IFL 2021 Sessions

On-Demand Videos

Welcome!  Start Here!

Innovative Thinking and Teaching Sessions

The Science of Tsunamis

Karrie Chajkowski, Adele Koch & Jennifer Dolan 

Come be introduced to the 2021 Kentucky Bluegrass Awards books for kindergarten, first, and second grade students! Library and classroom integration as well as maker ideas will be shared to go along with these 10 amazing books! 

Wile E Coyote Energy

Natalie Hoehler

This session will cover how to incorporate Google apps and add-ons to establish more efficient routines for data collection, with a focus on use in a special education setting. Participants will see how to use Google Forms, Sheets, Slides, and Sites to mainstream data collection and analysis. In addition, participants will learn how they can use Google Sites and Forms to communicate with families. Prior experience using Google's products will be beneficial but not necessary. 

Have you wanted to know how to bring experts into your class to talk with your students? Have you wondered if you could get your class to talk to another class somewhere in the world?  In this session, you will learn to use the power of social media and Zoom to help bring all kinds of experiences to your classroom. I will show you the various ways I have used Zoom and social media to enhance the experiences my kids have gotten and why it is beneficial, no matter your content area. I will explain the technology you will need, the time commitment and the skills needed to make it work.

While ThingLink is an amazing interactive tool that works with both Google Classroom and Canvas, it has one big issue. Teacher accounts are free and student accounts aren’t. We’ll delve into ThingLink for teachers and then walk through how students can create their own versions with interactive Google Slides.

This is a session on how to digitally (re)organize your content and instruction for the year using backwards planning and Google tools. Participants start with digitally organizing their standards, then organizing the breakdown of/to learning targets, followed by identifying key vocabulary & assessment items. Examples, templates, and ideas shared. Great for new teachers, teachers new to content, or teachers with new standards.

Looking for ways to incorporate Girls Who Code, or even want to learn more about it? Come check out some cool resources and see what the program is all about! 

This session will focus on the Google Family: Google Apps for Education, Google Geo, Chrome Experiments, Workbench, Applied Digital Skills, CS First, and MORE. You will get a taste of what these FREE tools are and how to implement them in your classrooms. When you leave this session you will be stuffed with Google goodies.

As we move to a new normal where all teachers will need to have a digital classroom, let's take a look at what administrators can expect to see in Google Classroom and Canvas.  We will dive in to what makes an online classroom successful and what are some of the pitfalls to avoid to make teaching and learning clear for all.

Session 2  10:00 - 10:50 AM

Engaged2

Amanda Hurley and Sarah Zehnder

Successful HS math & library collaboration projects will be shared with an emphasis on the Renovation Project, Digital Animation project and Scavenger Hunts. Others will be shared as time permits. 

It can be hard to design lessons that not only cover standards with students, but also engages them in that material. Escape Rooms have become a major engagement component in some classrooms. They tap into our competitive nature but can sometimes require a lot of materials and tools. Digital escape rooms can be expensive, but you already have all the tools you need to make your own. This session hopes to get you started. We will be covering planning your escape room, developing clues, using Google Slides/Sites/Forms, and much more. 

Let Google Forms do your grading, feedback, and differentiation for you! Learn tips and tricks to create self-grading quizzes that provide immediate feedback. Use branching logic to provide instant remediation based on a student's correct and incorrect answers. Want to showcase students' digital work? Google Forms can also create an instant digital "gallery walk" for you! 

Learn more about an education sensation - Pear Deck. Find out how I have used it with my middle schoolers and have time to learn more about, discover templates, create your own, and find out how YOU can use it to actively engage your kiddos whether they are right in front of you or in their own homes! 

This session will cover Wakelet, a digital tool for curating resources. Participants will learn to use Wakelet for Basic Bookmarking and organization of resources for various purposes. Ten different uses of Wakelet will be presented that include curation, organization, student access, engagement, etc. There is such a wide variety of uses and ways to ride the Wakelet Wave! As I work to help teachers become more organized and work efficiently, Wakelet has truly helped me organize my own topics and presentations.

Resources: Resource Link

Zooming through Kindergarten! In this session I will show you how I stayed connected and interacted with my students on a daily basis during the unexpected NTI days through Zoom and my website. I will show you games and give you ideas of activities that will keep your kids showing up each day! Lots of the games I created on google slides could carry over into the classroom when we can go back to school. 

