Playground

Are You Ready for a Smackdown? Celebrating Youth Book Awards

Jenny Lussier

Levels: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists

Ready to build excitement for book awards such as the Sibert Award while offering opportunities for innovation, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity? In this playground, learn a variety of ways to connect your students, grow enthusiasm for new titles and genres, while meeting standards and curricular goals. It's a win-win!

Apps to Preload: None

(159 Playground)

Code & Go

Kate Wakefield

Levels: Pre-K, K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists, Technology Teachers

This hands on opportunity will provide an overview of 360 cameras, Google Street View, Google Expeditions and Dash & Dot robots for the purpose of aligning with the elementary C3 Social Studies curriculum. A K-4 continuum for each tool showing teachers how they can directly connect these technologies with their social studies content will be shared. Participants can learn how to "drive" an Expedition, as well as a robot, through a "journey" exploring a geographical area. Creating Google Expeditions and adding 360 photos to Google Street View will also be explored.

Apps to Preload: Blockly for Dash and Dot, Google Streetview, & Google Expeditions

(164 Playground)

Critter Launch: Hands-On Iterative Design for Middle School Students

Tina Hurlbert

Levels: 6, 7, 8

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, Technology Teachers, Technology Coordinators

Participants will take on the role of a middle school student and construct a Critter Launcher, engaging in the Iterative Design Process. At the end of the session, participants will leave with a learning plan, handouts, and connections to NGSS standards.

Apps to Preload: none

(121 Playground)

Dominate Differentiation!

Dan Kreiness

Levels: All Levels

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists

In this session, participants will be presented with ways to use digital tools to check for student understanding and deliver personalized learning accordingly. App smashing and other formative assessment methods will be reviewed and then tools will be provided for teachers to deliver differentiated content to their students.

Apps to Preload: GSuite, Google Classroom, Flipgrid

(108 Playground)

Engaging Students in Literacy Celebrations

Marybeth Murdoch

Levels: 5, 6, 7, 8

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists, Administrators

Learn about and share ideas for celebrating reading across the whole school. Focus on what students do to get engaged and the simple supports teachers, administrators, reading specialists, and the library need to make an event successful. The presenter will provide sample rules, to-do lists, and an outline of activities for various literacy opportunities. Participants are encouraged to share a literacy event of their own or simply have the desire to implement one.

Apps to Preload: None

(105 Playground)

Everybody Has a Story: Immigration Experience, Oral History, & Makerspace

Melissa Thom

Levels: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists

Looking for lessons and activities that will make a tangible connection between your Makerspace & the curriculum? Learn about a successful collaboration between 6th grade middle school social studies teachers and the librarian. Activities included teaching students how to plan and conduct an interview with an individual who had an immigration story to tell and a lesson on questioning taught students how to generate a variety of question types: literal, interpretive, and applied. They were taught how to record the interview and then transcribe it. As a culminating activity, students created a suitcase representing the interviewee’s immigration story in the Makerspace. Examples of final projects, as well as the unit overview will be shared via a webpage.

Apps to Preload: none

(167 Playground)

Fairy Tales Take Flight With Hummingbird Technology

Laura Hedenberg (2018 CECA Educator Award Winner)

Levels: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, Post -Secondary, Adult

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists, Technology Teachers, Technology Coordinators

Learn how you can use Hummingbird Technology (robotics and coding) to engage students and enhance their learning. See first-hand the results of a collaboration between a Classroom Teacher and a Library Media Specialist that extended student learning using a 3rd grade Writers Workshop on Fairy Tales. Participants will also get a chance to try different Hummingbird Components and see that the possibilities are endless.

Apps to Preload: None

(158 Playground)

Foster student reflection and inquiry with C3 SS, ISTE & AASL standards

Maria Lizano-DiMare

Levels: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, Post -Secondary

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists, Technology Teachers, Technology Coordinators, Higher Education

This presentation will showcase a digital video response tool to engage students in explorations, deeper discussions and inquiry. Students will engage with questions, problems or issues presented by the teacher or classmates. Students' responses and discussions can be in either written format or via video recording. This presentation will provide curriculum integration samples, standard alignment and other resources. The digital video response tool integrates with Google classroom, Edmodo, Blackboard and Schoology.

