PETE+&+C

** Matt said:  ** // This was cool. The only problem was, without prior knowledge of programming, you’re pretty much stuck using Google Apps—which is nice and easy, but also limits you to Android Smartphones. HTML is the way to reach all Smartphones. The best idea to come out of this session is an app that parents can download to their phones that has all of the links and pertinent information for the school on it. It could also be a nice thing for various student projects or a project theme of the month. The tutorials scale up in difficulty, and bring you along from a simple button to an app that can help you find your car in a parking lot. Want to know more, check out… //[] ** Matt said:  ** It was interesting to see how another school district approached their 1:1 laptop ratio. Punxy currently only has this available at their high school level, but may soon be trickling old computers down to their eighth graders. The district’s team identified a few components that they considered to be critical to a successful 1:1 program—Curriculum, Finances, Infrastructure, Student Discipline, Professional Development, Teachers and Staff, and the IT department. A few highlights: The way Punxy runs their program is a good bit different than ours. First, they let their kids take their laptops home (though they are set to have the same filtering at home that they have at school). Also, their wireless network is strong enough for students to sit in the parking lot and access the internet (a nice option for a student who does not have the internet at home and perhaps can’t make it to a public library or something after hours). They are also able to access all of their network material at home. They have a dedicated technician on site at all time, and do the majority of their repairs themselves—making money off of the warranty in the process. They also have six people on their tech staff (not including their high school librarian and technology coach). They make sure to point out to parents with homeowners insurance, that they can usually add their student’s laptop to their policy for around $30 a year to cover any repairs. And they do not issue a laptop to a student until the parents sign off on a contract and extensive handbook policies. The most interesting thing, in my opinion, was the way they handled their discipline—which was quite strict. For a major violation (pornography or something of the sort) the student is immediately suspended for several days. For minor violations they: receive a detention for the first infraction, a detention with the possibility of losing the ability to take their laptops home for the second infraction, and then they are suspended on the third infraction. They never take away in-school laptop access as a punishment. And finally, to keep teachers up to date, Punxy holds an annual technology camp over the summer, where the teachers can bring up their needs and concerns and receive answers. This is a paid, voluntary camp for the teachers, which the district funds through Title money. ** Matt said:  ** This was a waste of time. The told us about how great her Wiki was for about an hour, while also suggesting that MovieMaker might be something that students could use to make projects. Earth-shattering… ** Matt said:  ** This guy was awesome. He teaches videography at a half-day technical high school that has 53-percent special needs kids. And it is his opinion that a student who is learning is having fun in some capacity. He proved this by teaching us the Cupid Shuffle at the beginning of the session—thus setting us up for more learning to follow. He said that his school has a 5-6 week orientation process for their students that is designed to help them figure out who they are as learners. He also talked about Gregorc Learning Styles—focusing on how to handle concrete sequential, abstract sequential, concrete random and abstract random learners… Concrete sequential—students who benefit from clear, definite directions are also the ones should be given the opportunity to apply knowledge hands on at all times. Abstract sequential—students who are more readers and note-takers, and will benefit from discussions and the opportunity to show off their book smarts. Concrete random—These are kids who need to problem solve and enjoy brainstorming. They should be given open-ended activities aplenty. Abstract random—These are students who have serious problems following instructions. They benefit from group activities and group work. This guy also talked about the concept of universal access, and offering the same accommodations to all students regardless of whether they are special needs or not, as all students could potentially benefit from those accommodations, and it would stop the special needs kids from feeling singled out. Matt said: This guy had a sheet ton of Web 2.0 tools, many of which I can’t even think of an application for. Definitely check out his Prezi at http://60in60.wikispaces.com/petec2011 But his home Wiki is worth a bookmark too, as this guy seems to be rolling out stuff as he learns about it… http://blutz01.wikispaces.com/ ** Matt said:  ** So I screwed up on this one, and attended a session given by a vendor and not a school district. Still, the guy has some pretty good project presentation software (especially one called “Share” which is aimed more at stuff on our level), and I should be receiving free copies of each of his three software programs. If we like them, they can be purchased for somewhere around $25 per copy. You can check their site out at [|www.Tech4Learning.com] He also suggested this site [|www.Pix4Learning.com] as a place to grab a bunch of copyright free pictures for school stuff. ** Matt said:  ** Another vendor presentation, but they didn’t try to sell anything. Instead, they were focused on what Web 2.0 tools fit in at the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The info available here is vast, so do yourself a favor and check out her presentation instead… [] Matt said: Despite having the last name of Champion, this guy was kind of the suck. He did have a few decent tips on shooting video though. Gems such as… 1. Don’t use the digital zoom, just move your butt closer to your subject. 2. Don’t stop shooting, particularly in documentaries, as you will usually wind up needing more material than you think you will. 3. The 10 second rule—which says that you should shoot for at least 10 seconds at any particular camera angle (this may not apply to action movies, though I am unsure on that). 4. Use one camera per subject. 