Edtech Share Fair 2016 Tickets on Sale!

Just a short post to announce that the FREE tickets to our second annual Edtech Share Fair are available now!  (You can read about Edtech Share Fair 2015 here.) The event is Wednesday, March 23, 4:00 to 5:30 pm EST, and is open to educators both inside and outside of our district.  The Edtech Share Fair will be held at Southside Elementary; we will start in the campus's Blair Center and move into the school itself for the presentations.

More information on the Smore flyer below.  To order tickets, you can go directly to the event's Eventbrite page.

Mark your calendar and we'll see you there!

KySTE and our first Edtech Share Fair!

As I desperately try to thaw out, I look ahead to March, which will bring warmer weather and some busy times with it.  Today I want to highlight two events that happen next month, KySTE's spring regional edtech conference and our inaugural Shelby County Edtech Share Fair.

(Quick side note:  both of these events are on Watson's World under the "District PD Opportunities" page.  I update this page periodically.  Here's a link.)

KySTE

KySTE is the local regional chapter of ISTE.   Every spring at the Galt House in downtown Louisville, KySTE hosts the largest Kentuckiana edtech conference of the year.  I have had the privilege of attending as well as presenting at the conference several times.

This year's March 4-6 conference theme is "Welcome to the Future."  I am attending all three days and presenting at two sessions: one on augmented reality (Thursday, March 5, 10:30 am, Coe Room) and another about the construction of Southside Elementary (Friday, March 6, 10:30 am, Coe Room).  Southside just opened in August 2014 and features some of the most sophisticated intelligent classrooms in the district. The Southside presentation will be a group effort, and features Tommy Hurt (Shelby CIO), Kerry Whitehouse (Assistant Superintendent of Operations), and Susie Burkhardt (principal of Southside).  Several Shelby County instructional coaches and teachers are attending the conference as well, and I can't wait for us to share what we will discover at the sessions.

For a list of #KySTE15 session topics, click here.

Edtech Share Fair

This week, we began to officially beat the drums for our first ever Edtech Share Fair on Thursday, March 26 from 4:00 to 5:30 pm at the district's new Learning Center next to Southside Elementary.   I'll share our "press release" with links to more information; I will embed our Smore flyer and our ThingLink page underneath.

Be sure to get your tickets ASAP!

Step right up, step right up!  Our inaugural Edtech Share Fair is coming to the new Learning Center at Southside Elementary on March 26, 2015, 4:00 to 5:30 pm.  Nine teachers from around the district (elementary, middle and high school in several different content areas) will set up their “station booths” and give short presentations on various tools, as well as lead mini-discussions with audience members.  Hear how they have integrated their edtech into their classrooms and impacted student learning, while getting a chance to visit our newest district space.

But this is no typical PD!  With Adam Watson as your carnival barker, be prepared to rotate through only the stations you select in the order that you want.   There may even be some popcorn on this midway of learning.  So come one, come all!  Help make our first Edtech Share Fair a success!

To get your FREE ticket, please visit our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/edtech-share-fair-spring-2015-tickets-15803660173

To take a virtual tour of our Edtech Share Fair, explore this Thinglink page: http://www.thinglink.com/scene/626833573361483778

For a Edtech Share Fair FAQ and a preview of the nine presenters and their tools, see this Smore flyer:  https://www.smore.com/dgk17

Be sure to follow our event hashtag: #scsharefair   twitter.com/hashtag/SCsharefair

TUIT: Lindsay Ricke, MLC HS

Lindsay Ricke is a science teacher at Martha Layne Collins High School.  Integrating technology in her students' learning is nothing new -- in fact, Ms. Ricke was recently part of instructional coaches live tweeting from her classroom using the hashtag #theyet -- but her recent use of Smore caught my attention and I had to give her a #ShelbyTUITshoutout.

I have talked about and even embedded Smores previously in Edtech Elixirs, but I haven't really taken a moment to explain what they are.  Basically, they are online flyers, but that simplifies what they are capable of showing.  Yes, Smores can publicize events, but they can also be used as student productivity tools. Think of them as interactive posters. You start with a template and can choose from several categories. Pictures, YouTube videos, hyperlinks and text can easily be added.  You can print the finished Smore or save it as a PDF, and since it's published to a URL, the flyer can be shared online or through email.  For teachers or students, Smores could also be a viable alternative to other visual digital presentation tools, like PowerPoints or Prezis.

