KySTE 2019

Every March, I make my edtech pilgrimage to the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky to attend the KySTE Spring Conference.  It was a record attendance this year (nearly 2000 registered!).    It's been a few days since the close of the conference, and I wanted to share several highlights.

1.  I did presentations on Shelby County's Digital Citizenship curriculum as well as some recommended digital equity tools to help personalize learning.   I was pleased to get attendees for both, but in particular, I hope to continue conversations with several people on how we can collaborate on digital citizenship for Kentucky students in the future.

2. Much like I missed TodaysMeet and was thankful to find YoTeach, I have missed Storify since it shuttered, as it was an easy and useful curation tool...but now I think I have a replacement!  From Stella Pollard, I learned of a new tool, Wakelet.   It allows you to make "collections" that can consist of images, PDFs, texts, Tweets, YouTube videos, and of course hyperlinks.  Wakelet is very user friendly, and even allows the ability to search tweets and YouTube videos from within the tool much like Storify did.  A social aspect of Wakelet is that you can have followers, and there is a beta feature where you can collaborate on the same collection.  I created a profile page here.

3.  URL shorteners like Bit.ly and Tinyurl.com have three main issues: a) your audience has to type a complicated URL where upper and lower case letters make a difference, b) you can personalize the URL to make it more straight-forward, but the more simple it is the more likely it's already taken, and c) both A and B may seem like a lot of effort for what often amounts to just a one time hour-long presentation.   That's why Yellkey is fantastic!  Simply give the URL to shorten and choose the duration you need it, anytime from 5 minutes to 24 hours.  You will get a shortened URL in simple language, such as yellkey.com/computer. Note these are both disposable and reused; a few days or even a few minutes from now, yellkey.com/computer will point to something else. (Thanks Leslie Fisher!)

4.  As a former high school English teacher, it is easier for me to imagine a librarian to help collaborate with staff on literacy and not numeracy needs.  Obviously, I am short sighted!  One of the best KySTE sessions I attended involved Sarah Zender (math teacher) and Amanda Hurley (librarian) from Henry Clay High School (Fayette County).  They talked about their work together, and it was impressive: scavenger hunts, geometry animated STEM projects, Math Inquiries that connected personal interests (such as guitar playing, MMA fighting, and fantasy football), and involving students in library renovations.

5.  Last but not least, it was a highlight of not just the conference but of my career to receive the KySTE Outstanding Leader of the Year award for 2018-2019.

As I've already said in various social media posts, in a life there are hundreds of people who give you wisdom, teach you a lesson, or model by example.  Whoever I may be or accomplish is the accumulation of all of those people and moments.  Thank you to all of my friends, family and colleagues who I have had the privilege of sharing a part of my educational journey.  And of course, thank you to KySTE for the award!  I'll always treasure it.

I'll end this entry with a video of my acceptance speech.  Special thanks to Cyndi Skellie for recording it!