5. Relax, go slow and steady. And when interviewing, do not look at the video display. Look your subject in the eye so they know where to look (rather than winding up looking directly at the camera lens). ** Matt said:  ** [|www.Polleverywhere.com] was the all-star of this bunch, as you can take polls in class via the students’ cell phones or on the web. And you can directly insert the poll template into an interactive PowerPoint slide. The only downside? If you use the free version, you are limited to 30 responses per poll created (but there is no limit on the number of polls you can create). The guy also went over Moodle Choice, but I didn’t like it as much since I’m not using Moodle. He also touched upon interactive polling options found in the Smart Notebook’s gallery feature—such as the random word chooser, random group generator and drag and drop options. Then there was a Google Docs option called Google Forms, which creates a spreadsheet (awesome, huh Skelly?) that from data collected off a form of your creation. He also went over a slightly off-color option in Mindmapping—and pointed to the site [] as the best of a bunch that also includes [] and [] Somebody in the audience pointed out Quia, [], a web-based testing option that costs $50 per teacher and can assign particular questions to particular students, so they never know that you are making adjustments for their special needs/ability levels. The number of students under one teacher license does not have a limit, I believe. ** Matt said:  ** A fairly blah presentation that did have a few decent links such as [], which has webcasts for kids, advice for teachers, author interviews and book trailers. These presenters also recommended [|www.storylineonline.net], a site where celebrities read books for kids, an online sound mixer at [] , videos slideshows production at [|www.animoto.com]. ** Matt said:  ** This guy had the occasional good idea, such as giving students who do not have computer access at home additional support and scaffolding by pairing them up with students who do so that they may learn to use computers responsibly before getting one at our school. But, his biggest contributions were a pair of websites. Want some more Web 2.0 tools? Browse some 3,000 of them here [] And check out this online rubric creator here [] ** Matt said:  ** This was largely a waste of time, as the two guys presenting took the time to present a “model lesson” designed for second graders. However, it was so slow and plodding, that it never really got anywhere. Still, here’s their wiki… http://yselementarytech.wikispaces.com And here is a website they suggested for photo projects… [|www.bighugelabs.com] ** Matt said:  ** I really wish I had been able to make one, purely for the concept of it, but sadly I was in another session. I will be hounding Lauren HInish to share the stuff she picked up here. Basically, this is a bar code type of thing that you can generate on your own, and is scannable using either a smartphone or a webcam. These barcodes can be linked to any website or piece of info on the web. So, you could put up a calendar at the front of your room, with different bar codes for each day—that will send students to whatever it is on the web that you are using for instructional supplementation on that day. The students could scan it on their way in (provided we had a way to do so), and could instantly get to where you wanted them to be without wasting 10 minutes trying to direct their various attentions there. And finally… **  List of sessions that were available:   ** [] **  Forum discussion of available sessions:   ** []
 * Sessions I Went To:  **
 * **Program Title: ** How to Develop Mobile Apps for the Classroom ||
 * **Program Description: ** Are you interested in developing mobile apps or having your students develop mobile apps in the classroom? If so, then this presentation is for you! During this presentation we will demonstrate how to develop mobile apps using Google’s easy-to-use App Inventor tool. This free tool requires no programming and allows you to publish real mobile apps ||
 * **Program Title: ** Implementing a 1:1 Laptop Program- “Keys” for Success ||
 * **Program Description: ** How can a 1:1 laptop initiative be implemented? The technology director, principal, and IT coach discuss the “keys” for their successful laptop program for grades 9-12 in Punxsutawney School District, a rural school in western PA. ||
 * **Affiliated Organization: ** Punxsutawney School District ||
 * **Program Title: ** Power of Creative Projects? Learning that Lasts! ||
 * **Program Description: ** No more borrowed clip art and copy/paste projects! Tap into student creativity with simple technology projects that reinforce learning and engage the artistic intelligence of your students. When learning is a positive experience, students build lasting personal connections with the content information. Specific examples of teacher tested projects. ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 8.5pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Affiliated Organization: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Quakertown Community School District ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 7.6pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Title: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Creating an Engaged, Motivated Classroom Culture ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 7.6pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Description: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Imagine a differentiated learning environment where motivating students to learn is as simple as opening the classroom door. It is possible to create such a learning environment, where students find purpose in their learning. Develop effective strategies to teach the fundamentals of accountability, adaptability, and social responsibility. BYOL ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 7.6pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Affiliated Organization: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> MBIT ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Title: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> 60 Web 2.0 Tools in 60 Minutes, Guaranteed!  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Description: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Get ready for an hour packed with ways to enhance your classroom with Web 2.0 tools! Attendees will gain exposure to free web applications designed to help differentiate instruction, including classroom assessment, screen casting, word clouds, presentation enhancers, graphic organizers, and more! Leave with access to the 60 in 60 wiki. ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Affiliated Organization: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> School District of Philadelphia ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Title: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Connecting with Hard-to-Reach Learners  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Description: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Every student can learn! Explore how creative projects can engage and motivate your learners, boosting literacy skills and building content understanding, while celebrating their success. Discover ideas, tools, and techniques that provide a variety of strategies for reaching students who are not succeeding through traditional instruction. ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Affiliated Organization: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Tech4Learning., Inc ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 6.35pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Title: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Retooling for Bloom's Digital Taxonomy ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 6.35pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Description: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Most teachers use Bloom’s Taxonomy and Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy to develop and structure their lessons. But Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy reminds us that the new processes and actions associated with web 2.0 technologies are essential to the learning process. This session will demonstrate a few of the tool paired with the levels in the taxonomy.  ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 6.35pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Affiliated Organization: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Promethean ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Title: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Lights, Camera, Learn! Making it Stick with Video ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Description: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Ask a student to learn and repeat information and you'll get mixed results - but ask a student to demonstrate how something is done and nearly all students will remember the assignment long after the test. Learn how to use video cameras in your classroom to leverage student creativity and engagement and make your core content “stick”. ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Affiliated Organization: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> PAECT ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Title: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Formative Assessment with Student Response Tools ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Description: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Attend this presentation to hear about the value of formative assessment, some formative assessment techniques and technologies for efficiently using formative assessment in the classroom. The session will explore tools like Poll Everywhere, student response systems, SMART Notebook and Moodle for formative assessment and feedback. ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Affiliated Organization: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Harrisburg University of Science & Technology ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 4.65pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Title: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Making Reading and Writing Interactive ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 4.65pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Description: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Teachers are expected to encourage students to love learning; students are more interested in reaching the next level of their video game. Show students that learning can be as fun as video games. Come join us for a tour of tools and websites that you can utilize to engage your students. Learning to read and write just became a whole lot more fun. ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 4.65pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Affiliated Organization: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Everett Area School District ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 8.6pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Title: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Synergy of Technology & Differentiated Instruction ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 8.6pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Description: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Technology and Differentiated Instruction (DI) can and should be used to reinforce each other in the classroom. Resources, strategies, tips, and tools and a dedicated public wiki will be shared for strengthening the synergy between technology and DI. Participants will be actively engaged in Q and A and sharing their own strategies.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">  ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 7.9pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Title: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Digital Cameras in the Elementary Classroom ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 7.9pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Description: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> See in action how first and second graders are taught how to use digital cameras and digital images to create trading cards to demonstrate their understanding of a variety of parts of speech. ||
 * <span style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 7.9pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Affiliated Organization: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> York Suburban School District/Keystone Technology Integrator ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Title: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Using QR Codes in Education ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Program Description: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> QR codes are similar to bar codes printed on every product. QR is short for Quick Response. These codes can be read by smart phones or laptop cams and allow us to share URLs,video, music - anything that can be placed on the web. Participants will learn how to create, read and share QR codes in their classrooms. BYOL ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Affiliated Organization: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> Chester County Intermediate Unit ||