NJAET 2009 Conference - Wealth of information

At the NJAET 2009 "In Tune with Technology" Conference in Lakewood, NJ, I had the great time learning. It was a mecca of information. I registered the very last minute ( the night before) because I wasn't sure if I could come due to some scheduling issues.

Looking at the list of activities for the day was overwhelming. I wish I could clone myself so that I could be at every single workshop - hands on or not. So here is how my day went at the NJAET 2009 Conference:

• 8:00am Still driving on Route 9 South
• 8:30am Arrived and registered at the desk
• 8:40am Figuring out which workshop to attend while eating bagel with cream cheese and drinking coffee
• 8:50am Visiting booths and getting freebies
• 9:00am Listening to B. McLaughin talk about "Blogs, Wikis & Podcasts: What are They and How Do They Fit in my classroom"
• 9:25am Still cannot connect my laptop to the wireless network in the university; been troubleshooting for the nth times; wasn't the only one alone with same issues
  
• 10:20am Met Lisa Thumann for Session#2 "In Tune" With the 21st Century Student
• 10:25am University's tech people came to the rescue and provided laptop users with some sort of a wireless connection - yippee!
• 10:26am Tweeted that I was listening to Lisa Thumann
• 10:35am "Do not teach me with the tools from your past" - powerful presentation
• 11:35am Meet with my co-attendee at lunch
• 12:45am My co-attendee won a raffle - another yippee!
  
• 1:00pm Listening to Zumu's owner, Liz Niederberger's presentation on "Making Your Website Work for your school, teachers, students and parents"
• 1:30pm Liz' laptop lost internet wireless connections and borrowed my laptop
  
• 2:20pm Hands-On workshop for "SmartBoards and Digital Learning" presented by Lany Burnett of Tequipment.com.

Posters, pens and bookmarks and a tote-bag -- these are just a few of the freebies that I got. But what counts the most is the experience and the learning I gained from this conference.

Collaboration through Video Conferencing

I proposed procuring a video conferencing unit to the administration last year. After thorough research on which unit to purchase, we got our Polycom HDX7001XL installed. Hurdles were encountered when I tried to do an equipment test during the first week of school with Sue J. Calvin of Berks County Intermediate Unit. Equipment testing is a pre-requisite for TWICE so we could start participating in various collaborating projects available. After tweaking here and there, the re-test was a success.

With memberships to these organizations and resource people listed below, our options for video conferencing and collaborating are innumerable:

• TWICE's CAPspace
• GlobalSchool.net
• Oracle sponsored ThinkQuest
• Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC)
  
• Judy Bornstein of CMSCE (The Center for Mathematics, Science and Computer Education) listed us on the Peer-T0-Peer Video Conferencing Directory.
• We are in the process of getting a bridge for AccessNJ so we could connect to content providers who use ISDN connection.

NEWSFLASH:

• Our first middle-school VC project: Janine Lim has been instrumental in getting us on board on the first middle-school video conferencing project called HistoryQuest.
• Our first elementary school VC project: Weather-Buddies

We are excited! We can't wait for more VC projects and hopefully get some lessons from content providers around the globe.

Was it too much to grasped in one seating?

I just finished presenting to all the teachers the technology tools that we will be focusing for the upcoming school year. There were mixed reactions but I reiterated that this is the way education is moving forward. Our principal states that by withholding these tools to the students in the classrooms that we are actually not doing our part in preparing our students for the technological advancements in any field.

I am so glad that “reading” was one of the topics of the discussion and I could already see myself having a Wordle workshops for the teachers. I may not even have to conduct workshops for Wordle. Some may just start signing-up for it and start using it for their poetry, vocabulary words (not just in language arts but in Science, Math, Social Studies, Spanish etc). Reading is truly essential in any subjects and in all the different facets of life.

Here’s a SlideRocket presentation that I showed at the meeting. I hope you would find this useful too.

Summer Reading materials

I missed the last week of school due to health issues. I wasn't able to say goodbye to the wonderful students and teachers and staffs, some of whom are retiring this year.

Recuperating now at home and posting on our school's site the summer reading materials. I always love summer reading programs. Prior to working for schools, I always encouraged my first-born daughter to get involved in the summer reading program at the nearby public library. Of course, it was a year-round reading program since she was not in formal schooling then.

This year, our daughters started early on with the Barnes & Nobles' Summer Reading Program where one free book is given for every 8 books read. Of course, there is a limited selection of free books. Nonetheless, it is FREE! My youngest, age 5, is already on her way to earning her 2nd book.

Reading Rockets provides insights on why children lose up to 3 months of learning if reading is not part of the summer routine. Reading is truly essential. Let us help encourage kids to read, read, and read.

Kids can also earn an autograph copy of books through Scholastics Summer Challenge Weekly Book Giveaway Program.

And for guidelines to make summer reading a success, check out Reading Is Fundamental (RIF). Not only do they gave great hints in making reading fun, they also have monthly calendar activity suggestions for reading and writing.

So create a love of reading! Pack yours and your children's books and head off to the pool/beach. Happy reading.

Resistance to change

Our school remained loyal to Windows XP yet we saw the need to update to Microsoft Office 2007. Due to numerous activities after school hours and holiday breaks, it wasn't easy to plan a workshop for the teachers to introduce them to Office 2007.

Finally, on June 3rd, that workshop was conducted. It was a hands-on workshop so we used the computer lab equipped with 30 desktops and started the 1.5 hour-long workshop. It was the normal crowd I would say. Some of the attendees have been to the technology workshops that I have given throughout the school year. Others were first timers to my workshop. Nonetheless, the workshop proved to be valuable to all.

Office 2007 is here to stay, at least in our school so "resistance is futile" - nope, I am not a Star Trek fan. Just a fan for change. Good change.

Collecting dust

I love it when teachers tell me that I try to make technology enjoyable. I love what I do. I love to hear when teachers comment that after attending my workshop that they feel that technology isn't that bad after all.

Today, I just finished a 1 1/2 hour of in-house workshop as a refresher course on using the SmartBoard. When I was offered this position for the school year 2008-2009, I was told that the school has a SmartBoard. I never worked with one before. Neither have I worked with an Interactive WhiteBoard too.


I finally got the SmartBoard workshop scheduled. I used a very short SlideRocket presentation and used the later part of the workshop for the teachers to actually touch the SmartBoard and play around with with. Though they felt that they "didn't want to mess it up", they ended up planning on integrating it in their curriculum.

The SmartBoard is now out of the closet and will not be collecting dust anymore. I truly hope that I am making a difference here in the lives of the teachers to embrace technology.

Beyond classroom learning

Learning from experts has its advantages. Big advantage in fact. Though our school do not have Video Conferencing equipment as of yet, a lot of enthusiasm was created when we connected with Arctic Explorer, Professor Aaron Doering of the GoNorth! exploration team.

Seven classes (although only 4 confirmed) packed our library/media center to participate in the live web chat with Professor Doering. Representatives from each class came up with questions that Professor Doering answered. We read questions from other schools as well and discussed it afterwards. Questions like "Have you ever fallen off the sled?" to "How do you prepare for such an expedition?" were posted in the chat room. The students left the library/media center with great big smiles and they were still talking about what they learned during the chat. They are looking forward for more of this distance learning experiences.