What they Tweeted about Tech Talk 2015!

Anne Eddy (broadcasting teacher) gives tips on capturing/editing good video

Tweets from Tech Talk:

Wonderful to meet great educators at Mercy High School! #mhtalk Awesome day!

#mhtalk awesome takeaways today. Thank you MercyTechTalk.

Thanks to @falconphysics I'll be flipping my class really soon!! 

Great Explain Everything in the classroom with L Marquard 

Learning some great new Google Tools from @magsblack 

Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions today - I had a great time and hope you did too! 

@karlyb #mhtalk thx for your inspiring Keynote & suggestion to use Educreations for students to explain how they think thru a math problem!

Packaging, Personalizing, Passion and Fun. Inspired by Cindy Richter's Pinterest presentation #mhtalk

This conference should be mandatory every year! 

Full room for Google Sheets #mhtalk 

Talking about flipping faculty meetings with @labcbaker #mhtalk Also check out @mmiller7571 and her resources.

@curfhof having fun learning about google Apps and sheets!  #mhtalk

@MrBadiner You are a SnagIt Ninja! #mhtalk

@karlyb  Thanks so much! Your Keynote was inspiring! #mhtalk

#mhtalk Tweets

My Feb. 27 Tech Talk Presentation

On Friday, February 27 Mercy High School hosts the second annual Tech Talk Conference for Educators. The keynote speaker Karen Bosch will kick-off the conference by presenting, "The Power of TLC: Technology + Learning + Creativity.” 

Attendees may then make four selections from 36 break-out sessions listed here:

http://techtalkmercy.weebly.com/speakers-and-session-descriptions.html

I will be providing a session called Becoming a Digital School Administrator at 2:00 pm in N-18. The PDF version of my slides may be found at the following link:

https://app.box.com/s/k37lj6gd3d9dwjivuycwombi6mzajmfi

Six Interesting Reads at the Drive-thru

Academic Journals: The Most Profitable Obsolete Technology in History

"Even the Harvard University Library, which is the richest university library in the world, sent out a letter to the faculty saying that they can no longer afford to pay for all the journal subscriptions". . . . institutions cannot afford access to current academic information. This is clearly creating a problematic situation.

http://tw.gs/z7U6bV

sickmouthy via Compfight cc

10 lessons from blogging everyday for a year (365:365)

3. Constant reflection is a blessing. I value the time spent thinking about how to be better, and how to make education better.  

http://tw.gs/z7SaE4 

Occupy Your Brain

This is not a paeon to technology; this is about what human intelligence is capable of when people are free to interact in open, horizontal, non-hierarchical networks of communication and collaboration.  Again and again as the digital revolution has progressed, non-hierarchical models of collaboration have been demonstrated to outperform the old factory-style vertically-controlled models. 

http://tinyurl.com/krjho3o 

How Opening Up Classroom Doors Can Push Education Forward

Social media is another way for teachers to be transparent about what’s happening in the classroom. Teachers can even feed parents informed questions to ask their children at home, to continue and share learning that happens at school. With a little more knowledge about what happened that day, parents won’t be stuck asking the generic, “What did you do in school today?”

http://tinyurl.com/okyszvz

Minecraft Animal Habitat Reports using Explain Everything

The third graders recently finished their Minecraft Animal Habitats. They took screenshots of their habitats and then used the Explain Everything app to record a report where they told about their habitat. 

http://tinyurl.com/ljydlxr

10 ways Google’s philosophy can guide teachers

Google sums up its philosophy in its “Ten things we know to be true.” There are great lessons for education in most (but not all!) of them.

http://tinyurl.com/oeocgnl

Lead Learners, Selfie Sticks, Digital Portfolios and More!

What Twitter Shortcomings?

Twitter enables educators to easily and quickly exchange content in the form of links to other educators. The very things that need to be exchanged for collaboration include: articles, posts, movies, podcasts, websites, whitepapers, videos, interviews, and now even books. Twitter is not the format that one uses for exchanging ideas requiring deep thought and reflective exchanges. Twitter does however enable educators to drive traffic to places where those exchanges may take place.

http://tinyurl.com/q4nha6w

5 Free Tools For Making Digital Portfolios

Now that so much of what students create in school (and in life) is in the digital realm, teachers have an opportunity to help students value their work more and for longer. Digital portfolios allow students to collect the work they’re most proud of and see their progress over time in a tangible way.

http://tinyurl.com/l5w68om

The Top 10 iPad Features That Schools Forget

With iPads, it’s all about the apps, and rightly so sometimes, but not everyone takes full advantage of the native features that Apple builds in to the iPad software for everyone to use. So, for this post I am rounding up ten of the most forgotten iPad features that are awesome for education. No additional apps are required to use any of these features because they work right out of the box.

http://tinyurl.com/o6kwhul

Social Media Smarts for New and Preservice Teachers

6)  Avoid posts that could be misconstrued "Can't Wait for Spring Break"

Many teachers understandably post about their joy at having breaks from school and teaching . . . . Parents are not always thrilled by the fact that their child's teacher needs a break or that the teacher posted about their children are going bonkers in the classroom for a day.

http://tinyurl.com/lds39ln

Museum Rules: Talk Softly, and Carry No Selfie Stick

Eager tourists . . .equipped with the camera extender known as a selfie stick, occasionally referred to as “the wand of narcissism,” they can now reach for flattering CinemaScope selfies wherever they go.