This session dives into how to use a team approach for utilizing social media and communication platforms for your school. We will share how we approached re-branding our school using social media and how we have streamlined communication across platforms and for different stakeholders. Walk away with a social media planning tool, best practices for various platforms, and tips to help improve your school community engagement. 

Resources: Resource Link | Sample Social Media Calendar

If the 2019-2020 school year taught us anything it was that our daily face-to-face learning model didn't translate very well to 100% online learning. To find a more efficient model we need to turn to two masters of instructional design, Tim Gunn & Heidi Klum. We will explore the Studio model as a means of delivering both online and in person learning. We will cover the framework of the studio model as well as digital tools that allow the studio model to be effective with an in person classroom, an online classroom or a classroom that mixes both delivery methods. Join Us as "We Make It Work" 

Session 3  11:00 - 11:50 AM

Power Up your Digital Classroom: Embed a Librarian! 

Kelli Reno, Amanda Hurley, and Claudett Edie

Explore the benefits of embedding a teacher-librarian in your digital classroom. As we continue to define what teaching and learning looks like in a post-COVID world, we must promote flexibility and independence in our students. Partnering with your school librarian can support just that. This session will provide ideas for co-teaching models, as well as examples of co-taught partnerships at different levels. 

Google Slides is so much more than presentations. I use slides to create graphics for headers, badges, and other graphics. I use it to create newsletters and Potty PD flyers. In this session I will share tips and tricks that you and your students can use to create ebooks, infographics, interactive worksheets and more. 

From valuable experience as a District Digital Learning Coach, teacher and a mom,  I would love to share tips and tricks for making your Google Classroom easier to navigate for your students (and even their frantic parents). 

In this session, learn about a variety of tech tools that can be used to incorporate technology into arts classes. Emphasis will be placed on Flipgrid, Digital Breakouts, Hyperdocs, Google Calendar Appointment Slots, and Digital Choice Boards. Attendees will leave with templates and tools that they can start using right away with their students. While these tools are going to be demonstrated with an arts focus, anyone is welcome to attend! 


How can you incorporate some of the best online tools from NTI into your regular classroom? We will discuss a few online platforms for student engagement, student-led instruction, formative assessments, and communication with parents and students. There will be time set aside for sharing your input and feedback from NTI and online learning. (This session is for beginners to intermediate level users.) 

Best Practices for Remote Learning 

Angie White and Lauren Rataj

Teachers and schools are preparing for school closures as districts respond to COVID-19 and weather-related events. Join us as we share strategies to continue student learning outside of the classroom and explore best practices to make a seamless transition from school to home. This session will assist you as you consider how to: prepare students and parents, build a virtual community, provide engaging content, hold students accountable, support students emotionally, support special populations, and more as you put together your remote learning plans. 


Capturing the Moment with Clips 

Brittney Rowlett

Get an in-depth look at the Clips app that makes it quick and fun for anyone to create expressive videos on iPhone and iPad. Learn powerful tips and tricks for getting the most out of Clips, and discover the infinite possibilities for storytelling, demonstrating learning, and more.  

Note: The recording for this session is not available. 

This session presents a distance learning overview and guidance for school leaders for addressing instructional equity by deploying a five-step Distance Learning Framework that addresses the individual needs of all students, as part of your overall Instructional Process. These strategies can be utilized with both digital and non-digital learning experiences.

Lunch Break   12:00 - 12:50 PM

Session 4  1:00 - 1:50 PM

This session will lead participants down the rabbit hole of creating virtual environments for your Bitmoji. These creations will allow your students to visit your online resources in a new and exciting way. Participants will come away with resources on how to create their own Google Classroom banners, virtual library and/or classrooms, virtual field trips, and more that can be shared for in person lessons or non-traditional instruction. 

Videos and Podcasting in class? Say what?! Even better than using podcasts and videos in class is to have students create them. They can even create them on a Chromebook. Looking for a guide? I am here to help you. It's not easy, but it is easy to join me in this session. You won't regret it. Don't be afraid to try something new and expand student presentations through videos and podcasts. 

