I am a professional development junkie so of course I am spending a day of PD on the first day of summer! :)
My morning started off by dropping off my youngest at volleyball camp and then heading to get my Route 44 Diet Dr. Pepper before arriving at Southeast Missouri State University for the conference. After opening remarks and greetings, we had our keynote speaker who was FABULOUS-- Ron Clark! Man, I would love to go to see his school and the enthusiasm that must exist there. He talked about how education should be "young, fun, sexy and hot" and not stale and boring. I loved when he talked about not being afraid to try things. "One day, they're gonna fix your hair and put you in a box" so use your time without fear. My three favorite takeaways, though--
1--If you are in a school or classroom where people aren't enthused, then you just have to be excited enough for everybody. Even when you're not really. :)
2--No one wants to hear you complain. He asked for people to raise their hand if they liked hearing complaining. No hands. We tolerate complaining. Don't be someone that people just tolerate.
3--We are all pushing a bus (your school). There are runners, joggers, walkers, and riders. The complainers are walkers. The runners work to improve things, regardless of recognition. Be a runner. They keep the bus moving.
As I am writing this reflection, my speaker for this session just answered her phone.. hubby calls during a presentation. Classic. Oh, technology!
Then, we had lunch. I went outside because it was freezing.
Afternoon sessions I selected included:
A-- Google, Starbucks and Optimus Prime. This was GREAT. Greg Lawrence is a fabulous presenter full of knowledge about Google and so much more. He spent a good deal of time highlighting Google Keep features (did you know you can record a note and it will transcribe it?? COOL) and mentioned various other Google tools. I like how Google Keep can be used on your phone to record audio and then you can open it and download the audio file on the PC. Check out his presentation. Five stars!
B--Future Driven Learning. Rough start for this presenter... his keyboard wouldn't work and we had some issues getting started (not his fault!). But, it was a solid presentation. David Geurin is super active on Twitter, so it was neat to hear him speak in person. He talked about making sure we are preparing students for the future and that our schools are "time machines" and not "time capsules." He gave me a few cool ideas--he sends a Smore newsletter out to parents with a video. I think I'll do this for school this fall. He also talked about having a Grandparent Help Desk night where students were there to answer tech questions for senior citizens. That would be a great idea for my students to try. I might look into it.
C--Burning the Learning at Both Ends. Julie Gambill is a junior high teacher who really doesn't like basketball (ha!). She teaches English and uses Macs, so she talked about iMovie (and I'm not an Apple person) but mostly she shared some video project examples her LA kiddos did. You can tell she really loves her students. She mentioned a Six Word Story (inspired by Don Goble) that I might use in my Multimedia class this fall.
I'm looking forward to more learning tomorrow! Hope your summer is going well and that you are LEARNING something!
No comments:
Post a Comment