Day 4:

I started my day at the keynote with Kevin Carroll. I had not heard of him before or his message about the Red Rubber Ball. He was very inspirational and focused on the importance of play. When was the last time you took time to play?

I then stopped by the Mobile Makerspace Learning Playground and played for a little while. Next step was the posters. I like the idea of poster sessions, but I find them a little overwhelming to take it because of all of the other people there. I then met up with part of my Iron Chef team to work on our presentation.

Then, its as time for our own poster session! We quickly set up, and then people started arriving. We shared about our project based learning programs in our elementary, middle, and high school. We brought a few students with us to share about their experiences, and they were definitely the stars of the booth.

After our poster session, I needed some quiet time to regroup, so I headed to the welcome lounge. I recharged and then was ready to meet with my Iron Chef group to but the finishing touches on our presentation.

I decided to finish the day out at the If You Build It documentary viewing. This was such an inspirational documentary about trying to change the culture of a school and community in a small, rural district. It reminded me how difficult it can be for change to happen but how important it is for students. If you ever have a chance to watch this documentary, I highly recommend it.

IF YOU BUILD IT (Official Trailer) from OCP Media on Vimeo.

Day 5

First off today was the Iron Chef competition where we shared our Tweet Fondue presentation. You can also check out our twitter feed. You can learn more about the Iron Chef challenge here. It was a great experience. If you want to be a part of ISTE next year, I highly recommend it.

Next up I went to Sylvia Martinez’s presentation about the Top 10 Tools for the Maker Movement. It was another great perspective on the maker movement. I then headed to the Maker’s Playground for some more time to play around. It was cool to see a Makey Makey in use as I just picked up one of these.

I then spent some time making sure I had covered the entire exhibit hall. Overall, I was disappointed by the exhibit hall. The sessions were so inspirational, but in the exhibit hall it was all about grading quickly, making assessments, control devices, etc. It was a completely different atmosphere. The one highlight of the exhibit hall was the Ron Clark Academy students at the Classflow booth.

I then headed to another session about making and technology. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like the presenters were prepared or sharing anything that I hadn’t heard before, so I left. The final keynote was already seating, so I headed to the hall and grabbed a seat. I was front and center for the final keynote, and it was my favorite keynote of the conference. Jeff Charbonneau, the 2013 Teacher of the Year shared What if? It was an amazingly inspirational message. Plus, Jeff is a science and engineering teacher, so I felt like I found a kindred spirit. Jeff teaches in a small rural district in Washington State. If you ever have a chance to hear him speak, do!

ISTE2014 was an amazing conference, and I am so glad I had the opportunity to attend. I will be processing everything and sharing a reflective post soon.

Today was a whirlwind of amazing experiences! Here’s a quick overview:

1. Poster sessions – I especially enjoyed the one on creating a personal brand for students and starting a tech entrepreneurial club.
2. Science and math playground.
3. I popped into the ISTE Iron Chef and decided to join a group. We’re putting together our solution to the challenge and will be sharing on Tuesday!
4. A vist to the exhibit hall which was an exercise in total overstimulation!
5. I visited the ISTE Board Office Hours and shared my opinions on the topics they presented. I also tweeted by responses. Thanks to tweeting, I won a Starbucks gift card!
6. Invent to Learn session with Gary Stager. I was really lucky to get a seat to this event as a half an hour before start time, the room was nearly full! It’s too bad there was not a larger space. If you wanted to attend but couldn’t, here are my notes (it’s not been proofread yet). I also picked up the Invent to Learn book and both Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez signed my copy. Exciting!
7. Disruptive Collaboration with Angela Maiers. I have been aware of the #youmatter movement, but to hear it first hand was amazing. We hash tagged wit the sessions with #collabruption and learned how to find our own genius and the genius in our students. It was incredibly empowering.
8. Finally, the science share-a-thon. I had a chance to have conversations in two small groups. One was about PBL, which is what I am all about. The other was about finding leadership roles in the ISTE Science and Technology Network. I am looking forward to diving in and finding a place to make a difference.

It was an amazing and overwhelming day. I started the day tired and dragging a little. I ended the day energized and inspired! I also met new friends and was able to network. This is something that is usually so far out of my comfort zone but so much easier to accomplish at ISTE. Tomorrow is the big day of our poster presentation on PBL, so tomorrow is sure to be filled with memories as well!

I arrived to the Georgia World Congress Center around 1:45 pm today. My goal was to go the opening Ignite Session. I had NO IDEA how popular an event this would be! When I walked in, there were people everywhere. It was a much different atmosphere from yesterday’s #HackEd14. I saw a very long line and wondered what it was for. I realized pretty quickly it was for the Ignite session. I realized pretty quickly I would not get a seat, so I spent the time networking instead. There is a great networking game in the ISTE app, and you’ll find small groups of people huddled around their phones swapping codes. It’s actually a great way to meet people!

I ran into my colleague, and we walked around to get our bearings and to figure out where the opening keynote address with Ashley Judd would be held. We found our way, and then we headed to the ISTE networking session and our Gwinnett meet up. It was a great time learning about the ISTE communities, meeting up with other teachers from my county, and best of all, finding my TK teammate, Krissy!

Around 4:30, we decided to make our way to the forming line for the opening keynote address. Once we found the line, we joined in and wondered if we would ever make it to the hall. Well, once the line finally started moving, our fears were alleviated. We got into the hall, and it was massive! It really helped me to see what a large conference ISTE truly is. Early this year, I went to the NSTA National Conference in Boston, but the size of that event could not compare! We learned that there are over 14,000 attendees this year representing all 50 US states and 73 countries. Wow! There was also an awesome jazz band from New Orleans kicking off the keynote: Young Fellaz Brass Band. Ashley Judd was the keynote, and it was very interesting. I even had an Instagram photograph featured on the big screen!

