What I Learned at ITEC

I just got back from the annual ITEC conference where tech directors, teachers, and some admins get together to learn more about technology in education. It was a wonderful conference held at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines with over 1200 attendees. What I learned:

1. Focus on the student and the learning outcomes and not the technology. Once you know what your learning goals are, then you can think technology -- And, start with what you have!
2. If you haven't tried Evernote, you should. It's a great place to store your thoughts. Better yet, I learned I can buy a Moleskine notebook, get three months of Evernote premium free, put a special sticker on each page of the notebook, take a picture of my handwritten notes, and they will go to Evernote to the right folder based on the sticker. For someone who loves to write things by hand sometimes, this is fantastic! My handwriting is my art. The best thing about Evernote, in my opinion, are the search and features.
3. iPads, although created for consumption and personal ownership, can be coerced into doing some pretty amazing, creative things. I'm still not sure they are worth the expense with the short period of time before they are obsolete and need to be upgraded, but boy, teachers have found ways to use them effectively. Jamie Fath has some great info.
4. I may just be ready to move to virtualized servers. I've been reluctant to add the complexity, but I learned enough at the conference to realize there are some real benefits to going this direction.
5. You don't need a classroom full of technology to be effective. You can have a few things and do great technology integration by sharing. Follow @mrnidey on Twitter. He's a third grade teacher who has truly transformed his classroom.
6. If you aren't using your interactive whiteboard as more than a screen for your projector or a worksheet substitute, you are missing some great educational opportunities for your students. Try making your whiteboard one of your Student Centers and give your students the reins.
7. Offer your kids authentic choices, and they will fly. Let them collaborate outside the school walls.
8. Using primary sources will bring history to life. Seriously, I think I would have loved history had my teachers gone about it this way.

And that's just the beginning. It was a wonderful time to network, collaborate, and try new things. If we just keep the focus on the students and the learning as we are in our school district and quit obsessing about the technologies, we will be able to improve education astronomically. Like I've said over and over in this blog - Huge Internet pipe, robust wireless, and mobile Internet connected devices in as many students' hands as possible. Add to that the teacher who loves to learn, learns new things regularly, and models that love of learning to the students, and kids will fly.

Electricity

We had an electrical wire torn out in an accident today and have been reminded how dependent we are on electricity. First, we lost Internet and switches. Then the Internet came back for awhile. Oops, Internet and fiber gone again. Then with the battery backups running down, I've shut off servers. No email. No grade book. Sometimes you might as well go home . . . . Unless you're the Tech Director and need to make sure it's all back online once the power returns. Thank goodness for my phone while I wait!

Teachers helping teachers

Together we are awesome.

Summer was too short

We are working on some great projects here in the SLCSD EdTech Department. Between a new web version of JMC that has some bugs that need to be worked out at JMC, to early MAP testing, to 180 new student computers, to 8 new SMARTBoards, to EdTech PD coming up next week, to two new servers and on and on, some of the little things remain to be finished. As you can see, sorting out the hurricane that hit my office from the flurry of work that has been going on is becoming a number one priority.

More in the next couple of days. That EdTech PD coming up is going to be awesome!

Summer EdTech Progress

I'm way behind on blogging, so I'll take a few minutes to update everyone with some of the EdTech projects going on at SLCSD this summer:

1. 180 new netbooks for student use. We have them all configured for imaging, and the first lab is complete. We are waiting on the next five labs to see if we are changing our copiers at the elementary school and to get our new middle school wireless settings. They should all be imaged the first week of August.
2. Yes, we will have brand new, robust wireless at the middle school! The cablers come next week, and we deploy it the following week. We are so excited as this is the last part of our wireless improvement project!
3. New and improved student information system - We are still running JMC, but it is a brand new web-based version with many new features that is going to be very nice for our staff, our students, our parents, and our teachers. The new JMC server is up and running, and it looks great!
4. Our updated website is just about ready to be launched. We hired a company to design the site, and Pat Fisher and Tracey Bailey at Central Administration have busily been updating it and getting it ready to replace the old site. This site will become the hub of online information about SLCSD, and we think you are really going to like it. Kim Johnson will also be involved with her high school web page class students, and every teacher and administrator will be involved with their corner of the Internet world, whether it's lesson plans, student grades, blogs, student bookmark sites, or their own teacher/classroom web sites. It's very exciting!
5. Eight new SmartBoards are going in at the high school, middle school, and elementary school.
6. There will be three new student computers at East Early Childhood and another SmartBoard, too. There will also be a laptop for teacher use on the SmartBoard that is already in the media center.
7. Network upgrades. We are re-routing some of our district network to provide better performance at the middle school and the elementary school.
8. A couple more iPads for Special Ed students.
9. Some new software for math and reading interventions at the elementary school and the high school.
10. And, we continue to update all 1200 district computers.

