Teacher 2 Teacher Conference Day 2 March 29, 2009
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Well, I can’t go on enough about how good this conference actually is. Here are some brief summaries of what I went to see at the conference.
My first session was with Ben Hazzard on Cross Classroom Collaboration. As part of his graduate studies work, he developed a site called Teachersconnecting.com. Although there are many forums and social networks which allow teachers to connect and partner with others from around the world, Ben’s site is unique in that it tries to match people based on their knowledge or comfort level with collaboration, teaching philosophy, and what projects are available for collaboration. One of the most interesting things I found with Ben’s presentation is how he defined collaboration for class projects. It simply isn’t finding someone with the same grade and subject. It can be between classes with similar interests for learning. It does not have to be bound by what some would consider appropriate opportunities to collaborate. Ben encourages teachers to collaborate with others not just from within their own schools but with schools across Canada or even Internationally. The site Ben has helped to create in conjunction with other like minded teachers from around the world have created a great portal to help you take that first step into online collaboration.
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Teacher2Teacher Pics March 29, 2009
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Hey there! Sorry for the huge picture post! These are pics from the conference I was just on! It was a great experience and I would recommend this conference to anyone. It is geared for both new and advanced users of tech. Also, the sessions were delivered for teachers by teachers which meant that we had practical applications we could see being in used in class.
I hope to attend this conference again for next year!
See and download the full gallery on posterous
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Teacher 2 Teacher Conference Day 1 March 26, 2009
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Well, what can I say. If I had to sum up the first day of the conference than I would have to say WOW! The organization and people there on hand to direct people to the different sessions, the quality of the presenters and presentations was excellent. It was a great use of my PD for this year!
Senator Gershaw has an excellent facility for hosting a conference of this type. We had morning announcements sent throughout the school via live streaming video from the school’s TV studio complete with green screen. It had an excellent combination of Macs and PCs and everyone had a chance to practice the number of apps being showcased at the conference. Even when we were short of stations,we were encouraged to use our laptops on the wireless network generously provided by the school. All the workshop materials are even available for download after the conference. Pretty slick.
Anyways, I learned about how to do Digital Storytelling with a free app from Microsoft called Photo Story 3. Although many people would at first confuse this program with a Powerpoint presentation, it really is so much more than that. Students build photo essays using images, narration and music. It forces the students to really focus on the elements of storytelling, presentation, narration, planning, and pacing. I can’t wait to try this program with my students.
Next session I attended was about using Wikis in the classroom and while we did end up talking about how we can use wikis in class, we also talked about many web 2.0 tools that are freely available to help make our teaching easier. Tom White our presenter was excellent and was obviously very passionate about using tech.
I also attended a great session on animation with Jim Hollis using the SMARTboard. Even though I have experience using smartboards I learned something new. I’ll be sharing a lot of ideas with my colleagues when I return.
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An adventurous trip… March 25, 2009
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Well, I’ve been looking forward to going on this conference for a while but I must say the road trip was quite rewarding. It started out with gre
at weather, sunshine on the snow, and for a change during this Canadian winter, I actually felt warm.
There is nothing like a good road trip, so it was nice to get out for the drive. The scenery kept on changing as I drove south towards Medicine Hat. I haven’t driven through the Badlands of Alberta since I was a child so it was a
great treat. The only thing that changed on my trip was the weather. You could see that storm coming from a long way off before I drove into it.
Anyways, even though the drive worsened for a short patch the scenery was great. I even have a few spots picked out for photos on the way back home.
Till tomorrow!
Lee
Off to conference soon! March 19, 2009
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Hey everyone! Sorry I haven’t been bloggin lately but it has been very busy here at school. The students and I are trying our hands at wikis now and experimenting with the collaborative learning we can do with that.
This has been an exciting year, and it has been very exciting working with a number of Web 2.0 tools to enhance student learning. Anyways, to that end I am going to be attending the Teacher 2 Teacher technology conference to learn even more about tech in education.
I hope to take away lots of ideas from this conference and I will report whatever I learn to you. I’ll post pics and links from the conference and who knows maybe even Twitter? Here’s my link btw: http://twitter.com/leewin
By the way for anyone looking for somre great links for educational websites and helpful tips try Larry Ferlazzo’s website, or for an interesting diversion play Magic Pen which you can find on the Miniclip website.
Cheers!
Mr. Winik
