This year the VSTE Educator’s Technology Conference was held in Virginia Beach from December 4-6. My friend, Alfonso, and I presented a session called “EDM: Educator’s Doing Multimedia.” We shared how teachers and students can create videos, animations, and music using free online tools. We also shared several examples of student projects using multimedia (you can find many more examples on our blogs). Since Alfonso and I are DJ’s on the side, we included some of the other EDM (Electronic Dance Music) in our presentation. There was a disco ball, lasers, and glowsticks for the crowd. At the end we collected the attendees’ names using a Google form on our website and pasted them into a random name picker to choose a lucky winner for an iTunes gift card. The random name picker is a great tool to use in your class as well. We attended several other VSTE sessions yesterday and today, but my favorite was one about Google maps by Adam Seipel. I learned some cool tricks and features I didn’t know about and was inspired to redo my own session’s website using the new Google sites (in your Google Drive click New > More > Google sites). Tonight we DJ’d a special reception for the vendors (that’s where the photo in this post was taken). If you get the opportunity to attend VSTE or another educators’ technology conference in your state/country, I’d encourage you to go. It’s a wonderful way to expand your professional knowledge and network.