Yet Ms. Ricke came up with another idea. Instead of just doing lab reports on a pencil and paper worksheet, she had her AP Chemistry students use Smore.  Not only does the use of multimedia enhance the finished product (students took pictures and even video of the stages of their experiments), but since their reports are published, their work now has more validity than the typical "teacher as audience" and can be returned to later for reflection or to help study content.  Two student examples are below.  (Note that in the first example, students shot their own video, uploaded to Vimeo, then embedded it in their Smore; in the second, they found an appropriate video on YouTube showing aluminum reacting to copper.)  Very impressive!




Ms. Ricke, thank you for integrating technology as often and as well as you do!

Goodbye Collins!

As I closed out my last embedded day at Collins High School, I marvel at not only how fast my time went there, but how quickly time has gone by since I began in Shelby County.  October 1 marked three months with the district.  My work days have some winged feet.

But back to Collins! I was fortunate to meet so many wonderful educators during my embedded stay.  (And there are some more #ShelbyTUITshoutout's from Collins in the pipeline.)  Thanks to all that came to one of my PDs, asked a hard question, or shared a resource with me.

Before I go, one last nod to Collins's principal Mr. Leeper.  I've appreciated every time he's retweeted me (from @MLCTitanNation), and his weekly Smore flyers inspired me to make my own when I wanted to publicize some district PD.  He attended one of those very presentations, in fact, and afterwards asked, "How do you find all of these tools I haven't heard of?"   Which reminds me of something from Tim Burton's 1989 version of Batman:

(YouTube clip: http://youtu.be/KA5II5AlO7w)

Well, I humbly accept that compliment; I always try to keep an ear to the ground (and the Cloud, and the Twitterverse) for new sites and tools.

Truth be told, however, many a time when I've tried out new tech in a classroom or presented it at a PD, this is what happens:

(YouTube clip: http://youtu.be/X-rkFaIPyL4?t=5s)

Some tools work like gangbusters, and others are just a bust. The secret is to be willing to fail.  It's the only way to grow.

Up next starting on Tuesday, Clear Creek Elementary!

Edtech PD for the district 9/22 and 9/29!

Major PD announcements, minor edtech teaching tangents! As you know, as the school year continues, I will eventually be embedded at each Shelby County School for 3 to 4 weeks. However, you can quickly do the math and see that it will be 2015 before I get to half of the schools, and some school will inevitably be last. What can we do to make this more fair? Easy solution! We are offering TWO edtech PDs open to the whole district, and of course, FREE to Shelby County Public School employees. Both PDs will occur in the Auditorium of Collins High School.

Tangent #1:  Not only am I thankful for Mr. Leeper playing host, but I also want to give him kudos for re-introducing Smore to me.   Mr. Leeper uses Smore to produce a weekly email newsletter for his faculty, but it's also a clever, easy and and free way for students to create an engaging visual presentation / instant website. It's very user-friendly and there are several ways to share the link with others.  Think of it as an easier alternative to Glogster.

Tangent #2: I first heard of Eventbrite when registering for EdCamp Kentucky.  Eventbrite allows you to organize events, create a website presence to promote it, and  tracks registration by "selling" tickets online.  If your event is actually free, you can do all this at no charge; if you do charge, Eventbrite keeps a cut of the sales.  Tickets can be printed out or saved virtually on your mobile device in their app.  Either way, organizers can check their online "dashboard" to see who has registered, and can scan the tickets on event day to easily track attendees, again with an app.

Back to the topic at hand.  After creating these PD events in Eventbrite, Smore allowed me (after I gave the site permission) to import my Eventbrite event information to populate the flyers. Talk about a two for one!  The results are below.  Be sure to get your tickets to both days via the embedded links.  (If you have any problem with the registration, please still come on down!)

So, here's the first Smore flyer for the 9/22 PD "Teacher Tech Tools."  (If you are having trouble viewing the flyer, go straight to the Eventbrite page.)




And here's the second Smore flyer for the 9/29 PD "Become a 21st Century Super-Teacher!" (Again, if you have trouble, go to the Eventbrite page.)


Please register ASAP.  Looking forward to seeing you there! If you have any questions, email, tweet, or Comment below.