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We arrived a few days early to take in some sights, sounds, and shopping of the area. I was amazed at Orlando in general, having been there when I was 8 and not remembering anything.
5 Best Florida experiences (not including FETC)
1. Wearing shorts and tank tops in January and not being cold!
2. Acting like a little kid and feeling like one at Disney
3. Experiencing unbelievable customer service! (Really, we were amazed)
4. The relaxed and friendly atmosphere
5. Shopping until we literally could not shop anymore.
FETC conference
If you are interested in what classrooms are probably going to look like in the not so distant future, i would strongly suggest that you attend this conference. I went not really knowing what to expect and uncertain of how I would make it through four 3 hour workshops. Here is a quick synopsis of what each workshop was about.
Workshop 1: iPad A to Z by Leslie Fisher
This was by far the best workshop that I attended. I was blown away by her amount of knowledge and the apps that she was showing us. I am pretty sure my jaw dropped for some of the apps and was for a long time before I noticed I was just staring. I contemplated going back to this workshop at a later time just to hear it again because I am sure I did not take in all the information she presented.
She showed us apps and websites that she called "group hug applications". She named them this because it wouldn't matter what device the student had, they could all access these applications.
Some of the "Group Hug" applications included
screenleap.com
Allows teachers or students to share and project what they are working on on their device to the projector in the classroom or to another computer.
todaysmeet.com
This website was used in many of my other workshops as well. The teacher registers and then all students can sign into the teachers "room" and it brings up a message board. The workshops I attended used this to have participants ask questions throughout the session and the presenter was able to answer the questions as they arose.
I have compiled a favorite app list from the conference that I have posted below, many of these apps came from Leslie's presentation. She also has much more information on her website lesliefisher.com Check it out!
Workshop 2: Creating Instructional Materials with the iPad by Kathy Schrock
This workshop focused on blooms taxonomy and the different iPad apps that can be used to access each level of blooms. In this workshop we created instructional materials using Educreations, snapguide, sockpuppets, and videolicious. Kathy was also very knowledgable and had a lot of information to present to us. I appreciated the time to play with some of the apps and create things with them. she also used todaysmeet.com so groups could post and share the projects they created. One of the best parts of this session was I was seated next to a math teacher from Florida. Her school is currently one to one with iPads, so each classroom has a class set. We were able to have a conversation about how she is using them and some problems or obstacles she has met with them. She uses them in a variety of ways but she said the thing she uses them most for is the explanation of her lesson. She creates an educreations file each day and posts it to her edmodo site. the students come in pick up an iPad, watch the file as many or as few times as they like before moving on to their class work or activity. If students need to review it again or review a previous days lesson it is right there for them to watch and listen. I thought that was very neat and could see how it would help a lot of students currently in my classroom.
Kathy also has a website with an overwhelming amount of information on it.
http://www.schrockguide.net
Workshop 3: Math Interventions with iPads by Jenna Linskens
I was really excited about this workshop as it was the only workshop being offered that was specifically associated with math. I did learn some things from it and downloaded some good math applications from it but I was disappointed in the content that was delivered. Most of the information I gained from this workshop came from conversations that I had with other participants. I was fortunate to sit next to a teacher from Florida who works at a school that is one to one for iPads, meaning each classroom in the school has a class set of iPads. The teacher I was sitting next to taught middle school math. At the beginning of each class her students pick up an iPad, log on to her edmodo site and open up the lesson she created in educreations. Educreations allows her to record an explanation as she works on the app's white board. She has started doing this for all of her lessons so the students listen and watch her lesson as many times as they want throughout the class as they are working on the activities. If they need to go back a couple lessons to remember how to do something, they still have access to her previous lessons.
Jenna has numerous apps for education listed on her website.
http://educationtnt.wikispaces.com/
Workshop 4: APPS and Web Tools to Support Marzano's Instructional Strategies by Susan Brooks Young
This was the last workshop I attended and my mind was already full of information from the previous workshops, so full I found it difficult to take more information in, but I did manage to learn even more. The biggest thing I took away from this workshop was the idea of creating a wiki page instead of trying to figure out the new school board webpage system. This workshop also provided time for participants to converse, share, and try different apps. Many of the apps mentioned in the workshop were also mentioned in my previous workshops. There were three websites mentioned: infinity, intelteach, and edutopia all which provide lesson plans on different topics that would be worth a look.
Overall the conference was fantastic. I could not believe how quickly time went in the 3 hour workshops and the amount of new apps and websites mentioned that I had never heard of before. I left the conference feeling overwhelmed and excited. The conference made me excited to go back to the classroom to try out some of the new tools I learned about but it also made me a little worried as to whether I am ready for what my classroom might look like in the coming years..
Throughout the conference I downloaded 20 apps to my iPad and iPhone, here are my top 10.
Mandy's top 10 FETC websites and apps
1. Snapguide: create step by step guides on how to do something. Can include pictures and text, no voice though. I created one for solving equations, could also work for setting up labs, steps before passing something in, etc.
3. ClassDojo: This app is also a website and allows teachers to track positive and negative behaviour for each student in the class. Parents are able to follow as well and the dojo's are very cute.
7. Duolingo: Is a game to learn different languages, there is French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Italian. Students can even compete against each other in the app.
9. Evernote: I guess I am a slow learner. I have heard of this many times, but it wasn't until these workshops that I really understood the impact this could have. I used it the entire time I was in the workshops and can definitely see the impact on students learning.
1. Aurasma
2. Layar
3. Cycloramic
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