The International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) national conference just finished up after several exciting, jam-packed days in beautiful San Diego, California. I’ve been to ISTE conferences before, but it’s been a few years. I had forgotten how crazy and exciting this conference can be. Several thousand educators converged on the convention center at the edge of the Gas Lamp Quarter, and, at times, it seemed like every single one of the attendees had the same workshop schedule as me. I learned so much during the 4-day conference (you can view my unedited notes here), but in the spirit of minimalism and efficiency, I am focusing this post on my big 3 takeaways:

• ePortfolios
• iPad Apps
• Social Networking with Edmodo

ePortfolios

I’ve been creating ePortfolios with my students for over 10 years now. I’ve done them with PowerPoint, various blogging platforms, and even FrontPage; but I’ve never been completely happy with the formats. During my time at ISTE 2012, I attended 2 workshops dedicated to using Google Sites along with a combination of Google Docs and Blogger for creating student ePortfolios. The first was called: “Student-Centered Interactive E-Portfolios with Google Apps” by Helen Barrett and the second was titled: “Growing Digital: Grassroots Google Integration for Staff and Students” by Peter Pasque and Kristal Jaaskelainen.

Focus

Student-managed electronic learning portfolio should be used as a persistent learning record to help students:

• develop the self-awareness to set their own learning goals
• express their own views of their strengths, weaknesses, and achievements
• and take responsibility for them

The purpose drives the process and content.

Process

• Step 1: Create a collection of work in Google Docsuse your mobile device to capture images, audio, video
• Step 2:Reflection
  • Reflective Journal – blog entries over time
  • Taxonomy of reflection

• What? So What? Now What?
• Self-Regulated Learning
  • Planning (Goal Setting)
  • Doing (Capture the Moment)
  • Reflecting
• Timeline
  • Level 1: Collection
  • Level 2: Collection + Reflection
  • Level 3: Selection and Presentation

iPad Apps

This coming school year, our school is increasing the amount of iPads in my division. This is extremely exciting with a huge potential for fantastic new learning for our students and staff. It also brings a large amount of up-front work for our teachers and IT professionals.  I’ve outlined several apps and tips from the 2 workshops I attended dedicated to learning with iPads. Special thanks to the presenters: Mindy Tilley, Jana Craig Hare, Tyler Fowler, Liddell Hobin, Alan Landever, Keith Mispagael and Geri Parscale who presented “21 Apps for Digital Age Learning” and Kimberly LaPrairie, with Daphne Johnson and Marilyn Rice who shared “Apps, Apps Everywhere: Top iPad Apps for Digital Age Learning”

21 Apps for Digital Age Learning

• Drawing Box: free app
• Dot Project
• Percolator App
  • you take a photo and it takes that photo and creates it with dots. Great for art class
• Puppet Pals – use to re-create a story students have recently read
• Show Me– Create quick instructional movies
  • Idea: Take a photo of a worksheet and then have students work out the problems while explaining their thinking.
• Twitcasting
• Storylines Promotes children’s literature and supports writers and illustrators
• VoiceThread the App
• Cover It Live
• Sticky Board
• BrainPop App – have the student of the week watch the Brainpop video of the week and give a summary for the class
• ToonTastic
  • Create a toon by going through all of the story elements: setup conflict, challenge, resolution, etc
  • Record your voice as you move the characters
  • Adds music to go along with emotional feeling of current story element
  • Upload finished video to your toon tube acct. Cannot upload to your photo library.
• Discovery Education App
• Popplet

Apps, Apps Everywhere

• Remembering
  • Wikihood
  • Brainpop
  • Penultimate
  • Flashcardlet – Works with Quizlet
  • Wunderlist
  • Noteshelf – very similar to Penultimate
• Understanding
  • Inspiration
  • Idea Sketch
  • Groupboard – Interactive, collaborative whiteboard for brainstorming
  • Voicethread
  • Quick Graph – Good for math teachers
  • Adobe Ideas – Brainstorming app
• Applying
  • MeeGenius – Bookshelf with books that kids can read, but you can also create your own.
  • Animation HD – Allows you to create animations over backgrounds
  • Showme
  • Rainbow Sentences – basic language app for little kids
  • Sentence Builder – shows a photo and students create sentence about the photo
• Analyzing
  • iCardSort – brainstorming tool that helps you to visually organize ideas quickly
  • Side by Side – allows you to take 2 different websites, put them side by side and analyze them, while taking notes
  • Paper Helper – Internet on one side; note taking space on the other side
  • Storyboards
• Creating
  • Picturebook
  • PuppetPals HD
  • Toontastic
  • Tinkerbox
  • iConversation – create a conversation by showing you a photo and then asking questions like, how would you start out this conversation?
• Bonus
  • Stickpicks
  • Common Core
  • ABC Notes
  • PC 2 Me
  • Gravity HD
  • Letter school
  • Display Recorder

Social Networking with Edmodo

I’ve seen Edmodo several times in various conferences and workshops I’ve attended, and have always been interested in learning more about how teachers use it and what kind of benefits it will bring to students, teachers, and parents. While there was no formal workshop at ISTE 2012 showcasing Edmodo, I made a point to stop by their booth in the exhibit hall and find out a little more about this social networking tool. There are some great webinars that Edmodo puts on which I will be attending later this month. Here are some quick tips I picked up on during my time spent with the fine folks at the Edmodo booth:

• You can change the notification section to uncheck the alerts if you are getting too many emails
• Create a group for each subject (RLA, Math, etc), or just for all grade 3 students
• Once you create a group, it creates a code and give the code to your students
• they then create an acct and join the group
• You control the group, delete posts and make students read only as a type of timeout
• you can also moderate all posts and replies
• There is no private messaging between students, only through the group
• You can post a question, a video, a poll
• you can create assignments and quizzes and it adds it to yours and the students calendars.
• With assignments you can grade them, annotate on docs
• You can also email parents the parent code and they will be able to see what their child is doing.

Unedited Notes

If you’re extremely bored and enjoy reading gobbledegook, below (or here) are my notes from the 4 days: