What’s a better way to kick off my blog than by sharing about my first day of my first ISTE Conference? For those of you who don’t know, ISTE is the mecca of tech conferences. Attended by more than 20,000 lovers of tech, the four day conference is filled to the brim with potential connections, learning, and tools galore.
For my first session, I headed to Paying it forward: Leveraging Female Voices in Ed Tech. The panel made up of five powerful, resourceful, and successful women, discussed the disparities between men and women leaders in the tech world. Ellen Bialo, Julie Evans, Margaret Roth, Kari Stubbs, and Mila Fuller also spoke to the importance of making a change, and building a culture where young girls feel empowered and inspired to enter STEM fields. As a young educator, their words and stories of success gave me the motivation I needed. Stubbs spoke about viewing challenges not as impenetrable obstacles, but opportunities, because the worst they can say is no, right? They also discussed great PLNs to support women including Ed Tech Women, INWEL, and DOLS. After the too-short-hour, I walked away ready to work on my leadership skills, look for mentors, and spread the word about #edtech4women.
Next, I headed to the Expo hall. I, of course, made sure to stop by my favorites: Google For Education, Schoology, and Curriculet. They were among the hundreds of booths passing out sweet swag, and doing demos showing the bells and whistles of their platforms.
Another awesome session ended my first day. Hot Tech Tools for Today’s Classrooms, led by Leslie Fisher, Lesley McClendon, and John Sessler from PBS, was PACKED full of useful, mind-blowing tech tools in the classroom.
Aurasma – A free app, Aurasma allows teachers to create and engage students in augmented digital reality. Teachers can upload pictures and then connect videos, quizzes, information to the image. Students, or really anyone else, can view your enhanced material by using the app. This immediately brought to mind my classroom library and connect students’ book chats to images of the covers of books I have in my library
Quiver – Another free app, Quiver allows students to print out coloring pages, color them, and then see them come alive with the app! Quiver now features educational pages including volcanos, animal cells, and maps that offer quizzes, and 3D images that really take learning and understanding to the next level.
Elements 4D – I was completely blown away by this app. Leslie had wood blocks with the elements on them. When viewed with the app, you could see what the element actually looked like. For example, the oxygen block showed air, but when paired with the hydrogen block water appeared. I can only imagine what my chemistry experience would have been like with this cool toy. And even better, they offer free paper versions of their blocks here.
Timeline JS – This one hit right home. Timeline JS makes it easy for not just teachers, but also students. They provide an template in Google Sheets. Users can modify it and connect text, images, videos, and quotes to display beautiful timelines. How perfect is this to connect history and ELA?
Google Tour – Google has done it again. With Google Tour, users can show a character’s journey, historical figure’s path, or animal’s migration. They can connect places and path with video, images, and text as well.
Seesaw – Students can use this app to display their understanding; meanwhile, creating a digital portfolio. They can respond to assignments by attaching files, videos, notes pictures, or using the whiteboard feature. Parents also have the opportunity to sign up and receive all assignments. No need to worry about lack of space on the fridge, Seesaw makes it easy for parents to share their children’s work on social media.
Go Formative – A cool way for students to draw responses for assessments, Go Formative takes formative assessments beyond multiple choice. This seems like the perfect way for students to show work for math problems, or express understanding using visuals.
Plickers – Don’t have enough devices for every student? No problem. Plickers makes it easy for educators to get real-time feedback without students having to have individual devices. After a question is posed, students hold up cards with unique scannable cards linked to individual students. With a quick scan with the app, the teacher is quickly able to assess understanding.
I left this session giddy. While not every app applied to my own classroom, I couldn’t wait to share them with educators I knew would love them!
After leaving ISTE after my first day, I left ignited and ready to fill up my teacher tool belt to the brim the next day. Check in tomorrow for more highlights and to see what cool tech fun I take away from day 2!
Kannengieszer's Class 