Category Archives: Conferences

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Food for Thought – NCAIS Event Reflections

Students as Teachers

Students as Teachers

I was fortunate to be a part of the NCAIS Food for Thought session on Immersive Technology on April 1, 2019.  When Stephanie Keaney reached out to me last year about helping with her idea, I said yes as I love working with NCAIS, Stephanie, and other independent schools. We decided on the topic of immersive technology as this area is on the growth curve and wondered what we could all learn about it. Also, I started to use CoSpacesEdu with my STEAM by Design class and wanted to share what we had learned. We also use the Merge Cube and  Goggles. Stephanie hopes to have 20 to 25 people attend these lower key events so when 4o people attended we were both very excited and pleased. We were fortunate that Karen MacKenzie from Cary Academy, along with Michelle Rosen and Michele Guiterrez from the DA Lower School were willing to come and showcase some of the resources and tools they use. We really had a low ceiling too high ceiling resources.

For me, the best part was that Holly and Ellie agreed to come and demonstrate what we use in STEAM by Design. Since it was a day off for students, their parents also had to provide transportation. They were excellent, and at least one attendee made a note of how awesome it was that students were doing the face-on activities.

You can find the presentation we used at http://bit.ly/FoodARVR

Here is a short video (no audio) of Holly and Ellie using the Merge Goggles with a CoSpaces Edu Space while using AirPlay to broadcast. The Goggles allow you to interact with commands in the Space. Look for the small dots as Ellie will press the buttons on the Goggles.

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Finding Time for STEAM – NCAIS Conference

time

This Friday, 10/21/16, I will be presenting in room 6 from 10:15 – 10:45 at the Annual NCAIS Conference. I proposed this session last year as I think other schools could benefit on how I have approached developing the STEAM by Design Seminar.

Proposal Summary
Making, Makerspaces, and Design Thinking are powerful new instructional methods and concepts that many schools are adopting or trying to adopt. This session will focus on how a Middle School teacher started a STEAM by Design class in a schedule that did not have any room. Come to this session to find a place to add a STEAM by Design seminar in your school.

Proposal Description
Schools are faced with a dilemma when trying to institute new programs or classes. Most schedules in schools are already full leaving little or no room for creating new models of learning and teaching. Our Middle School wanted to have a STEAM class with Coding, Design Thinking, Electronics, 3D Design, 3D Printing, and Making. How do we add something to an already full schedule for students in a way that will not overload the students while also exposing them to these skills and concepts. The answer was to look at the area where students are provided time to study even on days when perhaps they do not need the time to study, or that they would like to learn something about STEAM and still have the time to study when needed. Therefore we are offering a STEAM by Design Seminar as a year-long class open to any seventh or eighth grade student who wants to take the seminar (provided they are also not a double foreign language student). The seminar will meet three out of the six days that their study hall meets. The STEAM by Design Seminar will explore these concepts and skills using the online resources (Project Ignite by Autodesk and CodeMonkey). With this approach, our school plans to infuse the STEAM concepts and skills related to STEAM and Making without wide institutional change that would require committees and time. If we fail, we iterate and adjust to the next design.

This is the presentation I will be using so please feel free to make a copy of

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NCTIES Reflections

I was lucky enough to attend NCTIES conference last week in Raleigh. I have not been to this conference for a long time so it was nice to be there again. I attended mostly maker space sessions as I am working on devising how to bring one to our school. There is no magical answer other then to just start and allow agency for the students.

As a Google for Education Certified Trainer, I was asked to help in the Google booth on the vendor floor and had the opportunity to demonstrate Google Expeditions. The technology behind this is pretty cool but I like how the teaching and learning was front and center. The tablet had all of the expeditions loaded on it and the phones inside of the cardboard were delivered the expedition via a closed wifi network. This meant that there was no need for internet access. The phones could be anything 6 inch or smaller. We were using Nexus phones with no data plan. While still in beta through the pioneer program, Google plans to have kits available next year that will feature the tablet, router, speaker, cardboard, and phones for purchase. Pricing is still being determined and currently the free apps are only available on Android. While no guaranty Google has clearly been able to create awesome iOS apps so I suspect much like the Cardboard app, there will be iOS versions of the Expeditions and Viewer apps. Learn more about the hardware needs at this Google Expedition support page.

 

 

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Will You Blend?

