March 12, 2014

Here's what you missed at the MidWest Technology Conference 2014 #METC14


I had the pleasure to attend and present at the Midwest Technology Conference in February. Now that things have settled a bit, I have finally had the time to debrief and organize all of the valuable information I received. I left feeling refreshed, revived and rejuvenated ready to tackle the last few months of school. This conference was packed with experts sharing their knowledge with cool and exciting ways to integrate technology in the classroom.

 I co-presented two workshops this year.

 iPads More Than Just Apps- Using the SAMR Model to Meet Common Core

and

 Classrooms Without Walls- Using Social Media to Connect Inside and Outside of the Classroom

Here are a few other takeaways from this dynamic conference!

Social Studies:
http://lodgemccammon.com/ - tons of resources on creating effective flipped videos.  Includes research for what works and doesn’t work for flipping your classroom
  • Here’s the link to the “Hey Missouri” song/Flash dance he shared:
  • There are also movements that go with the song that you can find here


Popcorn Web Maker - This is a site where you can essentially make a pop up video. You create an account, upload your video or find a youtube and then start popping up! Take a piece of video and add pop ups and images that will pop up. Take history channel clips and have students annotate the video. Or pre annotate it.

Tellagami App- Create animated avatar videos

A great educator, blogger, and presenter to follow- Josh Stumpenhorst @stumpteacher

While showing a movie have students comment or ask questions
During debate or class discussion have students make comments or ask questions


Generate Word Clouds: Wordle or tagxedo for younger students try abyca word cloud,
-Import speeches and see what words come up as dominant


Create Instagram accounts and create feeds for the explorers.
Fake twitter feeds. Have current events section to follow major news stories. Follow reputable news sources and journalists/reporters in the field.


Record your voice speaking or singing then pick a genre and it turns into a song.
Ideas: Include vocab words in a song. Record history, poetry, or notes for a test. Use for Chinese dynasties or African kingdoms

Create an animated avatar. You can create an educators account for free.
Crazy talk- program that takes a visual and makes it talk. (.99)
Put in a picture and then import audio.
Deliver a speech as a historical figure and what they have accomplished.


Screencastomatic - Free online screencast


https://blogush.edublogs.org/2013/06/22/15-assessments-that-dont-suck/
Don Goble -6 word video stories


METC eNews student bureau
Ladue Broadcast Technology students partner each year with the Midwest Education Technology Conference (METC) to provide onsite conference videos of their event.
social media - @METCenews
Solution for a teacher Web site, assignment submission, and a dozen other things that we do in a dozen different ways, but all in one place.
  1. Ask your audience a question with the Poll Everywhere app
  2. Audience answers in real time using mobile phones, Twitter, or web browsers
  3. See your response live on the web or in a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation



Lets collaborate: Websites and Ideas for Collaboration
  • We video: collaborative video making, $4 a month allows multiple log ins... Can make one video at the same time www.Wevideo.com (free as part of Google Apps)
  • EPals: email correspondence, without an email address.... Internet pen pals! http://www.epals.com/
  • Aww App: a web whiteboard, http://awwapp.com/- Global digital scrapbook: everyone tells about your school and community In a collaborative scrapbook, initial web pages and continue discussion through Edmodo
  • Rockourworld: project based learning, can create a collaborative book of an idea, can connect with groups around the world, there's a problem posed and you can join groups to start project based learning.
  • The global read aloud: read together and have a hangout and make connections.


Global classroom projects: icollaboratory, Kidlink: lower elementary, Flat connections:  
http://www.flatconnections.com, Hello little world skypers: Skype projects
Websites I’m in love with now...
www.Coffitivity.com- Awesome! Just white noise to help with concentration, check it out.
ePubBud: publishing online for free, https://www.epubbud.com/
Flips snack: printable, downloaded, embedded, purchase student created books. Need email address or assign them to a "class", http://edu.flipsnack.com/

More...

Puzzle Kidz is a nice iPad app for creating jigsaw puzzles for kids. The app allows you to take pictures with your iPad and turn them into puzzles. You can also use stock images from Puzzle Kidz. The app offers three levels of puzzle difficulty to that you can create a puzzle whose difficulty isn’t too hard or too easy for your child.

Kid Journal App-  Free App, photo of the day, prompt. saves it to the calendar to see what happened each day, can also print it

One Minute Reader- Struggling readers need more than just books. They need a structured reading program that applies research-based principles to keep them on track and maximize results. 
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