Mobile Learning Conference

The program has just been announced for the April 27 Mobile Learning Conference to be held at Kalamazoo RESA.  The conference is a joint project of MACUL, the REMC Association of Michiganand Kalamazoo RESA.  Registration, which includes breakfast and lunch, is only $65.  SB-CEU's will be offered.

Many of the sessions that were standing room only at the recent MACUL conference are being repeated at this event.  To see more information and to register for the conference, link here.

Sessions include:

10 Apps to Use in Your Classroom on Monday and Where to Find More!
A Day in the Life of a 1:1 Classroom (K-4)
A Single iPad Classroom- What Can I Do?
Apps Taskonomy: Digging Deeper into the Application of Apps
Beyond Angry Birds: Getting Productive with Your Mobile Device!
Branding Your Class Using Twitter Use Inside and Outside of the Classroom With Students Make Your Own Digital Textbook (Not in iBooks)
Can My Students With Special Needs Use an iPad?
Close Encounters of the App Kind
Creating an Interactive Whiteboard With Just an iPad
Creating Digital Content on the Mac
Digital Textbooks with iBooks Author
Flipping the Classroom Using Mobile Technologies
Flipping Your Classroom into the 21st Century
Fun with Socrative! Free, App-Based & Browser- Based Student Response System
I Have an iPad...Now What?
Increasing Access to Instruction for Students with Disabilities Using the iPad
IOS Management Options for Beginners
iPad Implementation and Roll Out: Everything You Need to Know
iPadding Around in the Elementary Classroom!!
iPads, Marzano, and McREL-Oh My!
iPads: Weapons of Mass Instruction!
Joining Our Students in the 21st Century: Using iMovie and iBooks in the Language Arts Classroom
Leveraging Your Android Phone to Improve Student Achievement
Managing IOS Devices
Managing Your Mobile Classroom
Moving Beyond the iPad as a Consumption Device
Moving Your “School” to a Global Learning Hub: It’s Inevitable!
Padding with a Purpose
Portable Mobile Devices and Peer Observation
Quick and Easy Formative Assessment Using Mobile Applications
Successful iPad Implementation from Beginning to End Educating the Mobile Generation-What Every School Should Consider Before Deploying a 1?1 Mobile Learning Program
Texting as a Tool: Using Cell Phones in the Classroom
The Flipped Classroom: Making Learning Possible Beyond 7:30-2:30
Using daqri and QR codes to take your class mobile
Using the iPad/iPod in the Special Education Classroom
What’s on Your iPad?
Which App for That?
Why You Want an iPad Instead of an Interactive Whiteboard

iPad Apps for Special Education Students

Here are some iPad apps that were recommended by Randall Palmer from the Children's Institute, Verona, NJ.  I enjoyed seeing all the quick demos!

Communication Apps:

• Scene Speak: This app allows you to take a picture and audio-lable the items. $10.  Works great with younger children.


• Proloquo2go: a full-featured communication solution for people who have difficulty speaking.  Works great, but is expensive. $190


• Verbally: An app that does what proloquo does.  Try the free version, which may be all that is needed.  There is an upgrade version for $99


• Functional Communication System: This is new and has the advantage of using real images instead of stick figures.  $50

Social Skills:

•  Sōsh:  is a mobile app designed to help ‘tweens, teens and young adults improve social skills. It is especially designed to be used by individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome.  Randy couldn't say enough about this app.  It is for high functioning students and is packed with options.  It includes a dictionary of idioms, talking strategies, recognizing feelings,  voice meter that is helpful in speech therapy, a shredder for ridding negative thoughts, and more.  $40


• Stories to Learn:  Students can create their own social stories that include pictures and audio. $13.99


• Conversation Builder:  Neat app! Students select responses  and record their voices. $9.99


• Sharing Timer:  an animated timer with sound effects show kids when it’s time to take turns


• Look in My Eyes:  A game-type format to help children learn to make eye contact. $2.99

Activity Schedules:

• Chore Pad HD: an electronic checklist.  Can add rewards if you wish. $2.99


• First Then Visual Schedule:  designed for caregivers to provide positive behavior support to increase independence and lower anxiety during transitions through different activities.  $9.99


• Video Scheduler:  Blends activity schedules with video modeling. $12.99

Self-Regulation:

• Time timer:  A visual timer that would be helpful in any classroom.  $1.99

Misc Supports:

• Read2Go by Bookshare: an accessible daisy e-book reader. $19.99


• Constant Shopper: is visual shopping list with pictures of items  $2.99


• Dragon Dictation: voice to text app that is very accurate.  Free!


