As I mentioned in my last few posts, I am fortunate to be attending my first ISTE conference this year in Philadelphia. Yesterday was another fantastic, exhausting day, and I wanted to share some of the insights, resources, and information that I learned as a way to "pay it forward" to those who aren't attending. The volume of information that came my way was so overwhelming that I cannot possibly share all of it, so I'm passing on what I found most illuminating. If you want more info from the conference, those attending and tweeting the conference are using the hashtag #ISTE11.
Brandon Lutz from Philadelphia presented "60 Tools in 60 Minutes." I was blown away by the number of tools that I had never heard of before. My speed typing skills were tested as I tried to get them all into my Delicious account. You can get all of the tools, videos, Prezis, and the backchannel for the session here.
Walking the Expo Hall was loads of fun (see the cheesy picture above). I saw lots of awesome products that I can't afford and met loads of interesting people.
I spent more time browsing the poster sessions. One that was really good was "Using Tech to Promote Young Adult Literature" by Colette Cassinelli. You can see all of her information on this Google Sites page.
I found out about an amazing new tool that just launched - a free, online graphing calculator from a company called Desmos. Instead of me explaining more, watch the video below.
Around lunchtime I had a cup of coffee with Mary Garrison from Math Solutions, a company founded by Marilyn Burns that provides professional development for teachers so that they can teach math in a way that emphasizes conceptual understanding. I really like what they are trying to do.
I met my goal of learning enough about Livebinders and Edmodo to use them effectively in my classoom next year from some of the amazing people in my PLN. It's been fantastic to meet some of these educators in person. While it's sad that after tomorrow I probably won't see many of them until at least next summer, it's wonderful that sites like Plurk and Twitter allow us to keep in contact throughout the year to learn from each other and give each other the support that allows us to grow as teachers.
