Posts

Learning2 Europe – Riki Kochar

Learning2 is an innovative, engaging conference with a focus on leveraging technology to support learning. Since it’s inception in 2007, Learning2 is considered to be one of the leading annual educational technology conferences internationally. 

I attended several inspiring sessions. In the ‘Maker your own Learning’ session, we tinkered and built our designs, tackled frustrations and created an artifact. We  hacked our conference badge with paper circuitry and led stickers, hooking up Makey Makey, synthesiser, Arduino lighting and Raspberry Pi to make things blink and more In ‘Making Thinking Visible Using Technology’ we explored different technologies that help capture evidence of student learning. The emphasis was on students using the tools to create to demonstrate learning. L2 was was a rich learning experience!

/0 Comments/by

Job Alike Technology Integration – Taylor Unger, Brycen Davis & Cemal Ulu

Goals of the Meeting

The Tech Integration and Design Job Alike took place at AISB, in Budapest. The goal of the meet was to allow tech integrators and ed tech coaches to come together to share successes, failures, resources, and blueprints for transformative learning with technology. Some of the major topics were the ISTE Standards, Integration strategies, and Makerspace/Design. It was a very productive meeting that helped put a lot of things into perspective. It was equal parts inspirational and engaging.

One of the major take-aways was the use of Minecraft in the classroom. It has always been an resource that has interested me as it already has a high buy-in with many of the students across age, gender, and nationalities. Students also stay engaged with tasks within the Minecraft universe for longer than some traditional methods. In this school, they use Minecraft as a major tool for their EAL program, where students have a shared objective in-game which leads to a stronger desire to use a common language to complete the task. As a former ESL and EAL teacher, this was a very interesting use of the technology.

Drones

At AISB, they open up the Drones to the students to use at an early age. They have found a supplier that offers reasonably-priced, rather durable drones that fly using ipads as controls. To practice programming, they use Bee-Bots and Sphero. They have mentioned that if we experience trouble delivering to Turkey, they would be happy items sent to them.

For the older students, they allow the students, they can practice mapping coordinates and auto-flying higher level drones using Mission Planner.
Video of one flight

/0 Comments/by

ISTE Conference – Taylor Unger

I was lucky enough to attend the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in Colorado this year. The ISTE conference is a great experience place to learn about the newest educational technology, discover creative and engaging ways to add to student’s learning, and network with educators around the world to add to your Personal Learning Network.

It was a fast paced four days. The conference moves as fast as technology, that is to say things move at a very brisk pace. I learned too much, too quickly. Even after the conference ended, it took several days to decompress and filter through all the notes, business cards, and pamphlets I had compiled.

At the conference, I saw a lot of things which have me hopeful and optimistic about the future of education with regards to empowering our students to be successful. I was able to hear great keynote speakers such as Michio Kaku. I met childhood heroes like Levar Burton, and experience first hand some of the cutting edge methods currently being used in the classroom.

While at the ISTE conference, I also developed concerns. The sheer volume of companies, products, and tools that are out on the market is overwhelming.

/0 Comments/by