Carla's+Sessions



Day One - Although we had delays at the airports today, Tracy's friendliness got us upgraded to first class for the first leg of our trip!

Day Two - We arrived at the conference amazed with the displays, large crowds and extensive list of sessions to choose from. I attended the following sessions today: 1) Wonderful World of Wikis - This session was led by Adam Frey, cofounder of Wikispaces and Victoria Davis. I didn't learn as much basic info as I wanted but it was informative as it showed my what I can do with a wiki once I gain more experience with them. I am going to use a wiki with my ELA class once our gaggle accounts are up. With these two programs we will be able to edit WW on our Wiki and I will be able to view the changes students have made on each other's WW. This link is helpful for creating a classroom wiki. http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/ 2) Digital Literacy in an Elementary Classroom - This session introduced me to photo story as well as some new items I can use with a community service project. I didn't live up to my expectations as the content did not match the session description. Nonetheless, I left with some useful information. http://jfriesen.net/necc2008 3) Go go google gadgets - I learned a lot about Google and all of the gadgets it has to offer. This was the best session of the day!http://pages.google.com/manager/keciaray/ 4) In between our sessions we ran around trying to learn more from Smart, Promethean and Scholastic at their commercial booths. The displays are overwhelming - about 500 of them!

Day Three Can you get workers compensation for a knee injury sustained from riding a mechanical bull? 1) Throughout the conference you have many displays to look at, some are commercial ones while others are teacher-created projects. [|Learntobehealthy.org] is a commercial site that offers lesson plans, games...although the content is geared for American education systems, many of the lessons can be used in our health classes. 2) Literacy in a Digital Classroom - Gayle Berthiaume showed us a variety of ways in which she incorporated keyboarding, illustrations, scanning and printing in to the lives of grade 1 students. Although this session was not geared for my age group, she had many useful tips for an ELA class. Many of her ides for books can also be used with our care partners. http://www.gayleberthiaume.com/ http://homepage.mac.com/gaylejb 3) Google Earth for the Elementary Classroom - This was an infomative session focusing on Google Earth. It has many applications for the middle years Social Studies curriculum as it focuses on bringing the world alive to the students. I am looking forward to using this program with the 7's and the 8's. http://tw.neisd.net/webpages/sreeve/tcea2008.cfm 4) From Comics to Trading Cards - Using [|readwritethink.org] we learned how to use their prewriting format, write a rough draft of a story and create trading cards for our characters. This is useful program but it has its drawbacks as you can not save your work, only print it out. _ Day Four This was the best day!!! 1+2) SMART Boarding in the Classroom 101 and 202 - Bret Grensburg is the male version of Stacey - he is energetic, loves what he does and ensures that his passion for technology will inspire other teachers to change the way they teach! We arrived at his session bright and early so that we could be seated in the front row, and didn't leave until the end of his second session. He was full of excellent tips on how to use shortcuts on the Smartboard as well as exciting ways in which teachers could deliver material to their students. http://www.eagleti.com/ 3) The Man Behind the Curtain - Hall Davidson showed us how to cut and paste beginner HTML codes. This will prove useful in a middle years classroom when paired with Google Earth. Some of his information was too advanced for me to understand at this point, I appreciate the applications this has for many students. http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/media_matters 4) Beyond Copy and Paste - Tammy Worcester provided us with many useful shortcuts and projects we can do with our students. Jasmin and Tracey purchased two of her books which are user friendly for teachers of all grade levels. http://www.tammyworcester.com/