I was very luck to attend EdTech RVA which was hosted at VCU this year. I had such a great time learning from other educators. Here’s a roundup of the sessions that I attended as well as links to the other great sessions I wasn’t able to attend.
Flipping the Elementary Classroom
Not only did I have the pleasure of attending EdTech but I had the privilege of presenting there. Rita Roberson and I presented on how to flip the elementary classroom. In a flipped classroom students learn the material for the first time at home and then the teacher conducts remediation at school. Great model for middle or high school, but doesn’t work for elementary. In elementary we do an “in-flip”. This is where during small group center time, a group of students watch an instructional video and then rotates to the teacher led group for remediation. We have seen some huge gains in Mrs. Roberson’s class. Click here for our presentation.
Keynote with Adam Garry and Sixto Cancel
This year’s conference was focused on personalized learning. Adam Garry and Sixto Cancel spoke to the audience about the importance of personalized learning. What we don’t realize is that most of our experiences in life are personalized. From Netflix to Facebook everything in our lives are personalized to us. Yet many times in education we don’t personalize learning for our students. Students measure success by personal goals that they set, not teacher goals. When we give students voice and choice we allow them to personalize their learning thus increasing their success.
Social Media for Professional Development
I attended a great session led by Heather Causey a Hanover ITRT. She spoke to the benefits of social media and how we can use it as educators to grow professionally. Many times we think of social media as a way to share vacation pictures or something to waste our time on. She explored the different ways we can use social media to personalize our learning. The biggest takeaway, if you’re not on Twitter – get on Twitter! Click here for her presentation.
Google Classroom
I haven’t had a chance to start using Google Classroom with a teacher yet. I was very happy to attend the session on Google Classroom with Brittany Groff and Kim Tupponce from King William Public Schools. Classroom is a tool that helps teachers create and organize assignments. Teachers are able to easily communicate with their students and provide feedback.
What I liked most about the demo was that when I create an assignment for a student I’m able to attach other supporting documents. These could be websites, videos or anything else to help students complete the assignment. It seems like this would be a great way to go paperless.
Visit the Google Classroom website for more information.
Coding Like a DJ
I’ve always thought about coding with students and didn’t really know where to start. This was the reason I attended the coding session with John Hendron and Bea Leiderman. They walked us through the benefits of coding with elementary students and how to get started.
The best way to get students started is to have them log onto Scratch. Scratch is a web based program that allows students to easily code programs. The students are able to create games and other programs in Scratch.
These were the sessions that I was able to attend. Click here for the Google Community with all of the presentations at EdTech RVA.
