An explosion of an exposition

I said in my first ISTE post that there were a lot of vendors. Turns out that there are more than 500, from major names, like Google, Samsung, Panasonic, Adobe, Microsoft, and SMART; to smaller players like eSchool News (where I used to work), the American School of Bombay (where I visited in 2006), and Showbie (whose app we just started using at out school).

Here is a view of about one-quarter of the expo hall.

First round of sessions: SAMR, student tech support, and classic literature

The first session of the day for me was about the SAMR model. I was looking forward to this session, as my colleagues on the Academic Technology side of my department use this model often when helping teachers design lessons. And, according to the presenter's blog, he seems to be quite the expert on this topic.

Unfortunately, the sound quality for the large room was poor. There were probably 200-300 people in a very large ballroom-style space, and the speakers could not carry his voice clearly enough for me to follow the presentation. I left, and so did many other people.

I went upstairs to check out the poster presentations, and so did any other people. Wow. It was mobbed. The posters were engaging, and many of them were about student projects. Better yet, the students were the presenters.

The two posters that I investigated were The Tech.B@r is open: Students at your service, an example of starting and maintaining a student tech support service from Westwood High School in Blythewood, SC;  and Youth film fest of language arts, a cross-discipline, semester-long film recreation of classic literature from Centro Escolar Los Altos in Jalisco, Mexico.

The student tech support team is interesting, as we've mulled the idea for our school. We'd like to have some students help us with things like laptop upgrades, software training for teachers, app support. Perhaps I can get some ideas from Westwood.

The film fest is a cool project. I would like to think that it's the kind of project that I would design if I were a classroom teacher. The student that gave me the explanation was really excited to explain the project. When a student is that excited to share her schoolwork, I think the lesson was a success.

Read more:
Tech.B@r of Westwood High School

Youth film fest of Centro Escolar Los Altos

Independent schools represent!

One of the opening addresses is an interview with an independent school teacher from right around the corner from my school who is the 2014 ISTE Outstanding Young Educator.

Diana Neebe is a high school English teacher from Sacred Heart Atherton who is central to the one-to-one iPad program at her school. What is also interesting is that she is, by contract, also the tech teacher/innovator/supporter for the other faculty. If they need help with something small, like how to share a Google Doc,  to something big, like how to go from paper to online quizzes, her school gives her the time, space, and responsibility to do that. I like that she said her tech role is part of her contract. That shows that her school values technology, that it's not an afterthought.

Read more:
http://www.shschools.org/page.cfm?p=375&newsid=1475&ncat=3