FETC 2007- The San Jose Gang and Reflections on the Conference
I started the conference out on Thursday morning with an eye opener session with Alan November. WoW. It was entitled “Preparing Students to Succeed in a Global Economy“. If you ever have the chance to hear Alan November speak, don’t let that opportunity slip by. Two of my colleagues sat in with me during that session and it was wonderful to witness how their brains started to turn and they were starting to make connections too. This will be invaluable to me when trying to implement new strategies and move forward towards a more global curriculum at our school.
I started blogging or better taking notes of all the sessions that I attended. First, I want to say that it was wonderful to have wireless access everywhere in the conference center. The ease of information accessibility should be available everywhere, especially at schools! The power it gave me, to instantly access the websites, information and examples the presenters were giving us, was an experience in itself. Unless you have done it, I don’t believe you can imagine the power you feel of being able to verify, expand and connect the information that is being given to you . I especially was amazed, when in one session the presenter talked about the video “Where in Hell is Matt”. She showed the video clip on the screen. Many attendees asked how could they get a copy of the clip and where they could find it. Before the presenter was even able to tell them how and where, I already had been at Youtube, searched, found the “embed” link and streamed it into my blog post. WoW!
The session before my session was about to start, I wondered around the presentation rooms close by and ended up in one entitled “How Educators are Using Social Technologies to Redefine Schooling”. I sat down and started to listen to the presenter. It only took a minute for me to be fascinated. I thought the presenter spoke so at ease. Then it hit me. THAT WAS WILL RICHARDSON!! His book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms
I knew that I needed to give myself time to get to my presentation room and to set up, but I could not get myself to leave the presentation and stayed until the end, rushed to the front to shake his hand and thank him and off I “ran” to my room to get the laptop sat up.
It was the perfect beginning and end of a great conference.
I am going to invite my colleagues, Terry Pickering, Jessica Banks, and Teresa Hall to enter the world of blogging by posting their impressions and thoughts of the conference here. What have you learned about how to learn through technology? What made you go “WOW”? What are ideas you came away with that you can’t wait to implement in the classroom? Can’t wait to hear from you…
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January 28th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
The FETC conference was exciting as well as a great learning experience. There were several points I took away from the conference. First was that instead of banning many of the devices the students are using at home, such as the iPod, laptops, and cell phones, we should be using them as tools of learning. The students today are visual learners due to the culture they are being raised, and in order to reach them we must incorporate multimedia in the classroom.
The second overriding point from the conference was students must learn how to be in charge of their own learning and be self-motivated in order to be successful. In addition, with the global marketplace, the students must have empathy for others point of view and be appreciative of other cultures.
I have several ideas that I am going to implement in the classroom this week as well as the remainder of the school year. We have already discussed how we can document the 6th grade science field trip with a virtual scrapbook filled with video, audio, and pictures. Dr. Ann Orr, Eastern Michigan University, gave an outstanding presentation on how to reach all math learners. She suggested using a multimedia piece to introduce a new concept. This is a strategy I am going to implement starting this week. Finally, I am going to have a student be the official scribe of class and scan their notes into a class math blog for the students to reference from home.
Finally, Silvia did an outstanding job in her presentation at FETC. She had a great turn out in her session, and the feedback she received was great. This is the first of many great sessions that she is going to offer educators.
January 29th, 2007 at 10:02 am
I have to admit I was thrilled with FETC. This was my first year attending and being there in the role of an administrator was different. I spent my time moving between workshops that dealt with building schools of the future and how to best prepare our students for what they would be dealing with as they grow to adults. Times are so different!
The big “theme” I found as I went to one session after another, was that we MUST be preparing our students to be global citizens. Technology has made the world “flat” bringing people from all clutures and nations together. Students today will be competeting with others from around the world when they enter the marketplace. Companies will be dealing internationally. We can not stay isolated. If we do, we will miss out on so much!
Another aspect which I found to be quite interesting came from the first session I attended. This brought to light the fact that many of the technology “solutions” (software) we use in our schools, are not necessarily research based. Rather, they are just the popular game, and have won the marketing race. Thank you to METIRI for providing this useful information.
I have to say that one of the best sessions I attended did come from Silvia. She provided one great idea after another to teachers!