Technology in Education: Notes from the Closet

As an instructional technology coach and adjunct professor the amount of information I cover is extensive.  Teachers expect that a coach will have a wide range of knowledge, skills and pedagogy in order to help build capacity and provide the best recommendations for student learning. As a teacher I am always learning from my PLN and my colleagues, building my knowledge base and improving my craft.  This post is dedicated to the ways I am learning right now, at this point in time.  I plan to cross post this information on my About.me page as well as my digital portfolio .  As educators it is increasingly important that we expand our own knowledge and model this learning for our students.  Cross posting this information on a page that I know others will see will help to keep me accountable and current in my journey. Can you imagine if all teachers posted how they were currently learning?  Our students would not only see we don't stop the journey when we l...

Recently I was asked by Teachability.com to blog about the ICE Conference.  Below is my post. During the final week of February  Illinois Computing Educators  (ICE) held their annual educational technology conference. This year the conference saw record numbers with 3,400 educators through the doors over the course of 4 days.  The theme was “Connect to Learn”.  The conference offered numerous ways to achieve this.  Learning came in many forms:  full day workshops, half day workshops, 45 minute breakout sessions, poster sessions, a PLN Plaza, social gatherings, an after-dark edCamp, in lines for food, eating in the atrium or simply sitting next to someone in a session and introducing yourself while sharing a story or two about yourself, your school, your students. Although the focus of this conference is technology it goes beyond that- it’s about sharing your passion and your knowledge, willingly.  Presenters weren’t limited to “experts” in...

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at the Illinois Computing Educator’s annual conference.  ICE 2013 was a fantastic conference with a great vibe (and I'm not just saying that because I'm on the planning committee).  One of the best parts about it, outside of being with phenomenal like-minded educators, is that so many of them are willing to share their talent.  There were over 250+ presentations given (and that was just during the general conference, not including the two days prior full of workhsops).   Presenters were willing to share their materials on ICE’s wiki:  http://www.icewiki.info   making content available to folks that couldn’t attend their session.  That’s just classy. My presentation was on Media Literacy. Media Literacy includes our interactions with media and the messages we take away from it. Its our ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media messages (language that is found throughout  C...

For the majority of this week I am out of the building.   Tuesday I'll participate in the development of CPS' REACH Performance Task technology assessments for grades 1, 4 and 7. These assessments, given in the beginning and ending of the school year help to measure student growth and are used as part of teacher evaluations.  Read more about REACH here . The rest of the week I'll be attending the ICE 2013 Conference .  This conference brings together educators interested in educational technology throughout Illinois.  ICE is a great organization and runs a great conference (and yes, I'm on the conference planning committee too!).  I'll be presenting on Thursday.  My Prezi will be placed below after the conference.  Look for conference notes and details next week!