Interested in learning creative ways to bring cross-curricular content into your K-5 classroom? Whether it’s simple parent/teacher communication or creating augmented reality book reports, Donnie Piercey has spent the last 14+ years trying to figure out unique and simple ways to incorporate technology into his elementary classroom.  In this session, he’ll be sharing some of his favorites! Whether you're 1:1, BYOD, or only have access to a single computer, there will be a tool or tip for you in this session!   

Are you looking for an easy way to integrate technology into your math lessons? This session will show participants several different websites with digital math manipulatives. You will learn various ways to use these manipulatives within your math lessons, whether whole group, small group, or 1:1 for RTI. Whether you are demonstrating what you expect the students to do with their physical manipulatives, or you have 1:1 devices so all students can use virtual manipulatives, you are sure to come away with ideas of how to implement in your own classroom. 

Technology is everywhere and with the fascination of technology our students have, this is a phenomenal resource to use in building strong relationships with them! This session will focus on the use of technology to build and maintain a strong classroom community and positive teacher-student relationships using technology. Part of this session will focus on distance learning to support further NTI instruction if needed in the future while the other part will take a look at using technology in the physical classroom. 

The Modern Classrooms Project is a nonprofit that equips and empowers educators with an innovative instructional model designed to leverage technology to effectively differentiate instruction to the unique needs of students. Using a three part approach of teacher-created videos, self-paced instruction, and mastery based grading, educators can finally develop a classroom where all students feel supported. Given the new challenges we face with COVID-19, The Modern Classrooms Project model runs smoothly both through in an in-person or remote learning environment. In this session, we will explore the strategies and practices of The Modern Classroom Project so that you can apply them in the Fall whether you are at home or in the classroom. 

Canvas is much more than a distance learning platform. Learn how the LMS can be used to support daily instruction in class. See what an entire semester course looks like and learn how to include instruction, assignments, quizzes, and more. 

Creative Climate and Culture Strategies to Support Staff  (Leader)

Panel Discussion: Marty Mills, Andrea Least, Kathleen Receveur, Amy Johns 

Staff need support more than ever as we prepare for a new school year of unknowns.  Hear from administrators and digital learning coaches about creative ways to support teachers and staff to make sure the climate and culture of your school or department stays strong.

Session 5  2:00 - 2:50 PM

Capture the interest of your students like never before by learning how to create your own GIFs and how to insert them into various places. This session will be one you don't want to miss! Although it's packed with tons of pedagogy it's also going to be full of high energy and lots of laughs. 

WELCOME TO FORMATIVE-VILLE, U.S.A. For this session, I will be covering useful ways to formatively assess your students in the classroom with QUICK and EASY data. As teachers, there are a lot of things to cover with very little time. Therefore, we have no time to waste when it comes to mastery of content! With these resources and tips, I will showcase to teachers how to effectively assess students within the classroom and determine "who gets it" and "who doesn't." Hope to see you there!

Google Earth offers amazing tools to document virtual trips and to record high-flying 3D video of cities and monuments around the world. Learn how to incorporate Google Earth Projects as your go to PBL in your curriculum and how to use Google Earth Studio to showcase presentations, videos, and discussions. 

3D design/printing made easy! Learn the basics of 3D design, math integration and 3D printing in this intro to TinkerCAD. Upper elementary and middle audiences will learn how to integrate mathematics instruction to 3D design resources. 

Learn about KET Education’s free services and resources to help you continue teaching your students during the global health crisis. We are here to help Kentucky educators with on-air programming and online PD & instructional resources. This webinar includes an overview of PBS LearningMedia with new NTI curated collection. 

Want to host an online meeting participants can't WAIT to join? Learn strategies and best practices for virtual engagement that will shift your obligations into opportunities. Join @lhill40 and @MrKleinAIC to learn online engagement strategies and best practices. 

Using the tenets of project-based learning to teach writing, the project-based writing framework gives students the autonomy of choice and the independence of a real writer to set goals and manage their time. With seven steps and 16 deliverables, this framework is ready-made for Google classroom. This session will include resources for pitching, writing proposals, creating a timeline, creating a source list or project library for research, working collaboratively in small groups to give feedback, and reflecting on the process. 

Blended Learning Visioning For Principals (Leader)

Heather Warrell

A discussion of blended learning practices and trends to inform and support principal/district instructional visioning for the future.

The recording for this session is not available.