices mean and where can we find these new forms?

One idea that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is Flipped Faculty meetings. I always heard there wasn’t enough time before school/after school or during the day to do professional development. So we had to look at how to reclaim some of that time. If we take the traditional staff meeting, many times the information shared is just “for your information” or anything that could be posted to a blog or in an email. The idea of the flipped faculty meeting means the time normally spent on the boring stuff can be turned into a time to share, learn and grow, together, as a faculty. There are lots of ways information can be shared to capture that time back. Check out this blog post to learn more.

Faculty Meetings aren’t the only thing we can flip. Traditional PD models can be flipped too, where work is done before to learn basic skills via video or through course work. Then face-to-face time is spent going deeper with that understanding, creating something or looking at how the learning can be applied. The post on The Flip Side Of Professional Development really captures how to make this work and gives several examples.

Professional Development is more than just flipping the traditional models. There are lots of new and exciting ways to take control of your own professional learning. The DIY Professional Development Kit from Edutopia is full of ideas and resources you can use to drive your own learning. Everything from learning on Twitter to Unconference models to building a Personal Learning Network is covered here. What else would you add?

There has never been a time to think about how to break free from boring professional development. With so much information being shared online and off, now is a great time to think about how you can take control of your learning!

photo credit: hawkexpress via photopin cc

Happy Birthday YouTube! Tips and Tricks For Doing More With Our Favorite Video Service

Today (April 23, 2014) is the 9th Anniversary of the first video ever being uploaded to YouTube. You can still see that first video here. 

Many districts are realizing the potential that YouTube learning can have in the classroom. There are lots of great videos and channels out there on 1000's of topics. I have put together a list of some of my favorite tools to use with YouTube. Some are for the creation end, while some are for the consumption end. Overall they hopefully will give you a good start on getting more out of your favorite video service.

YouTube Video Editor-When it comes to video editing, my skills are definitely lacking. And lets face it. Either you don't have the funds for the sweet video editing setup or you need something quick. The YouTube Video Editor is a great alternative. Upload your raw video and you can make cuts, transitions and add text to your movie. Do you find you are missing something for your video? Do a Creative Commons video search right there and find what you need. You can also upload sound tracks to ambiance. Once done, the video saves right to your YouTube account. Easy!

Quiet Tube-We all know there is some junk out there on YouTube. Be it the related videos or in the comments. Quite Tube might be the answer for you. This is a bookmarklet that, when  you are on a video you want to watch, you click and it strips away all the content on the page except for the video. No annoying comments. No inappropriate suggested videos after. Just the video you want to show.

Tube Chop- There are some videos where all you need is a small portion. When I am designing Moodle courses, I will sometimes only need small parts of videos to embed. Welcome Tube Chop. Take the URL of the video you want to chop and trim both the beginning and end to what you need. You can then share it via a link or embed the chopped video on your site or page.

Drag On Tape-There may be times you need a series of videos and they would be better off watched one right after another. Drag On Tape does just that. Insert the videos via their YouTube URL. You can trim to the sections you want, add another video and another and another, creating your own personal mixed video that you can then post via a link or embed.

Watch2gether- Sometimes watching a video as a group is just what you need. Watch2gether does just that. You create your own, private screening room. You then share the room via a link with your group. They enter and you can watch the video, synced together. There is an option to create playlists and the chat feature works great for collaboration.

So there are 5 of my favorite YouTube tools. Do you have a favorite tool or maybe a tick to share? Leave a comment below.

Creative Commons Image