Somersaulting the Classroom

I thought this class with Tim Childers was outstanding. I've watched videos from the Khan Academy and seen various other online tutorials but I had no idea how simple these videos actually are to create. I was blown away at how many short tutorials we created in just the short 50 minute class period.

For starters, I had no idea that our Smart Boards would also record! What a great way to give students a review they can access from home, a tutorial for struggling students, a refresher as part of a review or an introduction for an absent student. I can think of so many ways that I could use this in my classroom to help parents and students in their learning!

I also  had not used www.screencast-o-matic.com  or any other similar programs to record things on my computer screen. What a great way to teach parents or students how to use Edmodo or other "new" programs for third graders!

Tim taught this course through his Edmodo page and shared lots of tools and tricks with Edmodo. I did not know that Edmodo had an unlimited storage. This is really a great way to store all of these great tutorials.

Helen Barrett, ePortfolios

For several months I have been toying with the concept of an ePortfolio in the elementary classroom. The how is so overwhelming to me and it still is. However, hearing  Helen gave me a new inspiration and appreciate for why ePortfolios are such a valuable tool to showcase student learning. I had not thought about   the idea that most of our students will leave behind their digital footprint in the form of social networking. What if we could teach them to control what they leave behind in the digital world for others to view? What if we help them create something more meaningful than status updates and "likes"? As teachers, reflection is such a significant part of our daily routine and practice. I know that I don't do a good enough job of teaching my students to reflect on their work. So often we finish something and move on to the next topic or unit without looking back. The take away for me from this session was regardless of whether or not I am able to successfully implement ePortfolios this year, I can make reflection a priority in our classroom and then give it some type of digital platform.

As Helen said, "We don't learn from experience. We learn from reflection on experiences."

Assessment Driven Instruction and the Common Core

I was excited to attend this session because we are currently using Study Island at our school. I know that I am not completely utilizing all of the tools built into the program and I was really hoping for some tricks and tips from the teachers side. However, the material presented was more from the student side, but did show lots of features that I did not know were offered to the students.

One huge piece of learning is that the folks at Study Island have aligned the state and Common Core standards already in a document and there are also endless tutorial videos on challenging to teach topics within the program. We've used this program for 4 years and I had no idea these features existed. It will certainly impact the way the program is used in the classroom for me. For all participants Study Island gave a free 28 day classroom trial beginning in August.

Podcasting with iPads

This was one of my very favorite sessions. Ken was great and in 50 minutes walked us through how to complete a podcast using the iPad and the garage band app. It was so cool!! He shared lots of veteran podcasting tricks and even gave us ideas on how to create a sound booth in our classrooms. Podcasts have always been interesting to me but seemed completely overwhelming. Ken absolutely made this seem very do able and I can't wait to try it out in my classroom! I just have to think of what our first topic may be!!

Learning with the iPad

This is probably the only session that I was slightly disappointed with. It was really more of an introduction to using the iPad than an introduction to new apps. I felt like a lot of the apps were being sold rather than introduced. The presenter was from Apple and although she insisted she didn't know the prices of all of the apps once I checked on them, they were rather expensive. There was one good app that she shared thT allowed students to estimate fractions on a number line which I think will be helpful with the common core math standards.

No More Red Ink

Although this was primarily geared towards middle and high school teachers there was definitely some learning for me! The presenter showed several different tools that use technology to make assessment easier. WWW.mcscoring.com was one of the neatest sites shared. Even at the elementary level this is a valuable tool for assessing students. I also did not realize that edmodo had a quiz feature. I have used edmodo some but during his conference have realized that I am not using it nearly enough! Testmoz and flubaroo also have great features, but I liked m.secretive.com the most because of it's kid friendly format for students. I hope to go back and use some of these in our unit for standardize test taking. It will Eli innate lots of extra paper and copies.

Jaime

I thoroughly enjoyed Jaime's keynote and thought it was a great way to kick off this conference. This biggest take away for me from this was the idea that great teachers are still important. As we begin to look at all of the tech ology and endless opportunities to engage students we have to remember that caring about our students, knowing them and respecting them as people are still critical. It was interesting to me as he talked about the "x factor" I found ,yself thinking of several students and families that I have gotten to know in my past few years of teaching. There are some parents who put so much pressure on their student to do well academically that they don't spend time doing anything extracurricular. Most often these are my students who struggle so much, particularly with regards to working with others and project based learning. I wanted so badly for some of those parents to be in the room to hear Jamie talk about this.

Let me introduce myself...

I am Jessica Agee. I teach third grade at the Center for Knowledge in Richland Two. I completed two years in the iPAC program and have a classroom set of laptops and five iPads. I am looking forward to this opportunity to learn more about how to use these devices to continue to challenge and engage my students.