For me it’s the middle of summer (a little past middle so middle-ish). How cool is it in the middle-ish of summer to get to choose from a bunch of great sessions taught by incredible people from whom I learn so much? Very cool. How cool is it to do that online, without having to travel and all for free? Very cool.
Life has been hectic and with family it was impossible to attend all the sessions I wanted to attend. I mean, RSCON3 is international so there were sessions starting at 1:30am and they kept on going until the night! But no need to worry! All the sessions were recorded and are available for viewing here!
I had some great takeaways from those three days. I strengthened my belief in the power of blogging for educators and students. I learned more about some specific Web 2.0 tools. I got to share, tweet, and chat with educators from all over the world. I feel as if I’m getting more pieces to the puzzle that is creating a student-centered classroom. I’m the kind of person that has to wrap my brain around something to truly get it and giving 21st century students what they need to be successful in their futures is complicated. Every time I think I get it I find that there is more to it and more I can do and fine tuning that needs to happen. I guess that’s the excited part, it’s never ending! That’s one thing that drew me to this profession, every year is different and my job is rarely boring. Finally, I got some glimpses into what the future could be like for us, for our students, and for our profession. Overall an awesome experience and I am so grateful to everyone who made this possible and worked so hard and slept so little to make this happen for us.
Here are the courses I attended:
Friday, July 29
10:30 to 11am Moodle and Mahara – from the virtual classroom to the personal ePortfolio by Sigi Jakob-Kühn (I learned what Mahara was and I think I’m not going to use it. I use Moodle but mainly as a portal. I don’t use Moodle to its full potential because of all the other things I do. I also had a chance last year to use Ning Mini for free. It was okay but I have to admit that I didn’t use it to its full potential. I also was missing some of the features not included with the mini like chat. This year I’m actually contemplating using Collaborize Classroom. We’ll see how it works for us.)
11:30 to 12:30pm Collaboration Between Leadership and Teachers – Panelists: David Britten, Lyn Hilt, Patrick Larkin, Dwight Carter, Pam Moran, Becky Fisher (Awesome and this is so important!)
1 to 1:30pm The Power of the #comments4kids Hashtag!!!! by William Chamberlain and Paula Naugle (This is something I want to pursue to open up the world for my students.)
Missed and want to catch vid of Joe Bower’s You say you want this, so then why are you doing that?
2 to 2:30pm Teaching With Video Games in Mind – Mary-Beth Hertz (I love this and there’s so much to it that I haven’t even begun to wrap my brain around it. On the one hand there are incredible games out there that are too expensive to use in the classroom, and on the other hand I don’t have the time to create games that would be worthy of classroom use, and yet on the other hand (yes, I know that’s three) I’ve tired to have kids create their own games and it was too hard for them and there wasn’t enough class time in a Science class to devote to game developing.)
Keynote: Kelly Tenkely – Twitter Academy: How a Blog & Twitter Conversation Started a School (Talk about inspiring!)
5:30 to 6pm Connecting with global blogging buddies!!!!! by Kathleen Morris (Yes! Great ideas and a great presentation!)
Saturday, July 30
Missed and want to catch vid of Scott Newcomb’s Using Mobile Learning Devices In and Out of the Classroom!
and
Terie Engelbrecht’s Differentiating Instruction for Today’s Learners
and
Naomi Harm’s Transforming Classroom Practice with iPad Content Integration
Attended Hadley Ferguson’s Movement is a 21st Century Skill (Something I need to work on but is another one I’m slow to wrap my brain around. I know, I have to let go. But it’s hard!)
11 to 11:30am Paula Nagle Educating with Edmodo (I think I’m beginning to see what this Edmodo thing is all about. Thanks, Paula!)
1:30 to 2pm This was mine! I led this one! Yeah. Student Blogging for Reflection, as e-Portfolio, and as Formative Assessment (What a great experience!)
2:30 to 3pm Using Skype in the Classroom by Elvira Deyamport, Ed.S. (I’ve got to do this!)
3:30 to 4:30pm Keynote: Creating the Schools that Empower Students to Find Their Sentence by Lisa Nielsen (Wow, this one left my head spinning. More pieces to the puzzle of student-centered. So much to contemplate, so much I need to do. One step at a time.)
Pernille Ripp’s Ask the Children- Meaningful Student Blogging for all Levels (This session shared a lot of commonalities with my own session. Definitely inspiring for me to see others who use blogging the same way I do with our students!)
Josh Stumpenhrost’s Student Driven Learning (Yes, Josh! Right on! More pieces to the student-centered puzzle.)
Want to catch video Steve Johnson’s Let’s talk about how to help kids that come to us from poverty. (Important topic.)
7 to 8pm closing keynote by Couros brothers about how schools can be like a family restaurant. (I loved this. I work at a small school. Not super small like a one-room schoolhouse, but pretty small. We have 230 students in grades 6-8. That affords us tremendous opportunities to be a family and one thing we do to build relationships is have advisory for all students for about 30 minutes everyday. We each have about 12 to 15 kids in grades 6, 7, and 8, and there is room for student choice and for students to make decisions about the way things are done at their school. Powerful.)
Sunday, 7/31
Missed and need to catch Panel Discussion: Phil Hart, Jo Hart, Edna Sackson, Cecilia Lemos, Berni Wall – Assessing Assessment
Missed and need to catch Cecilia Lemos’s Alternative assessment and electronic portfolios: sharing a successful experience and ideas
Keynote: Paula White Who Directs the Learning? (More pieces to the puzzle. It’s a big puzzle.)
Aviva Dunsiger’s Using Web 2.0 Tools In The Primary Classroom (Wow! Aviva is doing some incredible stuff with her kids. I mentioned that I wished my own kids could have been in her class and I’m going to share her video with our primary and elementary principal in the hopes to see some changes happening in the early grades!)
Keynote: Steve Hargadon Teacher 2.0 (Awesome! Definitely some food for thought there. So many of us who are blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, and using other social networks to connect and share know that we are on to something good. Something that is transforming. We try in our ways to share and bring our disconnected colleagues on board. It’s tough and slow going but it’s up to us to help others jump on board this train. The train to our students’ futures.)
2 to 3pm Closing Keynote Future of Learning – Steve Wheeler (This was really good. Great presentation and some great ideas to think about.)