Art museums have watched this development nervously, fearing damage to their collections or to visitors, as users swing their sticks with abandon.

http://tinyurl.com/p2au5ex

"Selfie Stick" by Floris Ooserveld

Tech Excitement Abounds!

Lots of Technology Excitement in my life these days.

Ann Lusch and I are working hard on Tech Talk (#mhtalk), which is less than two weeks away.  We expect 340 participants.  This week I arranged staffing assignments for 16 adults and ten iWizards.  Tom James has also helped us secure a couple of more last minute major sponsors.

I am making a presentation at Tech Talk called Becoming a Digital School Administrator. It is based on the presentation I gave at in Atlanta last year at ISTE 2014.  I have updated my iTunes U course (and slide deck) for Tech Talk.

I booked my flight for ISTE 2015 in Philadelphia.  The conference program is now available for browsing, and it was fun to see my presentation listed and recommended.

The iWizards are extremely busy.  We have begun collecting submissions for our own iTunes U collection called "iPad Tips & Tricks". We will also store the collection in a Schoology course.  On Thursday 21 Wizards gathered to discuss the logistics for this and our 2015 iPad Orientation.

Next week I will meet with charter-member iWizards Taylor, Katie and Izzy to discuss our presentation at MACUL in Detroit on March 20. We have been invited by Apple Education to discuss iWizards: Empowering Students as Leaders in a Successful 1:1 Initiative.

Quick Take-out from the Drive-thru

Update on Tech Talk -- SOLD OUT

There are less than three weeks until our second annual Mercy Tech Talk!  We had a huge influx of registrants at the early-discount deadline.  Our goal was 300 attendees and we surged past that number. In order to deliver a quality program we have closed registration.

My fellow conference coordinator, Ann Lusch, and I are looking forward to the following new wrinkles:

*Attendance will be 30% greater than last year's conference.

*We have the full faculties registered from five schools.

*We tripled our sponsorship this year.

*Professors from four universities will be leading break-out sessions

*This year we will offer a school administrator program strand.

*We offer 36 break-out sessions this year.

* 60% of the presenters are new to the conference and nearly all of the topics are new.

*The SCECH credit (continuing ed.) process will be streamlined in 2015.

*Several Mercy iWizards will be providing logistical and technical assistance.

We look forward to the challenge of giving all attendees a great experience. Follow the conversation on Twitter at #mhtalk

Snow Day Capers with Post-it Plus

tehchix0r via Compfight cc

Michigan was hit with a major blizzard this week.  I took advantage of some unexpected time at home to create a 55 second iPad "Tip" for an iTunes U collection that the iWizards are creating.

The idea for this tip was inspired by Apple DE, Gabriella Meyers who recently toured each of her Apple Distinguished Schools.  While waiting to visit a Mercy science class she showed me Post-it Plus, and I have been enamored by it since.

With Post-it Plus, you can photograph any arrangement of notes and add them digitally to a Board. Several boards can be stored at the app, and your note collections can be combined and reorganized. A new feature of the app allows notes to be created and added within the app as well.

This is handy for planning storyboards and presentations. It facilitates any kind of planning by sticky-note users, because you can take your notes with you on your iPad wherever you go.

Using screenshots, my iPhone voice memo, and iMovie; I cranked out this 55 second video. I have already added it to my Becoming a Digital School Administrator iTunes U collection. Fun (and useful?) stuff.

Updated "Becoming a Digital School Administrator" on iTunes U

Since publishing Becoming a Digital School Administrator to iTunes U in September, 2013, over six hundred persons have enrolled. This "course" (best experienced on an iPad) is actually a unique collection of best practices by building school administrators for building administrators. The course's motto is lead tech integration by "Walking the talk".

In order to keep the course up-to-date I have twice completed substantial updates. Over the past few weeks I have worked my network hard for fresh resources and culled out some "old" ones. I appreciate the help of exemplary digital educators like Curt Rees, Lori Wetzel, and Anthony DiLaura for giving me some good leads on digital admins.

Course additions include:

*Craig Greshaw's outstanding selection of Google Forms.

*Joe Mazza explaining of how Voxer allows administrators to stay connected with their peers.

*Brent Coley's monthly blog for his school community called, Coley Cast.

*Peter DeWitt's book chapter on "Flipping School Communication"

Thanks to Brent, Peter, Joe,and Craig for their contributions.  And as always I welcome unsolicited leads and contributions.  Please help me continually renew this collection!