ISTE 2012 The Beginning

The time on my watch says 1am, no wonder I am so tired :) However, I am not on Texas time anymore, I am on San Diego, California time!

I have been offered the coolest opportunity ever! I have the chance to attend ISTE 2012! What is ISTE you ask? ISTE is International Society for Technology in Education.. in other words it is a GIANT tech conference!

I read up on all of the newbie blogs on how to prepare... and yep.. I still wasn't prepared!

Things That I did do (now, remember.. I have only been here for about 6 hours now)
-introduced myself to some awesome people (however.. they might have thought I was slightly crazy.. the excitement of ISTE has me a little overwhelmed.. I promise I will be much more calm tomorrow)
-packed comfortable shoes! Only been here a few hours, but already have done some major walking..

That is pretty much where my list ends for now. I am scouring over the ISTE giant binder right now trying to figure out what my game plan will be for tomorrow. On the way home from dinner I did stop and get me a 6 pack of bottled water, granola bars, and breakfast food (this way I will be much more pleasant!)

I look forward to learning tons and meeting a ton of cool people! I wish I had understood better about bringing address labels for the doorprize drawings, it is going to take me FOREVER to get those all filled out. I will try to post pictures along the way, but doing this ISTE completely mobile.

Things I am looking forward to:
-meeting other educators and having some great conversations.
-seeing some of my awesome friends again!
-taking lots of pictures
-The Follett Great Thinkers meet up is going to be awesome!

So.. for now, I guess I had better sign off and pretend to get some sleep. Looking forward to lots of learning. Be sure to check out the twitter feed #ISTE12

The Diviners

Have I mentioned that I have the coolest friends?  Let me say it again... I have the COOLEST friends!  This evening I was invited to a play The Diviners by Jim Leaonard Jr. that was being put on at Arts Fifth Avenue in Fort Worth, Texas.  You know me, I can never say no to adventures and great friends.

I arrived early with the Plybons.  David was playing Ferris, the father, and Elaine was working the sound board.  The venue is small and quaint, but one where you feel the passion of the theater running through the veins of all that enter.  Although I arrived early I was able to drink in all of the hustle and bustle of excited actors and actresses.




The scenes were set in sepia tones, and the director did an amazing job of keeping the tone.  It was continuous from the set background to the clothing the character wore.  I won't give the story away... because you need to go see it!  But, I want to share why it affected me so.  Brian Dougher took some unbelievable photos.  

The main character was a boy with intellectual disability.. and the young actor did an AMAZING job of portraying him.   This play and the actors did a great job of showing how loving and caring a community can be.  It also showed, however, how hard it must be at times to be a parent of a child with any type of varying ability.  I was pulled into the characters lives in the first 5 minutes.  When Elaine told me to bring Kleenexes, I knew it was going to be for the end... but I found myself using them during the first act.  The heart, soul, and emotions that came through this play were unbelievable.  

Find out more information and how to buy tickets at Jason Leyva's website.  They are of course on Facebook  and twitter  I can not wait to see another one their productions (might even go see this one again!)

ISTE 2012

I am SO super excited!  I get to attend my FIRST ISTE this year!  So, for the next couple of weeks this blog and my youtube page are going to be devoted to ISTE!  I plan to take lots of pictures and lots of videos of the things I learn, the people I meet, the connections I make... and of course some ins and outs I learn along the way.



My first video is about the ISTE app.  How are you preparing for ISTE?  I have already read some great blogs. Flourishing Kids wrote this one -11 mistakes I made at ISTE @flourishingkids.  The Nerdy Teacher wrote another one over-The Nerdy Teachers Guide to ISTE 2012 @thenerdyteacher


There are SO many more blogs out there.. just check out twitter and follow the hashtag #ISTE12

Are you going to ISTE? How are you preparing?  I hope to connect!

Skype in the Classroom

I just LOVE twitter! I love seeing what people are talking about, learning new things, and SHARING! Last week I had Skype in the Classroom follow me.. and ask how I used Skype in the Classroom.  So, I thought I would give a quick overview!

3 years ago I attended the first Podstock and met some amazing people!  Amazing people that were excited to collaborate and video conference with my self contained special education classroom.  Now, I say video conference.. skype was blocked at the time in our district so we were using gmail chat.  Now our school is able to use skype and oh my goodness the opportunities my students have had!

Our first couple of calls were not very successful, not because of connection issues.. but because I hadn't taught my students how to be a good audience or good participants.  Once I put the rules in place my students couldn't wait to see who was going to be our next skype call!

Our classroom has skyped with Kimberly in El Paso, where her class read us stories.  I then skyped with a Dyane's class in Kansas where exchanged Christmas cards, sang carols, and read a book.  After those first few skype/video conference calls.. I wanted more! I wrote a grant for 50 webcams.  This would give each LIFE classroom a webcam, so we could start video conferencing throughout the district and beyond.  I wrote social directions for students to follow that incorporated words and picture symbols.

