We spent last Thursday and Friday in Noblesville at the Indiana Connected Educators Conference. Nearly 500 teachers from around the state got together to talk about technology uses in education across curriculum and grade levels. Our team presented two workshops: one on using Book Creator to teach and assess literacy in all content areas and a second on designing your own Breakout kits to use in class.
Wes led an intense workshop with teachers designing Breakout kits using a design thinking process. Boxes were designed to teach students about the wildfire crisis in California and about recovery efforts in Puerto Rico.
RT @MiguelFromMars: Check out the brainstorming happening with the breakout boxes #ICEindiana pic.twitter.com/4MwJSQzj8K
— Elkhart EdTech (@ElkhartEdTech) October 13, 2017
We’ll be bringing this option to our PD offerings in the spring if you’re looking to create your own kits.
Other sessions ranged from using coding in the classroom to literacy strategies for K-2 students on any device. We tweeted several ideas from @ElkhartEdTech on Twitter, but here are a few samples:
Word Sneak was just mentioned in our #ICEIndiana session. Here's how @Catlin_Tucker uses it with her students. https://t.co/GQ4DjSx8cC
— Susie Highley (@shighley) October 13, 2017
RT @talkintechccs: Most Ss don’t know terms of apps they use; educate them. #ICEIndiana pic.twitter.com/PaFdsyslj3
— Elkhart EdTech (@ElkhartEdTech) October 13, 2017
The 7 F's of transformation – start your genius hour now! #ICEIndiana pic.twitter.com/GA8cG5jMIM
— INConnectedEducators (@iceindiana) October 13, 2017
Work the 7 principles of play into PD to change practice: https://t.co/Kr7bb1crMF#ICEIndiana #elkhartedchat
— Brian E. Bennett (@bennettscience) October 13, 2017
As with any conference, there are far too many ideas to distill in a single post. We’ll be working through our notes and incorporating ideas and writing up more posts on how to do the same in your classroom. When looking at Elkhart’s trajectory compared with others in the district, we’re improving and growing very, very quickly. The technology learning curve is high and we’re working on building capacity. We’re also excited about some of the innovative ideas we’re implementing and shared those with other coaches and PD coordinators from around the state.
Some other reminders:
- Remember to follow us on social media for regular updates. Our Facebook page is growing quickly, so join there if you’re on Facebook. Our Twiter account (@ElkhartEdTech) is also more active and you can look there for updates.
- If you don’t have a Twitter or Facebook account, no problem! We tweet to the public hashtag, #ElkhartEdChat to see what’s happening day to day.
Featured image is Jul12_parallel_sessions_028_APeviani flickr photo by photogenicgreen.nl shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license