These are just some of the things you might be interested in that we've worked on this summer. In addition, our email server will be updated sometime soon after school starts; we are working on getting a guest access wireless network up and running; and we are in the beginning stages of planning our EdTech PD day for the end of September.

I have a great crew of tech people who work very hard in the summer to get as many projects done as possible - Kim Johnson, Justin Overmohle, and Jorge Gallaga. I also have to thank both J.D. Goodchild and Todd Larsen who have been so willing to help with anything I asked of them this summer!

EdTech is still on the move at SLCSD!

May our students find their passions

ISTE 2012 will soon be a memory, and I am reminded of how emotional I felt as a child when  my various summer camps came to an end. It's hard to leave the venue of such passion behind. Those who came here to ISTE share a commitment to improving education for our students. In my opinion, the answer will not be found in curriculum or standards or specific technologies. The answer is in an educational system that values individuality, creativity, globalization, and collaboration. May we all focus on the things in our own lives that we feel passionate about and realize that the best way to motivate our students to learn is to help them find their passions and to give them the real world tools to fuel and accomplish their own learning. Wouldn't  it be great if our students felt as excited about school everyday as I felt about every minute of this conference? I don't think that goal is unrealistic if we work together.

I have so much to share with you, SLCSD!

ISTE

I'm taking a little time from my day to post from sunny San Diego, CA, where I am attending the International Society for Technology in Education Conference.

http://www.isteconference.org/2012/

What a wonderful place to rub elbows with teachers, administrators, EdTech professionals, vendors, and others who believe strongly in the value of technology for learning. The passion and urgency is palpable! From the pre-conference events where many of these people came together on their own to start collaborating and learning from one another before anything official began, to the opening ceremony for all of us newbies where the MCs dressed up like all sorts of famous duos (Batman and Robin, Capt. Kirk and Spock, Dorothy and the Scarecrow, etc.), to the panel discussion last night led by Sir Ken Robinson and including Marc Prensky, Peggy Johnson, and Mayim Bialik, the need for us to continuously discuss education and "think about where we are going, so we can determine how we are going to get there" is one thing we can all agree on.

Today I saw middle school students proudly share their projects. One group who live very close to the Mexican border chose to interview people and do research about how they or others came to the United States, legally or illegally. The students then synthesized into a podcast that information that would bring a tear to the eyes of many in our own Storm Lake community. I saw third grade students who created computer programming projects using Scratch and middle school students programming with Alice. I've seen groups of teachers from all over the country visiting together about how best to using blogging to increase student learning. The key, according to them is to open things up and allow comments from outside the classroom group. I've seen how schools are working very hard to create global connections in any way possible to make sure that students are accessing all the information, resources, and people available "out there" to increase their own learning. And I've seen the value of using Google Maps in the classroom.

I am struck over and over again at the importance of tying our use of technology in the classroom to the National Educational Technology Standards for students. It isn't enough to say we're going to learn how to use, for example, Symbaloo, a program we use at SLCSD. We must go further than that and determine what it is we really want the students to learn and then determine what EdTech strategies, such as Symbaloo, might increase that learning. Digital Citizenship is a hot topic. Twitter is still really big as a way to connect with others and share resources.

Here's a link to the conference newsletter for today:

Monday, June 25, 2012

It's just so great to have the opportunity to bring all these things back to you. I will be sharing more about the next few days, but for now, back to the conference!