Since those first calls our classroom has had a chance to skype with Kim's class in Kansas and was able to see a real llama, skype with Olivia Holt from Disney's Kickin It over bullying, Dyane's class for Christmas and Dr. Seuss birthday, Elaine in Illinois to tell her thank you, and classrooms across our district.  We have created collaborative poems using google docs and skype.  I even took my students on a virtual tour of the National Museum when I was in DC for CoSN for the NSBA 20 to Watch Reception.  You can check out some of our products that we made collaboratively at our class blog www.kellerbusybees.blogspot.com

This year I found a private donor that donated an iPad 2 to our classroom which made skype calls so much easier!

I am super excited to see what other educators are on Skype in the Classroom website.  I have some good connections, but I am always looking for other people to connect with!  How do you use Skype in the Classroom?  Who do you connect with?  What activities do you do?

So, for the next 2 weeks I am going to be talking about ISTE!  Be watching for videos, snippets of information, and just ISTE talk in general.  I am a complete newbie!

Emails

Did you know that ISTE 2012 is 7 days away.. Podstock is 32 days away.. and then DENSI is 34 days away.. and 105 days until Edcampdallas?  So.. with all that being said my email has been FLOODED with emails!  I LOVE getting emails from teachers and collaborating!

So, if you emailed me last week.. I deleted the email before I could reply.  I am SO sorry!  Please email me again (and I promise I won't hit the delete key!)  I feel so bad!  I have scoured every mailbox for the last hour to try to find the email.. with no luck.

Be watching for lots of blogs coming up!  Skype in the classroom, ISTE 2012, Podstock, DENSI and just life in general.  Happy Father's Day tomorrow.. and happy 7 year anniversary to my amazing and talented husband!

Blind Faith

This evening I took Kevin Honeycutt up on a wonderful offer of watching a play being put on in Grand Rapids, MI.  Union High School had not had a play for 3 years due to budget.  Now, I didn't travel to Michigan (although.. I have done a ton of traveling this year!) I turned on my computer and joined in on the live stream that he offered through iHigh

I grew up in a small town in Texas and during my high school years I was in the all of the musicals. I was never a lead, I was never great, but I always had fun!  The memories that I had working late night, making new friends, being someone other than myself, and most importantly gaining more confidence.  During school I was often shy and only hung out with certain people (now, if you know me now.. I am completely opposite!)  I credit being more outgoing and presenting in front of people to being in our local high school plays.

As teachers we are always talking about authentic audiences and having our kiddos reaching out to people outside of their community.  There are SO many online opportunities that offer this availability.  I logged on tonight to the http://www.ihigh.com/blindfaith/ link and watched the viewers steadily increase.  Kevin's goal was for 1000 views for these AMAZING kiddos, and here it is just 15 minutes into the second act and there are over 1015 views.  We teach students to blog to have different readers in the audience.  How far technology has come that we can now watch students act out a play and reach an even broader audience.

I feel SO privileged to be a member of the audience.  To help these kiddos see that there is SO much more out there.  My Favorite line was "Life is to short to go to far down the wrong road."

Thank you Kevin for connecting me!  Please tell those kids that they did amazing!

CARE Day and BrainPOP!

This year has been one crazy year!  Changing schools was tough, but I have loved making new traditions at a new school!  Each school is a little different in what they do, and my new school has CARE day.  CARE day you ask? Celebrating Authors and Readers at Elliott.  How cool is that!  So this Friday is my first CARE day! Things that are happening on CARE day?
-2 AMAZING Authors are speaking to us! Kevin Honeycutt and Natalie Bright
-A Character parade! This is where students and staff are encouraged to dress up as their favorite book character.  So, I had to of course choose MOBY!  Now, I know.. Moby is not an actual book character, but there is a ton of writing that goes into making one of those awesome BrainPOP videos! (keep reading for info on my costume and and awesome BrainPOP contest)
-decorating hallways and doors to represent different genres or authors.  Our class has been doing an Eric Carle study (will post pictures this weekend)
-and sharing books that each student has authored.  We did our books in an Eric Carle style, and I have admit they are turning out pretty cute!

So, CARE day is looking like it is going to be AWESOME (and that I am going to sleep well that night!)

Since I am on the topic of BrainPOP I had to share about this great competition that they are having:
BrainPOP & Intel: How Do YOU Bring Learning to Your Student's Fingertips?  It is super easy to enter.  All you have to do is submit a lesson plan by May 22nd that showcases how you are using BrainPOP interactive resources on mobile devices.  Click on the link to find out more information and details!

So, now for the BrainPOP costume (which is almost done.. will have final pictures posted this weekend!)  As soon as I decided I wanted to be Moby I emailed my friend Kari to see if she had some suggestions (well, the actual question was... can I borrow the Moby costume.. never hurts to ask.. right :))  She recommended me to connect with Robert Miller (find him on twitter) Robert made me a Fantastic How to Video!  You can see some of his students in action in their Moby costume here.  With some rainboots, yellow duct tape, orange duct tape, dishwashing gloves, orange shirt, gray tube socks, and an orange shirt.. my costume is coming together!

Just a sneak preview!
Next blog- pictures from CARE day (in full costume!) and how I close down and organize my classroom at the end of the year.  Had a good question about how I store old Unique curriculum files.  How do you store them?   11 more days of school and 63 more until Podstock!