Apps to Preload: none

(139 Playground)

Insta App: Build A Mobile App In 20 Minutes Or Less

Kelli Cauffman (2018 CECA Educator Award Winner)

Levels: All Levels

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists, Technology Teachers

Learn how to “hack” a webtool we all use, Google Slides, to create a working mobile app on Android & iOS devices. You’ll have a chance to start your own classroom app, or look at ways students can build Slides apps to benefit your school or local community. Ready for the next stage of app development? Play around with two free resources, MIT App Inventor and Thunkable, to create apps ready to sell on Google Play or the Apple Store.

Apps to Preload: Google Slides; optional: MIT App Inventor, Thunkable

(182 Playground)

Keep that Research!

Corey Dwyer

Levels: 6, 7, 8

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists, Technology Teachers, Technology Coordinators

For middle school students, research can be frustrating. The Google Keep app can help as it captures and organizes ideas, shares notes, allows for collaboration, and more. Engaging, interactive, and meaningful teaching that meets standards makes the research process come alive. With a collaborative activity, participants will use Keep to take notes from digital sources, record notes, share evidence with collaborators and import learning into documents, all while demonstrating responsible use and sharing of information.

Apps to Preload: Google Drive, Google Keep, Google Docs

(180 Playground)

Meet the Challenge: integrating STEAM Challenges into Classroom Routines

Stefanie Adams

Levels: All Levels

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists

Learn how hands on STEAM Challenges can help meet both ISTE and NGSS Standards while inspiring students to collaborate, problem solve, and build stamina. Participants will be challenged themselves and see examples of successful lessons you can easily integrate into your own classroom.

Apps to Preload: none

(177 Playground)

No-Cost Digital Resources To Support Your Curriculum!

Daniel Weidmann, Exhibitor

Levels: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists, Technology Teachers, Administrators, Technology Coordinators

EVERFI’s free online resources help elementary, middle and high school teachers equip their students with essential life skills.

Our digital education platform is a hub for educators looking to teach financial education, STEM exploration, social-emotional learning, wellness, and career preparedness.

Apps to Preload: None

(137 Playground)

Novel Engineering in High School: A Hands-On Readers’ Workshop Experience

Katie Tietjen

Levels: 7, 8, 9, 10

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists

How can our English students be readers AND engineers? Our answer: let them build stuff! Learn about an innovative collaboration between an English teacher and an LMS who adapted the concept of Novel Engineering for 9th graders. Connecting independent reading time with the school’s makerspace, we facilitated weekly workshop sessions where students read their books, analyzed problems, and designed inventions to help the characters. High school English CAN be a hands-on experience!

Apps to Preload: none

(129 Playground)

Robot Round-up

Whitney Wadecki

Levels: Pre-K, K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists, Technology Teachers, Technology Coordinators

Discover how elementary students can interact with a variety of robots to develop computational thinking skills, perseverance, and coding fluency. Participants will learn how the engagement and excitement of robot­play can be leveraged to teach important skills such as collaboration, problem­solving, and communication. Learn how teachers connect tech tools to everyday classroom experiences and curricula.

Apps to Preload: None

(112 Playground)

SeeSaw for Students

Brenda Windsor

Levels: All Levels

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists, Technology Teachers

SeeSaw is a cross platform program that allows students to collaborate, create, and creatively problem solve in a very independent environment from K-12. Learners choose their method of creating from drawing, recording, or even uploading other materials to publish in a safe environment. Teachers can choose whether or not to invite parents to join. SeeSaw has been used in my building from K-5 very successfully.

Apps to Preload: SeeSaw can be downloaded on iPads or accessed via SeeSaw website.

(117 Playground)

Talented Typers

Angela Wheeler

Levels: K, 1, 2, 3, 4

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists, Technology Teachers

In this playground session I will share the resources, that we have used with success to get our K-4 elementary students excited to practice (and master) typing. From games, to Microsoft Excel and even a March Madness typing competition I will show you the tricks I used to keep them interested and practicing.

These are proven techniques. We have a 4th grade students leaving elementary for Middle school, and they’re typing 60 words per minute!

Apps to Preload: None

(153 Playground)

Why Coding? Unlock the Language of the Future for Students (Even if You're Not Fluent Yourself)

Theresa Welch

Levels: Pre-K, K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Suggested for: Classroom Teachers, School Librarians/ Media Specialists

Coding teaches the important skills of problem solving and persistence all while helping students become marketable in the 21st century job market. But what if you don't know the language? Can you still teach it to your students? Yes! Join as we discuss the basics of coding and how it can help build the problem solving skills and persistence muscles in both your students and you!

Apps to Preload: Lightbot Hour, Cargo-Bot, Sphero Edu, Tynker (not necessary, but will be demo-ed)

(116 Playground)