Let me start by saying, I absolutely love GAETC!
The Georgia Educational Technology Conference is a 3 day event with session after session of phenomenal technology tips and tricks for you to use in your classroom. The hardest part of the conference is deciding which sessions to attend, because you will want to go to many that occur at the same time. One of the best aspects of the conference is that everyone is constantly tweeting about what is happening in their session. So, you almost feel like you are in multiple sessions if you use twitter and search the hashtag #GaETC16
The Keynote Speaker, Josh Stumpenhorst, was inspirational. I enjoyed this video he shared:
Failures can be just as exciting as successes during innovation!
Now I am going to attempt to recap new things I learned while at GaETC in no particular order.
1. I learned about an app Groupme during a session about Media Specialists and Classroom Teacher Collaboration
This is a Group Text Messaging App
Basically, this app can cut down on your emails. As a Media Specialist, I can create groups of grade levels and talk to this grade levels easily on groupme. I like this idea, because not everything needs to be sent in email and email can become a bit cumbersome to check and respond.
2. I went to the Georgia Media Specialist of the Year session. This session was great, because 10 media specialists were able to share about their program. I mainly was excited to follow each one on twitter.
A few ideas that I gathered from this session include:
Jennifer Rice @theredheadjen shared
Having a Camp themed Family Reading Night with tents and having students read to parents using flashlights.
A Dr. Seuss Reading Cafe during Read Across America Week- Have 4th/5th graders read Dr. Seuss books to younger students.
Consider having an illustrator visit.
Heather Morin @hmmorin shared
Media Center Imagination Station can include: ozobots, littlebits, meccanoid, spheros, magnatiles, sewing, quilting, sewing, crocheting, scrapbooking, pic monkey, stop motion animation, solo cups for building towers, dominoes, use laminate film to create 3-D hologram projectors with this link-
3. How to Draw Your Own Clip Art, Illustrations and Avatars! by Tony Vincent
I actually sadly did not attend this session, but could tell that it was amazing based on all the tweets about it. So, I investigated and found Tony Vincent's youtube video about this topic and I am so happy that I did. This makes my creative self happy.
4. I attended a session about Putting the T in STEAM by @giftedkidsrock and @jaimevanderg
From this session, I now want to know more about using Scratch with Makey Makey, how to get Captain Planet Ecosystem Kits, how to get the Google Team to visit your school, Run Marco, The Foos, Build Academy, and Little Alchemy.
5. Digital Storyboarding with Microsoft Sway by Suzy Lolley @lollytchr I went to a session about SWAY. We have Office 365 in our district and I've seen SWAY as an option, but have not used it. SWAY is Powerpoint meets Smore... Teachers and students can use SWAY to make presentations, reports, and more.
I like that you can embed videos and even tweets into your SWAY.
Also, SWAY does lots of work for you. When you type the title of the work, SWAY will give you suggestions for things you can use.
Here is a link to one a found online.
6. Google Classroom by @lesliefisher
This is a really big deal. Google Classroom is pretty amazing and Leslie Fisher did a great job explaining how to use it. Here is her slide presentation.
7. I also attended Left Overs w/Leslie @lesliefisher
She teased us with an upcoming Classhub that allows you to view your student's screens, send alerts, block apps, send webpages, etc. to their BYOD it will be available in Feb/March
She showed us Knight Lab and the 4 programs featured on there. They each look pretty great.
The funniest thing I learned about was lmgtfy.com (let me google that for you). It's for when someone asks you a question that you then have to google to find the answer and basically they could've googled it. It's for being snarky...
For example, someone asks, "What time do the Green Bay Packers play?"
You can then send them this by going to lmgtfy.com
I also learned about Adobe Spark and want to explore this web-based program even more!
8. The last session I went to was Chrome Extensions by Chris Craft @crafty184
I especially liked VideoNot.es where students can take notes while watching a video.
His presentation can be found here:
This conference reminded me of how much I enjoy Twitter! I've neglected it lately, but have plans to start enjoying Twitter again. It's truly the best place for up-to-date professional development, by following educators and sharing ideas.
GAETC is the perfect time to run into your old colleagues and incredible teacher friends!
Follow this incredible teacher @MrsTeuchert
Follow this marvelous media specialist @AGeigerman
My husband (teacher as well, @SuperDScience ) was also able to attend. We helped with the Meals of Hope while at GaETC!
2017 Dates are already set!
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