ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) took place June 23-27, 2018,and I had the wonderful pleasure of attending with a group of my colleagues, thanks to my wonderfully innovative principal. I flew into Chicago on Sunday, not knowing what to expect, but new that there were about 20,000 teachers around the world attending, so I knew this was a big deal.

ISTE took place in the massive McCormick Place West Convention Center. There were 3 levels that housed various activities. There were key notes speakers, learning sessions by various company (Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.), mini sessions, and a large expo center with more than 5,000 industry representatives. There were so many things to see and do, I think it would take over a month to see everything. We had the freedom to go and explore the venue and select items that seemed interesting and relevant to our grade level. 

I started by attending the keynote by David Eagleman, Ph.D. Eagleman is a neuroscientist, author, professor, and speaker, that discussed how the brain works and how the brain can change thinking to find more creativity in one's daily life. A panel of students also presented at the keynote from various parts of the country, that represented a range of grades. They basically talked about the creative things that they have done to reach out into their community and support other students in their learning. 

I was given many tips and ideas of what to do at the conference, but when I attended, all those tips went out the window. This place was so crowded with people, that I couldn't really plan my day, I had to go with the flow. I tried many times to wait in lines to see a presentation by Apple or Google, but the lines were massive without guarantee that I'd get in. They had a ticket system that you have to preregister for to guarantee a spot in the sessions, a tip that I did not get in advance. I spent most of my time in the expo center getting information and tutorials on various programs.

The first session I attended was at the Adobe Spark area. There was a tutorial / presentation of how to use Adobe Spark by Monica Burns. She is an educator that had many wonderful ways to use the program for presentations in stem, book reports, biographies, etc. There are 3 tools in Adobe Spark (Page, Video, Post). Monica gave different suggestions on how to use each in the classroom. For example, the Page tool is great for writing reports. She suggested starting a report on a google doc in order to go through the correct  writing process, then cut and paste to create a report. The Video tool is great for presentations, and the Post tool is good for short activities such as exit tickets or quick class responses / check-ins.  This is a link that was given as a resource for additional tips : classtechtips.com. 

​Google had a classroom setting were it demonstrated various techniques to use in the classroom.  One thing that they were excited to announce was that they just added a lock mode screen on a google form. A teacher can now lock a form on everyone's screen while looking at it and work in a pace that the teacher wants, and can stop the lock mode at any time. The presenter also showed how a teacher can cast onto a class screen what a specific student is working on like chrome cast. Google also showed how to create virtual field trips, add images and points of interest. The presenter sowed how to use the explore tab to ask a question on a google spread sheet, and demonstrated an add on named Jamboard as a great tool. This presentation was intense and interesting , I wish I would have seen it twice or recorded it because there was so much to remember.

I went to presentations for Scratch, G-suite, Pear Deck, Near pod, Scholastic, and Microsoft. I recommend that everyone gets a chance to go at least twice in their life. The first time you go, you have to just go with the flow, get a feel for the conference and just explore. I think that the second time you can be a bit more targeted with what you will be learning. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to meet amazing teachers from around the world, and be a part of the tech community. This was the best conference that I have ever participated in.

​I can use social media as a professional in various ways. I can connect with organizations of interest that can help me improve my teaching skills. I can follow various professional that I might think have special skills that I can learn from. I can also share my own classroom work and ideas and connect with other classes around the world. Things to consider is the authenticity of whomever I am following, Will I actually benefit from their skills? How much of my classroom do I share without sharing too much?

If I came across an inappropriate post from a student in my class, I would address it by directing it to the principal. In the past I have had students tell me, and show me inappropriate posts from other students. I have consulted with my principal and he has dealt with it. It's not that I am avoiding the issue, I thank the student for sharing and I let them know that we will help with the issue. But, my principal is trained to handle social media issues, bullying, etc., and I have full confidence that he will take care of it, and he has many times.  

Reflecting on my journey through the innovative learning program, I can see how this semester is slowly connecting with actual innovation in education through technology. I think the first semester was okay, but my research class showed me a lack of innovation and just straight traditional research. I did have a research question, but all the time spent on figuring out how to properly write a research paper did not help me as a teacher in my elementary classroom.

I am hopeful that the new semester can guide me to better improve my teaching practices. Just reading the book by Baggio confirms that we are in a new age of learning, and visual learning is the way to grasp a student's attention. As a teacher, I am a facilitator in the classroom to support learning, my expertise in subject matter in not longer as important.  I need to help students sustain their concentration visually, and then guide them through their learning.

The new digital tools that we are learning about and the book studies, will help support me in becoming an innovative teacher. I hope to spend my time exploring new ideas and be ready to implement them into my class in the fall. I'd rather not stress on how to make a project that I might not use ever. The joys of summer learning........

A digital tool, or program that I have tried out is Khan Academy. Khan Academy covers the core subjects in all grade levels. I have used Khan for math. It has all common core standards and teaches students certain skills with videos and other practice problems. When I first started using Khan, I had my students work on skills that they needed practice on in math,  whether it was on grade level, or not. Khan is a great tool for all levels of students.

