ACTEM Top 10 List

My 10 Ten List From ACTEM: What a great day!

1. The Concept of Learning Ecology: I really found this concept fascinating as a way to think about how we want schools to be. The idea appeals to my desire for learning to transform with the idea of ecology as a web network. I found this article super interesting http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/learning_communities.htm

2. Comics in Education – I was aware of the growing field of graphic novels, but not as aware of the growing content literature done with graphic interface. I liked the idea of students using comic life to prepare students for writing a science lab- take photos and then have them narrate as a pre-writing stage. URL for her presentation: http://tiny.cc/OIB0e

3. Creative Commons – I was reminded today that we need to spend some time talking about creative commons licenses and making sure our students know how to publish with this attribute and use it in their work as teachers. I want to look at this resource more: http://creativecommons.org/

4. Scratch – I have used Logo in a few different settings, and had learned about SCRATCH, but not seen a demonstration. I was excited to see how it was being used, and how it is more user friendly than Logo. I would like to play with it more to consider applications in the classroom. http://scratch.mit.edu/

5. Curriki – Wow, this is a new resource that offers so many resources for teachers with actual usable materials – so many sites like this require the teacher to modify and recreate. I was thrilled to find this and will need to play more with it. http://www.curriki.org

6. Google Doc – Enjoyed seeing this overview of the different features, but wished it had gone into more depth with some of the tools and collaboration features, rather than just the file sharing, portability aspects. I was so excited to learn about the ‘form’ function and how you can easily build a survey and install into your blog, and the results come out in a spreadsheet- I can think of so many applications for using this.

7. Concept of GeoGebra- During the math presentation I attended I was introduced to the term GeoGebra and the software that goes along with supporting this concept. I love the interactive tools that were focused on specific skills – so much potential to differentiate. However would need to think about assessment as I am not sure viewing many, many Jing videos done by each child is a realistic assessment tool. http://www.geogebra.org/cms/

8. Google Talk – I downloaded this software and am thinking about how to use this. I am trying to find an alternative to Skype, but have not found video functionality in GoogleTalk. I will keep exploring. http://www.google.com/talk/

9. Jing – I had seen this tool before, but then had forgotten to download it. I did not realize there was also the screen/image capture which is great – because I love this functionality on a MAC and will often use a MAC just for this feature that I do not have on my PC. I have downloaded JING now and can begin to take screen captures instead of screenshots. http://www.jingproject.com/

10. Overall Reaction to the Day – I love conferences! It is always reenergizing to be around other people who have great ideas and want to do work in the same way I do. It is wonderful to see so many people thinking deeply about how to improve the quality of teaching and learning in Maine schools. It was a pleasure to see the UMF students at their first conference and see how professionally they conducted themselves and the observations they made throughout the day. I am very optimistic about the future of education with committed and thoughtful students choosing to pursue this career.