ISTE 2015-- Adventures Of SPX in Philadelphia

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Successful sessions

Our first session was at 10:45 and we had a full house.The room seated 157 and the had to turn people away. It was fun sharing with our fellow teachers all the useful resources we have found. We had 123 slides and were able to get through all of them in an hour. Spelling City, News-O-Matic and Iearn all gave us memberships to give away at our morning session.
Deb was a big help at both sessions. She helped us gather business cards,hand out brochures, pack and unpack our treasures for our session.

Our session ended at 3:15, so we headed to the last session of the day. Jeanine and I attended one covering 40 free apps. Deb went to a session over google applications. Both of the sessions were very good. We will post some ideas that we learned in each.
We are having a few problems with the internet here in the hotel. The pictures of our sessions and yesterday pictures will have to come after we get home.

It is almost midnight so I think I will call it a day! Be watching for my exciting postings we get home.

Setting up for the lecture

Full House Yahoo!

Here we go!

Global Fun!

The morning session flew by quickly then we were off to the poster session

WE will post some links to some great sites for you to explore, in your free time! We learned so much it is hard to put it all down in one little blog!

Monday, June 29, 2015

Monday ---

Monday-- First full day of conference fun!

We were at the convention hall by 8:15 to begin our day. We were off to our first session. Deb went to her first session that covered helping students experience the world with google tools. It told of how to use virtual maps using google. Jeanine and I were headed to our session, but it was moved! We then had to zoom to the other end of the convention center. We chose our second session that covered youtube as a means of creating digital storytelling.
Our next adventure was to the expo hall for a while. It was like a freezer in there! Lordy, they should have been giving away blankets. WE visited the OSMO booth Vickie! It looks great! The kids would love the interactive using the ipads. Yes, it is a go!

One exhibit that was free PHET which is free interactive simulations which cover chemistry, earth science, math and science. Tackk.com/edu is also free site which teachers can create and share content

We saw Gradecam.com which turns your smartphone or document camera into a lean mean grading machine.You use regular paper create a scan sheet with your questions, then the students bubble in their answers. You can even enlarge the sheets for the younger students and limit the number of choice bubbles. You place the paper under your device it will score it quickly and then when you are finished it will pop it right into your gradebook. Yes, folks it will input into our new grading system of JUPITER. POOF, it is there! Yes you have pay for it, but it is not expensive. HINT HINT

Before we ventured back to sessions-- I presented a short presentation on how we use Wixie in the primary grades. I did attract a huge crowd of 5 of which Jeanine was one of them before it was over. It was fun sharing even though it was a small crowd.

Our next session was presented by SimpleK12 the blue bunny people. 101 Cool tools for teachers. They gave us 41 in an hour but you can see the link in our blog. Check it out. go to SimpleK12.com/summer
for the list of all resources.

We went to Tammy W on a creating a flipped classroom. As usual she was amazing will all the helpful resources. If you go to Tammytang. com, it will take you to the resources she suggested to check out.

Now did we get to eat lunch today? You may be asking yourself. Well -- no -- a KIND Bar and a diet coke was our huge filling lunch.

Well that is all for now, we need to go over our notes for our presentation in the morning.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Our first full day in Philly

I am back with the pictures promised from yesterday!! Enjoy.
Due to tech difficulties we are unable to load any of our pictures on either of our computers this evening. We will have to send some pictures from our day tomorrow.

We hit the ground running this Sunday morning. It was sunny and dry and we knew today was the only day we would be able to sight see, so we were off!! We walked to the historical district where we visited Betsy Ross's House first. We tried to eat lunch at City Tavern but it didn't open early enough for us as we had tickets for the tour at Independence Hall. It is a nice, informative tour and really brings to light the men who began our country!!

At 3:30, we had a get together by Tech4Learning. They had delicious Philly style big pretzels and soft drinks. These are the people that being us Wixie, Frames and Share. It was fun and informative to chat with many of the people there about uses for the product.

Our next adventure was heading to the keynote address. We got there early (to get a seat) and spent 45 minutes listening to the Big City All Star Band. They were great and we all had fun singing along to songs from our younger days. :)

The keynote speaker was Soledad O'Brien, the journalist. She was very good. She is an advocate in making a difference in kids lives by giving them an opportunity to learn. She believes technology is important but a good teacher is equally so. She and her husband began a foundation after Hurricane Katrina which now provides college educations for 25 deserving young girls every year. She is trying to make a difference for sure.

After the keynote, we headed for the poster sessions to start soaking up knowledge. Deb was busy in search of interesting things to bring back to the middle school and jr. high.

By the time we made it back to our hotel, we had all logged over 20,000 steps on our Fitbits!! Whew - what a busy (but fun) day! :)

Well there you have them. Enjoy!! Jeanine

Saturday, June 27, 2015

The Drowned Rats are back in the hotel!

Indianapolis Airport---- Jeanine the angel!

Do you notice her halo? Have you ever been asked to move because they needed to balance the weight of the plane? Well we have! WE were moved to FiRST CLASS from the second to last row of the plane. HMMMMM! What do you think. So here sits Jeanine with her halo.

So we finally arrived to Philly. It was not raining much until we arrived at the hotel. We were able to check in early. YAHOO! WE hung out for a bit and then Jeanine and I headed in the rain to the convention center to pick up our packets. Deb stayed in the room to relax as we had a Brain Pop Certified Teacher session at the Marriott near the convention center.

Here we are with Moby. Thank goodness we brought our raincoats!

While we were at our session Deb, went exploring at the hotel. She found the parking garage, the gift shop, scary steps, and the room key that did not work!

When we walked back to the hotel it was pouring down rain. We had not eaten all day and you know how that goes at the conferences. We ventured out of the hotel walked a short distance to Little Nonna's. We ate outside under an covered roof top. It was very loud not because of people but the rain pouring down.

Well that is all for today. So tomorrow we have some time to ourselves in the morning before getting busy in the afternoon. We are meeting Lillian the founder of News-O-Matic and the Tech4Learning team before the opening keynote address.

Thanks for stopping by!