• Twin Calc: Two large screen calculators that work side-by-side.  $.99

Moms with Apps:  a catalog of great children's and family-friendly apps. Search by educational categories and age groups to discover new apps and developers. Check out their website for "Free app Friday" where vendors make their products available free for one day only.

Curriculum 21

Heidi Hayes Jacobs was a keynote speaker at FETC that I very much enjoyed due to her common sense suggestions.  She is the author of six books, most recently, The Curriculum Mapping Planner: Templates and Tools for Effective Professional Development, co-authored with Ann Johnson, a book available on ASCD.

Her message:  "We do not need educational reform.  We need new-form."  She believes that we are using 19th century schedules , 20th century curriculum,  and our students are 21st century learners.  The time to make changes is NOW, as the common core curriculum standards are implemented.

Strategic replacement of curriculum is what needs to be done.... short term replacements with long term vision.   Dr. Hayes Jacobs recommends for every school to do the following:  Have every teacher in the school choose one upgrade.  Example: convert a persuasive essay assignment into a persuasive videocast.  The move to the Common Core Curriculum standards is a huge opportunity to upgrade.  Think of the collective difference this could make if everyone made just one upgrade to their current instructional practice.

To help teachers identify their one upgrade, the Curriculum 21 Clearinghouse can be used.  Websites and web 2.0 applications have been reviewed and tagged with curriculum-friendly terms to make it easy for teachers to choose curriculum and topics.  It's a tremendous resource; check it out!

 

Moving to Google Apps

I had the pleasure of attending a workshop with Rushton Hurley at the FETC Conference, "Google Docs and Forms in Gory Detail."  I enjoyed it and am feeling more confident than ever that moving to cloud computing and Google Apps is the right thing for my school district to do next year. 

According to Rushton, "The collaborative nature of Google is why we all should switch from Microsoft to Google."  Another teacher said  "Using Google Apps has been the best innovation in my career; there is not a more dynamic tool to impact student learning. "

It will be a change for our folks, and change is always difficult.  Users will have to make a shift when working with Google Docs.... Example: the home screen is just too huge.  However, once you remember to switch to using the Google tool at the top to search for files, it's not a big deal. 

I look forward to working with teachers in my district.  I learned some things that our teachers are going to love, such as  how to make a self-correcting quiz, how to take advantage of the data in Google lists when using spreadsheet, and providing feedback to students that they cannot throw away after looking at their grade. 

Some things I like about Google Apps (short list):

• I like the convenience of being able to work on a file on one device and open it up and continue on another without ever having to hit a save button! 


• I can work on a project with someone who lives far away in real time.


• There is less email!  Revisions are saved without having to send the latest version to other team members.


• One username and password for a whole slew of applications.


• Once you set up the people you want to share files with in a collection, you're done; all you need to do to share with the same group is drop a file in the collection.

Some things I still need to figure out:

• How to work on Google Docs offline if I am in an area where I am unable to connect to the Internet.  At the conference I used Evernote when the wireless was down, but I heard there was a way to use Google Docs offline.


• The toolbar options are limited when using a mobile device (tablet). There may be a way around that, too. 

Infographics as a Creative Assessment

I attended one of Kathy Schrock's sessions at FETC and the topic was using infographics as a creative assessment.  I saw the value of using infographics with students before there was a term for it, so I huried to this session.  (I even subscribed to USA Today just so that I could cut out the "snapshots" that were always on page one and incorporate them into lessons with my 6th grade class.)  

