Yesterday I had the opportunity to spend time with many people who are passionate about using technology in education.  I attended the Kent ISD/Google Superintendent & Curriculum Leadership Symposium to learn alongside Superintendents, Curriculum Directors, and Tech Directors.  There were some great speakers, including people from Google, CDW, Hapara, and Andrew Vanden Heuvel.

The purpose of the symposium was to address some of the issues that schools in Michigan are encountering as they are embarking on 1:1 and BYOD initiatives and how classrooms can be transformed through these initiatives and prepare students for their future careers.  Some of the items that were addressed during this symposium were:

• Integrating the web into the curriculum to allow anytime and anywhere learning
• First-hand account of a 1:1 implementation
• Increasing student engagement
• Google's vision for education
• Trends in education
• PD opportunities from Kent ISD

Even though the district I work for is well into our Google Apps implementation and getting close to having our 1:1 implementation completed for 6-12 students, it is always refreshing to listed to experiences of others and how (and what) they have learned from their experiences.  I believe that our implementation should never be "done," as that would allude to the fact that we have successfully completed our implementation perfectly for our learning environment and no changes need to be made.  Technology is ever-changing, and therefore, our support, access to resources, and professional development should also be ever-changing to meet the needs of teachers and students.

To see the tweets from our event, see the list below.

By the end of the day after much discussion, I believe this tweet below accurately summed up our conversation and why teachers should be open to collaboration, creation, and most of all, learning from our students to prepare them for their lives outside our classroom walls.

At the beginning of the school year, our Technology & Media Team puts on a professional development day, Rebel U.  This year, I led a session titled, "Teaching & Learning Like a Superhero" where I focused on the different elements of lesson design and how technology tools and resources could be used to support each of the components.  There were many different tools and resources that were presented in my session, but I wanted to provide different resources that could be used by all teachers K-12.

As part of my presentation, I had teachers participate in a backchannel.  My purpose in including this activity to engage teachers in conversation during the session, in addition to the verbal discussion we were having.  Like many of our students, I have found that when presenting to teachers, many are more apt to participate when they can verbalize their thoughts and ideas in different ways.  My presentation was in the group of first breakout sessions (first thing in the morning), so I don't think my audience was fully in the "wake up and get ready to learn" state yet.  By the time I presented most of my presentation and got to the summarizers part, I had a fun activity for them to participate in.

I had wanted each teacher to share what they have learned so far in my session in the form of a meme - summarizing their learning in a fun and engaging format.  I provided 2 sites for creating memes (Meme Generator and imgflip), but told teachers they were free to use whichever resource they wanted to for creating their meme.  This was an idea that was presented to target middle school and high school students, but could be applied in different (more age-appropriate) ways to elementary students as well.  The concept was well received and those that were following us on Twitter and Facebook started receiving comments and teachers were really actively participating in the learning activity.  I think it demonstrated that a summarizer activity can be short as well as effective (and it always helps when an activity is modeled for teachers to see and participate in).

Below is the meme that I created as an example to show what a meme was for those who didn't know as well as explain how to create a meme.

To see the memes that were recorded on our backchannel, see the list below.  Some are quite entertaining!  :)

Recently, I wrote a blog post about app resources for teachers and how they fit into the learning design model at the high school and middle school.  This year, our district is making an effort to embrace the learning design model that the middle school and high school have been using as more of a universal lesson design model.  This model is not something that is specific to the district that I work in, but is more of a flexible model where components can be adapted to any classroom.

The image below is a brief description of our Universal Lesson Design model.  Listed below the description are resources that I have bookmarked/"pinned" that support each of those elements of lesson design (I have also included iPad resources that I have saved for an easy reference).  Take a moment to explore some of the resources and try something new that supports a universal lesson design!

'Tis the season for new students and assessments...

Who am I kidding, it is always the season for assessments!  As we enter the new school year, we often administer different assessments to our students to gather data that allows us to differentiate, instruct, and connect with students in the most effective way possible.  As many of us are trying to conserve resources to save money, (i.e., not printing on paper as much), I thought I would share some resources that support this effort.  So, to start of the year and kick off my "Monthly Tech Integration Idea" blog post, I thought I would share some ways you can administer assessments without using any paper.

Below are some other online tools that I have bookmarked that can be used for assessment.  These resources are bookmarked/"pinned" on a Pinterest board.  They can be accessed by anyone and you do not need to have a Pinterest account to access them.

Below are some apps that I have bookmarked that can be used for assessment on an iPad.  These apps are bookmarked/"pinned" on a Pinterest board.  They can be accessed by anyone and you do not need to have a Pinterest account to access them.