What a great end of Spring Break. This end of week and weekend I was able to attend the California Language Teachers' Association annual conference for the 2014. "Technology: Bridge to Common Core".
This wasn't my first conference, fourth including the annual ABLE, Assoc. for Biology Laboratory Education conference, one on Action Research, and another on general ed. subjects (AR and gen ed. at USD) in fact, but it was the first that was mostly dedicated to implementing technology into the classroom. It was also the first four day full immersion, day in and day out full bore learning sessions I had seen outside of our my university classes.
The conference went from Thursday to Sunday and was held mostly at the Town and Country Resort conference hotel as well as at San Diego State. Each day there were various options for sessions and workshops that were geared towards helping teachers learn about new tech tools (or new ways of learning how to use familiar ones) and helping us engage our own educational communities in the change towards the use of tech in the classroom.
A brief- I am credentialed for a single subject in history but the plan is take CSETS in English, Science, and Spanish/French this year so I take every opportunity around. My undergrad background is in science and I grew up in multicultural family. Raised mainly in Colorado with a French Dad, American Stepdad and Puerto Rican mother.
Since we had spring break and I wasn't going to class or able to work I was actually able to fully focus on the conference. I was even able to stay at the hotel which was strange, because I only live about ten minutes away, but great because each evening after the day's work teachers would sit around and talk about what they had learned. Well, some teachers. It was interesting actually. There seemed to be three types of people here. Those that were REALLY interested in what was being done, those that attended the conference, and those that showed up late left early and talked about being excited about the San Diego Party scene (which I guess is understandable since it was St. Patty's weekend). In any case, each evening we would talk and I was able to get some really amazing perspectives on both common core and tech in the classroom. As one would expect, there are some enthusiastic advocates and detractors for both.
So, just some of the great workshops I went to:
1. Google Docs good refresher
2. Let me tell you a photo story: Online tools to transform still images into interactive, Animated, Media-Rich stories
3. Have you flipped? discussion and demonstration of what flipped teaching can look like in the secondary classroom.
4. What's so scary about common core? Nothing!
5. How do you know if they know it? Digital Formative assessments!
6. and..the Key note by Catherin Ousselin Thinking of Syncing?
One of the things that I realized was that what we have been studying while at USD is just slightly ahead of the curve. Digital Native is less of a concrete position of a lack of understanding or familiarity with incoming tech as it is a continuum of levels of ability and knowledge that teachers (and students) find themselves in. I have to admit that even as I go through the programs here at USD while I am not the most clueless I am by far not the most advanced. The interesting thing however is that the general sentiment for most of the teachers I spoke with was that most of this was new to them and their schools, very new for some. At USD I have been in a number of tech classes as well as have gone to Africa with a group with 21st century tech in mind. I am not only aware of how these skills will translate into better work opportunities but how new pedagogy is starting to shift the way we will teach to more closely connect to how students learn as we include, as we must, these innovations.
One thing is certain. Education has and is going through a profound and dramatic change. It is extremely exciting to see how much texture, information, and opportunity there is for both teachers and students at the moment. On Friday evening, after classes had let out, I was describing some of the things I had done in my own classroom during student teaching, when one of the teachers, who had been teaching for 30 years, said something that has been bouncing around my head all day. "This may be one of the most exciting times to be a new teacher. The world is at their fingertips - there are just so many resources on the internet and in the classroom". It is exciting. We can do things with the kids that can bring the world to our doorsteps with immense ease, easily modify or differentiate for different students, and allow them to bring their own interests in the daily learning. It's awesome.