 

 

I am attending The Perfect Blend conference tomorrow at Cary Academy. The conference is sponsored by NCAIS and VISnet where I serve on the Advisory Board. As a presenter and advisor, I did not need to register so to that degree, I am being compensated. I am excited to hear more about what other schools are doing around blended learning as well as sharing my perspective on how to know if your school is ready.

 

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NCAIS Educators Conference Presentations

Image: http://www.ncais.org/

I leave tomorrow morning for Concord, NC as I will be facilitating a session on Leaving Textbooks Behind at the NCAIS Pre-Conference Academic Fest. I am excited to lead this session as it will help me deepen my understanding on how to help Durham Academy address this growing topic. I am also doing a Rapid Reach 15 minute presentation on the topic of Digital Portfolios with Google Sites. It is the same presentation as last week just done at 5X speed.

I am going to embed my presentations below (and also on my other site) so that anyone can access what I am presenting. I hope to see you there.

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NC GAfE Summit 2014

I am excited to be presenting at this years summit. At last years summit, I got serious about learning how I could help my school and other schools leverage these powerful tools by becoming an authorized Google Education Trainer. I will be presenting again on using Google Sites for student portfolios and introducing a new session called Google Apps and iOS are Jet Fuel for Learning where I will show how to harness the power of Google Apps to extend a 1:1 iPad program. After two years helping my school with our iPad program, I can attest to how these two corporate solutions are not oil and water, but rather jet fuel. There is still time to come and take part in the summit so register today at http://nc.gafesummit.com/.

Find links to my presentations as well as other presenters at http://nc.gafesummit.com/2014/program/sessions or at my other site http://www.digitalkarl.com/

Image is property of EdTechTeam

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What I Learned at GAFE about Portfolios

Learn

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/59217476@N00/7211160284

I learned a lot at the Google Apps for Education Summit at Ravenscroft. Of particular interest was the discussions I had with teachers at Ravenscroft and others related to using Google Sites for student portfolios. We have done portfolios for two years now at the Middle School. I worked pretty hard to develop a template and roll it out with teachers and students. While we have begun the process, I felt we also  needed to iterate how we were creating them and utilizing them as part of our learning culture. With my new found knowledge, I have revamped the portfolio template to be more efficient and student driven. My hope is that this will allow it to become more a part of instead of separate from the learning process as a whole.

Because our Google Apps for Education are private, I created a new template that you can use to get started.

This link will take you to the template: 

I included a Google Presentation Tutorial as well focused on how to create the site on an iPad. You can adjust to the device you are using.  

For those of you who came to my presentation on building portfolios, this represents my new thinking while the presentation is very similar to what you saw before.

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NCAIS Innovate 2013

North Carolina Association of Independent Schools 2

On Friday, I will be presenting at the NCAIS Innovate Conference at Noble Academy in Greensboro, NC. My session will be a repeat of sorts from the Mini-MOOC I did at the Google Apps for Education Summit. I think the idea of using a Google Site as a launching and training platform for any type of device program is incredibly worthwhile. I spoke about this fact at the Apple Event we hosted at our school yesterday on Information Technology aspects to consider for an iPad or other device program. Infrastructure is important, but so is building a community or digitally connected learners that are versed in both skills and citizenship in order to leverage the device. I think the iPad Passport that we have used the past two years is one of the reasons why our students and teachers have been able to extend the learning and not chasing issues like we have seen develop where schools rushed in. For instance, we asked our students to not update to iOS 7 which we could not prevent them from doing (I know) and except for two situations, no one did. In fact, one of the updates was done by a parent who was “helping” her son out by updating all of their families devices. Besides applauding our students restraint, I think we need to acknowledge they have learned about having honor and character as demonstrated with this test of delaying upgrading.

Here is a link to my presentation.

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VISNet Onsite Training 2013 OER and You

VISNet.png

I will be presenting about Open Educational Resources or OER’s for the VISNet trained teachers workshop. These teachers are the first cohort of teacher who will be teaching the new VISNet Teacher Taught courses. If your school is interested in having your students take online courses with vetted and trained teachers, contact the fine folks at VISNet.

This link will take you directly to the slideshow where you can make a copy or leave comments. http://goo.gl/cVqCBM

This QR code will take you to the Google Presentation as well. 

Qrcodeoer