This morning we started with a keynote speaker, Dr. Martin Horejsi from University of Montana.(Sound familiar? He co-authored one of our readings this week with Eric!) He writes a monthly column for "The Science Teacher" (NSTA publication) called "Science 2.0" Very interesting talk and great message- although my daughter's critique was... he didn't stay on message. (I had to talk her out of raising her hand and telling him so.) A starting place for teachers and technology is to imagine we have all the resources we could ever want... computers, iPads, whatever for every child. All the tech hook-ups. What would we want to do then? What kinds of experiences would we want our kids to have to BEST learn our content? Interesting. We are used to looking at the technology we are given and then saying... What could I do with this? Instead we should be dreaming about what- in an ideal world- would we want our students to get to do and working from there. It seems like approaching technology integration from the opposite direction than I've been thinking. Kind of an "ah ha" moment. He also talked about how no one can be an expert at everything today. We have to find what we are interested in and go with it. Collaboration has always been an important part of teaching and integrating technology is no exception.
Workshop #1...Well, this could have been more aptly called Intro to prezi.com. I've used this before and previously signed up for a free educators acct. Prezi is a web based presentation tool. It allows students (and teachers) to create presentations using zooming and panning. The kids in the class today seem to really love it. They can brainstorm or prewrite first and then make intuitive connections, adding multimedia and grouping. To me the visual experience of the final product is cleaner and more interesting compared to (most) information heavy, linear PP slides. My decidedly nonconforming non conformist daughter is loving it. It makes sense to her. I'd love to see what my students could come up with.
Martin and I are good friends! We got connected through a NASA program I managed quite a few years ago. I only get to see him in person once every year or two...
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised that he didn't stick on message! He thinks "big" and takes everyone else along for the ride!