Breakout sessions:
Session 1 (Thur. 10:40am)
Making the iPad Your Best Friend! Fun and Exciting Ways to Integrate iPads into the Early Childhood and Elementary Classrooms: Kelley Elliott and Amber Williams (AOS)
Come hear how teachers at Annunciation Orthodox School have brought the use of iPads to life in and out of the classroom. In this session, you will receive ideas on how you can use one iPad or a set of iPads in the Early Childhood and Elementary classroom, learn about AOS's Lower School daily news broadcast (The Dolphin Daily News) created on the iPad by the students, and you will hear about the new iPad collaboration tool implemented among teachers this year called "APPy Hour".
Making Writing Meaningful for 21st Century Students: How and Why We Read, Write, and Think for Each Other: Jared Colley (Oakridge)
While teenagers of 21st century cultures experience an unprecedented level of interconnectedness through media, social networking, and the accessibility of information, we as educators tend to alienate that student from their native, digital worldhood, requiring them to disconnect from that which captures their attention and instead to read, write, and research alone. The writing process, therefore, becomes a chore or an unwanted requirement for which the student struggles to see the beneficial significance in relation to their interconnected life outside the conventional classroom. We as educators must think more strategically and creatively about how to make writing meaningful for the average teenage student.
This presentation explores how writing can be made more meaningful if and only if there is a real audience to which the writer may sound their voice. Even shy students want to be heard, and technology combined with strategic, student-centered pedagogy serves to make that possible in ways that are not only meaningful but fun. This presentation offers ideas for making writing relevant by connecting student learning experiences to real audiences with the aid of new technologies.
Tempting Timelines: Barbara DiPaolo (St. John's)
Timelines can be so useful in History, English, Science or any subject, but often programs simply make a list but not an actual timeline. Discover three Web 2.0 tools that allow you to create timelines that are accurate and, in some cases, interactive. Bring your best timeline tool and we can share.
Self-discovery through Student-led Discussion: Martha Rees (Second Baptist)
"We're not always going to have teachers to teach us, so we might as well start learning from each other sometime." - 6th grade student
How to promote meaningful round-table discussions in your classrooms.
Session 2 (Thur. 12:40pm)
The Elephant in the Room...Social Media: Hannah Noble & Katie Blades (Second Baptist)
How can we implement social media into our school while still protecting our students?
Student Independence: Dwight Raulston (St. John's)
Encouraging students to be active learners who will remember attitudes and habits of mind long after they have forgotten the specifics of our courses is increasingly seen as a desideratum of effective teaching. Sometimes, the learning continues almost inadvertently because of a charismatic teacher, but there are many specific strategies those of us who aren’t so charismatic can use to develop the process of active learning in our students even within the framework of a fairly traditional school/curriculum.
Science Visualization through Technology : Erol Turk (St. John's)
Learn about a variety of sources that can help make your K-12 science class come alive. We no longer have to imagine abstract ideas or fight for scarce demo equipment to allow our students to see. From the galactic to the subatomic and everything in between.
Session 3 (Fri. 10:55am)
21st Century Collaboration in and beyond the Classroom - How Three Schools Reached Out and Formed Learning Communities: Jared Colley (Oakridge) & Joel Garza (Greenhill)
While twenty-first century learning practices encourage collaboration, students instead prefer to “divide the labor” of projects in an effort to complete them quickly. This presentation demonstrates pedagogies and merits of true collaboration, both within individual classrooms and among different schools, in an effort which culminated in an inter-institutional student colloquium.
Our presentation demonstrates how new technologies present promising opportunities for educators at different schools to learn the meaning of collaboration by practicing it with each other. Growing from a shared interest in an idea and a restlessness to try something “new,” three teachers at different schools experimented to understand the organic but deliberate aspects of one instance of collaboration, made possible by technology, and involving surprises, false starts, reboots, and good ol’ fashioned Socratic dialogue.
Microsoft Tools: Rachel Merren (ROBS)
Discover how tools from Microsoft can transform the teaching and learning process by transitioning your learners from consumers of information to creators of content. In this session, you will be exposed to a plethora of FREE tools (including mathematics specific tools) that can be used to enhance assessment and save time for both the student and the teacher. Additionally, learn about the Partners-in-Learning network and connect with teachers all over the world committed to instilling 21st century skills in students. Thousands of teachers are connecting through this site and conducting joint class projects in an asynchronous manner, and you can join them.
TPACK: The Future of Learning: Charlie Gramatges & Barbara DiPaolo (St. John's)
Integrating technology into the classroom is never simple. Too often we find that technology appears in the hands of teachers and/or students without training, much less curriculum mapping. During this session, join Charlie Gramatges, Head of Middle School at St. Thomas Episcopal, and Barbara DiPaolo, US History teacher at St. John's, to discover a framework that will help you and your fellow teachers build a plan to seamlessly integrate technology new and old into the classroom. We will explore the TPACK (Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge) Model, evidence of its success, and ways to utilize the framework in order to plan over the summer for your upcoming academic year.
Session 4 (Fri. 12:50pm)
The Flipped Classroom - Flip Out: A Different Approach to Learning and Teaching: Shari Hiltbrand & Jeff Gessel (Kinkaid)
The Flipped Classroom is a different approach to the traditional classroom. Instead of lecturing in class and having homework or worksheets about the lecture at home, everything is “flipped” around. Find out what the Flipped Classroom is, technology that can be used to help you flip your classroom, and even start putting together a flipped lesson or two. We’ll look at examples of flipped lessons in different curriculum areas as well as the pros of such an approach. Come “flip out” with MS Science teachers Jeff Gessel and Shari Hiltbrand who have implemented this approach in their classes.
Technology-based Projects in the Classroom: Isabella Maldonado (St. John's)
Have you been wanting to incorporate more projects as assessments and/or more projects in which the students are using technology to showcase what they have learned? In this session, participants will receive ideas for technology-based projects, share ideas, and view sample rubrics on how to grade these assessments. Note, this session is open to all subject areas, but the types of projects discussed will probably be more appropriate for middle school and high school classrooms.
Assessment Solutions 2.0: Lori MacConnell & Sharon Fabriz (St. John's)
If X equals ANSWERS and Y equals ASSESSMENT, then where am I? When technology delivers answers on demand, how do teachers create meaningful assessments? We'll briefly examine various types of assessments and reasons for them. We will also explore helpful online tools and resources that can help to solve the nagging riddle. Come join the conversation!