ipad Summit (by EdTechTeacher)

Three days of ipad summit (put on by EdTechTeacher) was awesome! One of the best conferences I've attended in the long time. Here are my takeaways.

Keynote take aways: 

• With all things tech, first ask “Why?” This was kind of a theme
• It's not about the iPad or apps We have heard that allot
• "There’s no app for good teaching" Tom Daccord
• "How can I put students in creative learning environment?" Was a question on everyone's mind
• "Innovation is a team sport" Doug Kiang
• Consume, Curate, Create and Share This was another theme

What is the most impactful and significant aspect of iPads?

• The iPad simplifies the technology This came up a lot
• iPad as a digital organizer But saving to the cloud is a fundamental change
• It’s not always about the apps It's often about the workflow
• The Camera Roll is King I agree with Beth Holland
• 

Apps take aways

Consume

• Step back in time with What Was There
• FlipBoards allows you to browse tons of web content as if you were flipping through a newspaper
• Puffin Web Browser allows you to use Flash-based content on the iPad

Curate

• Notability allows you take notes and annotate PDF
• iBooks allows you to mark up and highlight text inside of PDF’s or e-textbooks
• Socrative allows you to quickly poll your students. Students can use Student Clicker and PIN code to join your room
• You can use QR Reader to read OR Codes
• You can generate QR Codes for free at this site
• Check out this poster with embedded videos you can red with QR Reader!
• Print Friendly allows you to convert web pages into PDF’s that you can annotate
• iPad X Macbeth interesting integration of an ipad in english classroom

Create

• Haiku Deck allows you to create beautiful slideshows with Creative Commons images automatically
• Create a screencast with photos with FotoBabble
• Create and narrate a series of images with VoiceThread
• Create screencasts with Explain Everything
• NearPod allows you to broadcast and control slideshows on individual iPads
• imovie puts everything you need to tell your story at your fingertips.
• GarageBand turns your iPad into a collection of Touch Instruments and a full-featured recording studio
• Experience the power of Visualize with Viz
• The easiest and fastest way to make cartoons on your iPad. Cut anything out of your photos and move it on the screen. PhotoPuppet HD will record everything you do.

Share

• Evernote allows you to share and organize notes
• Google Drive syncs and organizes files from your Google Apps account

Teaching Students How to Cross the Information Street Independently

Google Apps For Education November 3-4

Listening to Jamie Casap's Keynote, I couldn't help but get excited about helping students and teachers learn how to curate the information around them. Jamie discussed 21st Century Learning  learning in this century, and how kids and adults are accessing new information everyday.

 Jamie brought up some really interesting questions such as, What will work look like for our graduates in 2037? How do we prepare kids for jobs we don’t know what they look like? Jamie believes Americans will be working high-technology jobs that entail communication, collaboration, curating information, teaching, and networking.

Here are a few top take aways I had during the keynote:

Preparing our students cross the information street today, so they are ready for tomorrow.

I   Check out the skills and tools we can use (as teachers) to prepare our students for future jobs.

The image above is called an Inforgraphic, and was created in easel.ly.

Infographics are graphic visual representations of information. 

Keynote Thoughts That Inspired Me:

Curating
 [We need to]“Teach kids how to think, so we don’t need to teach them how to memorize.”

"The web is not a fad, and we need to teach our students how to be digital citizens and leaders. Teach them how to cross the street."


"Making sense of all the information, building search skills, teaching kids which videos are worth the time and energy to watch."

Collaboration 
What would Plato or Einstein think if they saw kids having to hide their cell phone in school? “What do you mean you make them check that thing at the door, you have the world’s information at your fingertips!?”

"Learning happens any place and anytime"

Networking

“You don’t have to know everything, just get good at something that you want to know, and utilize each other.”

Photos From Jamie's Keynote:

• Technology is not new if you are born into it. For a 5 or 6 year old the iPad 1 will be the worst technology they see in their lives.

Jamie's son uses his netbook to watch a YouTube video and learns how to beat a level in his video game. "Learning happens any place any time"

Google Apps for Education New England Summit

On Saturday, November 3rd and Sunday, November 4th, I attended the Google Apps for Educators New England Summit at Burlington High School.  The absolute best time of the whole two days was the "demo slam" at the end of the conference where 12 individuals got up on stage for 3 minute demonstrations.  I saw someone recording their voice into a google doc using two devices at the same time.  I saw a demonstration of IFTTT, a service that lets you create personal "recipes" using automated "if this then that" statements.  For example, if I take a picture with instagram, compile it into google drive; or if I am tagged in a photo on FaceBook, send me a text message; or if this blog publishes a new post, send me an email.  I was also introduced to a very cool website "What do you love?" which searches many Google tools at once and presents the results very visually.  Lastly, I saw a presenter chat in multiple languages with people internationally using gmail chat and google translator.  If you invite the translator robot to the chat, it automatically translates whatever is said into another language, so two people speaking two different languages can have a conversation.

iPad Summit USA

On November 6th-8th, I attended EdTechTeacher's iPad Summit USA, a professional development conference held in Boston, MA.  The conference was jam-packed with a full-day hands-on pre-conference as well as two additional days consisting of 3 keynote speeches and 8 workshops.  I chose to attend the pre-conference session "iPads in the Elementary Classroom" where I played with apps for collecting information, screencasting, and creating stories and movies.  The most useful apps we used, for both the teacher and for students, were Evernote, Book Creator, Educreations, and Explain Everything.  The biggest takeaway for me is that the strength of iPads lives not in content-specific apps but rather in the students' ability to create projects that demonstrate understanding.

One important thing I became aware of at this conference was Ruben R. Puentadura's concept of SAMR (substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition) which is important to consider when designing lessons plans and deciding how to integrate technology in the classroom..  Check out Ruben presenting this past June 2012 in Cambridge here.

Lastly, I walked away from the conference with a homework assignment for myself- to read Tony Wagner's book "The Global Achievement Gap."  Wagner was one of our keynote speakers, and he discussed how the culture of schooling as we have traditionally experienced it does not match innovative learning, and I am very interested to learn more about what he has to say on the topic.

If you are interested in learning more about my experience at the conference, please come find me, email me, or check out my tweets from the conference: @meganhaddadi