One thing that I like about Khan,  is that I can monitor individual student's time on task, and how many points they earn. I also can assign specific skills for students to work on and monitor their performance. There are a lot more efficient ways that I can use Khan in my classroom that I have yet to discover. There are reports that I have not mastered, as well as navigating more efficiently throughout all the grade levels  and skills. 

I reviewed a couple of articles from the KQED site, and the first was titled: "Teach Kids To Be Their Own Internet Filters". This article begins with discussing that no matter how many filters there may be to monitor a students use of the computer online, not every thing can be filtered completely. We can't shield a student from the information saturated world, but we can give them tools to help them become more confident by selecting relevant information when researching online. The article lists some things students can use while researching.  

I was hoping that the article could give some good tips for elementary age students, but it went into middle and high school level students. I have had students research in my class before.  What I have done in order to avoid any problems that kids might encounter online, I create a google doc with a list of sights that I have found to be appropriate and with relevant information for what my class is researching. This works well in 5th - 6th grades.

Another KQED article that I read was "Strategies to Help Students 'Go Deep' When Reading Digitally". Now that students are reading more online, we need to prepare them with skills to help them read carefully for meaning. When reading online, the distraction happens by skipping throughout the text, or writing chats, amongst many other distractions. The article gives suggestions on how to minimize this by highlighting the text online.  The teacher goes through a couple of activities having students highlight words needed to clarify, have a discussion, then proceed with highlighting main ideas, and so on. Students can also use a google doc to put their highlighted information and have shared discussions. The highlighting strategy allows for a reader to slow down and to actually pay close attention to the meaning of the text.  

The article also suggests to use the document outline tool in google docs, create headings, and add the information read. This will help the teacher all see if the student actually understood the information based to the notes that are populated. This information is great and helpful. I can see myself using this strategy with my 4th or 5th graders to help them with their reading online. I might use something like a scholastic article, where it tends to be so busy online, and help them narrow down to the actual meaning of the text, and not just the colorful pictures all around it.

When I first started reading the Dervin article, I was immediately reminded that I did begin a second language learner, boy was it dense! I found myself rereading many parts of it just to make sense of it.  Maybe it's the fact that summer has just began and I'm mentally exhausted that I couldn't focus, or I've been in an elementary classroom too long to be able to digest intense reading such as this. 

Sense-making is described as a set of decisions involved with questioning that are made by people on a daily basis. One section also describes sense-making as the focus on behavior and questioning. There are step takings or communicating that involve internal and external behaviors. The behaviors that were described as internal were (comparing, categorizing, likings, disliking, polarizing, and stereotyping). The external behaviors were (shouting, ignoring, agreeing, disagreeing, attending, listening, etc.). 

The article basically focuses on research and how information is processed in different scenarios. If I had to use this same article to teach high schoolers, I would definitely break it up into smaller sections. I would possibly give small sections to partnerships or groups to read, and have them determine how to creatively deliver the message to the rest of the class. I think using some sort of visual presentation would make the information more understandable for students to understand. I would recommend that they are direct with their message because the article seemed to spiral with the same information.

Digital citizenship and internet safety needs to now be taught in the classroom as early as kindergarten. Children are spending time online as early as kinder, if not younger, and need to be educated about the safety that is needed to be protected. 

Usually, at an early age, students are taught about "stranger danger", how to respond and react to unsafe situations. These lessons are done by a parent and/or teacher. The idea  about teaching internet safety to my fourth graders had made be a bit nervous. I didn't know where to start, how in depth is an appropriate way to go?  After reading an article in Edutopia titled, "How to Teach Internet safety to Younger Elementary Students" by Mary Beth Hertz, my doubts had lessened slightly. Hertz describes the transfer of knowledge about how to handle strangers in real life compared to those in virtual environments. She suggests a classroom discussion comparing  the two types of "strangers". I can see myself using a compare/contrast chart with my students to identify the key similarities and differences of the two. Hertz also recommended a BrainPop video with a class discussion of key vocabulary and a quiz that is linked to the video. This short lesson plan is a great way to incorporate internet safety in the classroom.

I also liked the 9 key "P's" that were listed in "What Students Really Need to Know About Digital Citizenship" by Vicky  Davis. (1. Passwords, 2. Private Info., 3. Personal Info., 4. Photographs, 5. Property, 6. permission, 7. Protection, 8. Professionalism, 9. Personal Brand.) I can see myself having a poster or handout created in elementary language  describing these key ideas for digital citizenship in the classroom. Students will be able ti use the 9 "P's" while using the internet.

After reading "How to Keep Your College Admission Offer: Start With Digital Literacy", a quote really stood out to me, "if you wouldn’t want something you posted to end up on a jumbo-tron in Times Square, DO NOT POST IT." This idea of really thinking about what you post is extremely important because it can stay on the internet forever and haunt you in the future. I don't think young adults really think about the repercussions of what they post, it simply doesn't go away. A post should be thought of as being permanent like a tattoo, it might not be seen always, but it is still there.