Saturday - Extended Session: Understanding and Connecting to the Non-Traditional Student - Michael Boll:
During my morning session of Saturday, I participated in Michael's session. He started by sharing the following site with us: http://www.innovativepd.com/outlier/. This is a very important resource that comes with access to his podcasts about autism. The premise to his session was that "all kids want to do well". We talked about how Concordia in Shanghai has started to support kids with mild needs. We looked at sensory processing disorder, a few videos here and there and some other information that can be read from his site.
I enjoyed following Maximo from GoNoodle.com (https://www.gonoodle.com/brain-breaks). There is an animation called cozy chair. Just follow Maximo and you will feel, "Lo Maximo!".
We also took the Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire from www.innovativepd.com/learningstyle2. This is what I got out of it:
In my particular case, I am
both Active or Reflective
More Sensing than Intuitive
More Visual than Verbal
Both Sequential or Global
We also spent some time looking at tools for non-traditional students. By means of SpeedGeeking we all took turns describing the tools that we had explored. These were some of the ones that we saw:
- Think Through Math
- No Red Ink
- Zeal
- Khan Academy
- Fish Tree (Learning DNA - adapts learning for kid)
- Edulastic
- DeansList
- Exit Ticket
- Class Kick
- Knewton
- Study Room
- Blend Space
This site has links to the tools above: http://www.innovativepd.com/outlier/
Saturday - Unconference: Smash Apps:
This early afternoon session on Saturday, gave me a chance to talk to some teachers who have been using iPads in their classroom. Today was all about App Smashing. After working with iPads for any amount of time in the classroom, one will quickly realize that most processes can’t be completed with just one app. While many apps slightly overlap in terms of functionality, there tends to be a few black holes in each app that require the use of another app to complete the process. This leads us to App Smashing. App Smashing defined is the process of using multiple apps in conjunction with one another to complete a final task or project. I will have to spend some time trying to test some of the apps in my iPad though.
I also looked at this cool resource (http://edtechteacher.org/apps) that has lots of resources for the class from different platforms. Finally, we spent some time talking about iPad apps management in various countries in Asia.
Saturday - Workshop: Putting the Present in Presentations with 21st Century Style Presentations - Rab Paterson:
This presentation by Rab walked you through the 5 elements in a good presentation. A lot of what he said I had already seen in other presentations. It was interesting to know that our attention span for a presentation is only 9 minutes, after which comes a drop off point. What Rab recommends in a presentation is just when reaching the level of 9 minutes, to put a different modality of showing the information. He talked about dopamine production and the importance of taking advantage of that moment to give key points away to the audience. Picture superiority effect is vital since people remember images than text. One of the important points of his presentation was the way that he covered attribution of images and videos. He suggested, not putting the attribution at the bottom of the slides but creating a final slide with all the information accompanied by a thumbnail image of the photos. This also includes not displaying huge URLs but using shortened versions as well. I really like this format for Photo/Video credits.
Rab has a lot of video resources in YouTube.
Saturday - In a Nutshell: Creating Your Own Classroom Guide: RIP Textbooks - Jeff Utecht:
During this session, Jeff shared his idea of using Flipboard as a container for information. His premise that anything on the Internet that is older than 3 years is not worth looking at is the reason why people need to create their own magazines. Wikipedia is more accurate now. People don't use the ratings that go from 1 - 7. He suggests creating a PLN with Flipboard where students can also participate as collaborators. Each person has complete control over the magazines. All students are flipping content. Students and teachers are finding information together. These public magazines are accessible to anyone in the world.
He also talked about Twitter and his idea that it is not about people but about communities. He stated that he does not follow anyone. He just follows communities that are formed around hashtags. By using the hashtags, you can send messages directly into the communities. It's possible to go to www.twitter.com/search and look for hashtags of your interest. Instagram ties with Twitter. In a class you can ask students to take images and share with a class hashtag, like #isbscience6. His last part of the presentation was focused on teaching students how to do good Google searches.
Overall, I believe it has been a good conference. There are many key takeaways that I will share with my colleagues at International School Bangkok. I have to say though that I feel that many schools have truly embraced technology and are lifting the conversations to higher levels. No more are schools spending much time at the levels of hardware, but are gaining better understandings of how technology is truly impacting student learning. There is a large number of schools that are moving towards the path of data analysis to inform themselves of the decisions that involve professional development and teacher support programs.
This is my 4th Learning 2.014 Conference. The first one was in 2011 in Shanghai at Shanghai Community International School - Pudong Upper School Campus. The second one was in 2012 in Beijing at Western Academy of Beijing. The third one was in 2013 in Singapore at UWCSEA campus. This last one was at NIST in Bangkok. Look forward to future learning conferences with my colleagues in Asia.
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