Recently, I have been working quite extensively on the role of technology in the Common Core Curriculum Standards.  I know that using infographics could be extremely useful as a means to:

• Integrate information using multimedia


• Write with formatting and illustrations


• Collect info from multiple sources


• Create technical information in a visual format


• Understand and use sources in acceptable ways, following copyright laws


• Strategically use multimedia in presentations


• 
  

   Translate quantitative/technical words to a visual form

  
  

What are infographics, you ask? 

 See Kathy's intro video below (2.5 min) and then take a look at all of her examples and how-to's.

Infographics as a Creative Assessment from Kathy Schrock on Vimeo.

 Her extensive list of resources can be found here.

Software, sites, and tools to create infographics:

• Glogster (example)


• Picktochart


• Inkscape


• Aviary Phoenix


• Aviary Raven


• Sumo Paint


• Sketchpad


• Pixlr

I challenge all educators to look around for infographics in their day-to-day lives and to think of ways to help students understand and create them for themselves!

Walled Lake Schools Spice it Up! Technology Conference

Every year, just before school starts, the Walled Lake Consolidated School District hosts a technology conference. The conference is planned, organized, and facilitated by Walled Lake staff for Walled Lake staff. This past August, a huge wind storm blew through the area the night before the conference.  The morning of the conference, we discovered that there was no power at the hosting school, so we had to cancel it.  Hundreds of teachers and administrators were disappointed to find out that their yearly dose of tech medicine was not available. 

 

The planning team was determined to reschedule the conference for an upcoming Saturday. This proved to be more challenging than we figured. We needed to work around "big" football games, holidays, and the schedule of our keynote speaker. Rescheduling for a Fall Saturday was impossible! We couldn't find a date until January 21, 2012.  Therefore, the organizing and planning process needed to start all over, and we did the work we needed to do.  We soon discovered that over 200 people registered to attend, which is unheard of for a local conference held on a Saturday.  When a winter storm was predicted to come through the night before, we just could not believe it.  The storm turned out to be just a few inches of snow, and we had power. Hooray! 

 

Our Keynote speaker, Dr. Rebecca Harris, General Motors' Social Media Strategist, delivered a perfect message to a perfect day. She explained the importance of social media in the business world, and challenged the teachers and administrators attending the conference to personally experience the worlds of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. This is an important first step that is critical as we prepare our students the important skills they will need to survive in the world they are currently living in. 

 

The Walled Lake teacher leaders delivered a smorgasbord of learning opportunities for their peers. I believe that our home-grown method of providing professional develment is tops. People can reach out to their peers to ask questions and ask for advice. "If he/she can do it at that school with the same resources, then I can, too!"  

 

Our little conference garnishes professional relationships, provides needed encouragement, and tweeks learning that promotes the kinds of skills that our students require to survive in the world they will live in after they leave us, their college years and beyond. I am so proud of the teacher leaders who volunteer their time and share their talents to help make the Walled Lake Consolidated School District the best place to educate children. 

MACUL Announces Free Memberships!

MACUL has announced that the organization will no longer charge a membership fee. The action was taken at a recent Board of Directors meeting in a unanimous vote that ended a 36 year history of charging members to belong to the organization.

“MACUL’s mission is to ignite learning through meaningful collaboration and innovation. In order to increase the opportunities for collaboration, the MACUL board chose to remove the barrier of fees for membership,” stated Board President Mike Oswalt, Assistant Superintendent, Regional Technology Services for the Calhoun Intermediate School District.

The free dues membership structure has been adopted by several organizations like MACUL who are affiliated with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), based in Eugene, Oregon. “Other organizations that have gone to a free dues membership have experienced tremendous growth. We feel that MACUL is well positioned to increase our membership and expand our impact in the Michigan educational community” said MACUL Executive Director Ric Wiltse.

Membership can be obtained either by attendance at MACUL events or applying for free membership online at macul.org. Events include regional workshops as well as Michigan’s largest annual education conference, “MACUL 2012” held March 7 – 9, 2012 in Grand Rapids. The total cost for the 2012 MACUL conference remains at the same rate as the past 5 years at $180 for a full conference registration.

For Frequently Asked Questions regarding the no dues membership, visit macul.org.