Learnin’ ‘n Loot...

at eTech Ohio 2009 - State Technology Conference - Columbus Convention Center

Decisions, decisions – about 20 different sessions from which to choose for each hour from 8-3:30 for 3 days! I was selfish this year and attended sessions that interested me personally, rather than thinking about what I would take back to other teachers.

Most of you know how much I enjoy geocaching – to the point I incorporated it into several lessons with my 5th graders last year. With that in mind, here are the titles of several of my favorite sessions:
**Earthquests! Teaching Earth Science, Topography, And Geography Using Google Earth
**Educaching: Integrating GPS Technology With The Curriculum

First hand viewing of students designing and creating robots and then competing was a highlight I enjoyed.

After attending several sessions, such as **Don't Fear Facebook! Using Social Networking To Communicate With Students And Parents**, I realize our schools need to rethink many of the restrictions that are currently in place about YouTube, Facebook, cell phones, iPods, and other “tools” readily, efficiently, and continually used by students (but NOT schools). The tools are already there to communicate with students but many administrations refuse to let us use them inside the classrooms.

Along the same lines, I became more comfortable with Google Docs, but forget it – it’s blocked at school. Many times as my students are so excited about PowerPoint they are disappointed upon realizing they don’t have it at home. Within Google Docs they could create presentations at home and even save them in the ppt format; or export a ppt to Google Docs. (The same is true for spreadsheets and word documents.) I was excited and even started planning a lesson on this, but as I returned to school Thursday my excitement turned to frustration as I realized GD is a restricted site. Again, we’ve cut another avenue available between school and home, and dampened student enthusiasm.

But I do encourage you to check out Google Docs at home – I’ve learned more on my own and so wish I was able to use its “forms” at school – it would be an alternative method of assessment or survey.

Wifi and laptops - almost everywhere except classrooms!

OK, enough whining! I’ll be sharing with staff some things I learned, especially **Thirty Three Tech Tips That Translate To Time (re)Trieved** and iTunesU (professional development videos and podcasts). Other topics that revitalized me were Web 2.0, Edu 2.0, wikis, blogs, ANIMOTO, wordle.net, voicethread.com – as I type this I realize there are things I’ve tried at home, but not at school – I better prepare myself for more restrictions.

What’s a conference without goodies? More pens than I’ll ever use, a fine-point mechanical pencil, earbuds, T-shirt, boomerang, magnets, bookmarks, screen-cleaners, a very nice mug, ruler, candy, etc. But the BEST – a 2 gig thumb drive that’s a bracelet!

As I typed this in Word and saw so many "red squiggles" it just reinforces my frustration at how we are not keeping up with the times! So many words that are so current for our students are not in the dictionary – iPod, earbud, Google, FaceBook, MySpace, educaching, earthquest, etc. ~~K