After the keynote was the welcome party. There were some great poster sessions to walk around and see. There was food for everyone to enjoy, and Eric Hutchinson was playing.  Overall, it was a great day kicking off the official conference. Tomorrow, the real fun starts with playground, sessions, and the exhibit hall opens.

Our school district has had a strange winter. We’ve been out of school for three separate events (extreme cold, Atlanta SnowJam 2014, and Atlanta Snowpocalypse 2014) for a total of seven missed days of school. We have three make-up days built into our calendar, and the decision was made to make up the remaining four days by adding 30 minutes to the school day for 48 days.

This week was the first week of extended days, and by Tuesday, I was stressed out. In talking with my colleagues, I realized we are all feeling this way. An extra 30 minutes at the end of the day puts our dismissal time at 4:30 pm, and by that time, traffic is worse and 30 minutes becomes more like an hour. I was definitely listening to what we as teachers were feeling.

But then I started having conversations with my students. Their already busy days are now longer. Some students have to get straight off of the bus and go to extracurricular activities or even school related ones often without dinner until 8 or 9 pm. These extended days cause students to lose 30 minutes to an hour or more of time to work on homework. Not only are teachers stressed, but our students are stressed as well.

After talking with and listening to my students, I realized I needed to make some changes with these extended days. I have been using the flip class model this semester. Most of my students really like it, but now there is not as much time to watch the videos at home. The solution? I’ll still have our flip lesson videos available for students as a supplement, but I will not be requiring as much out of school hours work. Just like teachers need work-life balance, so do students. It would not be fair to rob them of stress relieving activities like sports in order to be overloaded with homework.

I don’t know what my teammates and colleagues are doing, but for me, I hope I have helped my students feel a little less stressed. Since learning should be fun and not stressful, this is so important to me. This week also helped me to remember that it’s not just about listening to my needs and the needs of adults around me. The most important thing I can do is listen and respond to the needs of my students.

Are you listening to your students?

We had three weeks of school in between Thanksgiving break and winter break, and I had an entire unit to cover with lots of labs and activities as well as end of semester exams. In order to fit everything in, I decided to venture into the realm of the Flip Class. I conducted my “lectures” via video providing graphic organizers for students. In class, we completed exploratory labs and activities to solidify the information. A colleague of mine has been using the Flip Class model for over a year, so I used some of her ideas to help with the videos. Here are some of the basics for creating my videos and presenting the information to my students:

1. Camtasia Studio: I used the free trial of Camtasia to allow me to screencast as well as record video from my webcam. This made creating the videos super quick and easy. (However, we quickly learned that the built in webcam on my laptop is not that great!)
2. Sophia: I used Sophia to create the lesson “tutorials” and a playlist of the entire unit. It made organizing and hosting everything super easy. Here’s my unit: Weathering, Erosion, Deposition, and Soil. 
3. Unit Planner: I created a unit planner to help students navigate due dates and requirements. (I totally copied my colleague’s layout for this.) The nice thing about this is it let students plan ahead and get ahead if they knew they would be busy a particular homework night in order to make alternative arrangements.

For the most part, things worked well, but there were a few issues.

1. Poor camera quality: I learned that the webcam on my computer is not very good for recording this type of video due to lag time. Going forward, I will be using a Logitech HD C920 webcam. It’s a little pricey, but it is high quality with a built in microphone. I tested it out in a quick recording and the capture was significantly improved. I do think including myself with the screen capture is really important. I tried a couple of lessons without it, and students overwhelming preferred seeing me on video (go figure!).
2. Students not completing the homework: I am very lucky. I have two classrooms with an adjoining door. I hooked up an extra computer to the projector and allowed students who could not watch the video for homework to come in and watch it during homeroom. Additionally, students who still had not watched the video once class began were allowed to watch the video. Usually, this meant missing an activity which gave them further incentive to finish the homework the next time. In most classes, only one or two students hadn’t watched the video upon entering class. That’s a pretty high homework completion rate.
3. Students not watching all of the video and/or just copying notes: As the unit progressed, I realized some students were not listening to all of the videos and were just copying the notes. Going forward, I think I will have a short quiz at the start of each class in order to differentiate between those students who actually watched the videos and those who just copied notes.

At the end of the unit, I asked students to complete a survey to see if they wanted to continue with the Flip Class model. The results were very interesting.

Seventy percent of students said they enjoyed the videos yet 78% said they wanted to continue the Flip Class model. I think some of my students realized that even though they didn’t completely enjoy all of the videos, the idea worked well for them. I also asked students for suggestions, and there were some great ones that I had actually been thinking about like fewer videos and slightly shorter ones. (One of the videos was quite long at over 15 minutes. Going forward, I think five to seven minutes is ideal.)

One of the things doing the Flip Class allowed me was time to do activities I had not done before. We study the formation of a river system in this unit, and I know that using a stream table would be a good idea, but I’ve never been brave enough to try it. This year, I finally did, and the results were pretty cool. Students really enjoyed seeing how water can change the land around a river due to erosion and deposition. (And on the plus side, we didn’t make a mess with the stream table, which had always been my fear.)

Some of the great things I’ve learned about the Flip Class model is how easy it makes it for students to go back and review a lesson. It’s not just notes and lab activities to go back and look at – now they can re-watch the lesson explanation. Many students commented on how helpful this was. It also helped students were absent. I had one student who missed several days of school, and yet this student performed better on the final unit assessment than the student had done on previous units.

I am sure that I will continue with new ideas and ways to improve going forward, but I am glad I finally took the leap and experimented with the Flip Class model. Students definitely seemed to enjoy the experience, and I look forward to seeing out this adventure continues to play out.