Who is Attending the ITEC Conference Next Week?

Are you attending the ITEC Conference next week in Des Moines?  You should!!!!

It will be an opportunity for over 1500 educators (1350 have registered now and all of the rest of the registration will be done on-site) to get together and share how they use technology to support learning in education.  Who is attending?  The majority of the attendees will be classroom teachers, but they also include tech coordinators, instructional tech integrationists, administrators, professors, vendors, IT administrators, IT support, parents, students and a plethora of other professional people.

WHO will be attending?  Here is a Wordle picture of the names of the ITEC attendees who have already registered.  Looks like you are pretty popular if your last name is Anderson . . . are you there?

Join Us at the Online PD Community at ITEC

Are you going to the ITEC Conference on Oct 12 - 14?  

Will you be heading to Des Moines, Iowa to engage with 1500 other educators on October 12 - 14?   It will be an incredible opportunity to learn about what other educators are doing with Educational Technology in their classrooms and schools.

Can't make it physically?  Join us virtually.
Join our Online PD Community  (OPDC) virtually through your computer or phone on Monday or Tuesday.  

This is your opportunity to connect with speakers who are joining us from Shanghai, Sydney, Chicago, Atlanta and even Torrance, California. These are leaders who will be speaking on a wide range of topics including Maker Rooms, Badging, Flipped Classrooms, Coding for Kids and Digital Apps.

Here is a 7-minute video which will tell you about OPDC and how you can connect to these exciting discussions through your digital device.  The schedule of presentations follows (along with links to get there.)

	Monday - October 13	Tuesday - October 14
8:00 – 8:50		Bring Digital Badges to your School or Classroom Michael Boll - Shanghai, China
11:10 – noon	21+ Digital Learning Tools Every 21st Century Teacher Should Know! Leigh Zeitz - Cedar Falls, IA
11:00 – 11:50		Flipped Class for Administrators Jon Bergmann - Chicago, IL
1:10 – 2:00	Making the Case for Making in Schools Sylvia Martinez - Torrance, CA
1:00 – 1:50		Coding for Kids Chris Betcher - Sydney, Australia
2:50 – 3:40	20 Creation Apps in 20 Minutes David Lockhart - Atlanta, GA

NOTE to Virtual Attendees:  We will be using the Zoom.us video conferencing platform for our broadcasting.  I would suggest that you click on the Zoom link before the conference to download a small applet beforehand. 

ITEC Student Technology Fair Makes it in the News!

 

The success of the ITEC Student Tech Fair was shared in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier in an article entitled Fair Brings Students Together to Share Their Technology Projects.    

Click on the link above to view 4 wonderful photos of students at the fair and read interviews with students, teachers and those who made the fair possible.

TWITTER at the Fair:  View the multiple tweets for all three of the fairs by following the #itecfair hashtag

ITEC Student Technology Fair Showed Exceptional Students Sharing Exceptional Projects!!!!

On Friday, we hosted the ITEC Student Technology Fair at the University of Northern Iowa. ITEC is the Iowa Technology and Education Connection organization for teachers who are interested in educational technology. Every year we sponsor 3 student technology fairs across the state: Ames, Sioux City and Cedar Falls.  These student technology fairs provide a venue for students from 3rd - 12th grade to share what they have been doing with technology.  It's not about the technology but it's about what students can achieve and explore with these tools.

This year's Cedar Falls fair was incredible. The quality of work was beyond anything that I have ever seen at our fairs. The students ranged from 8 to 18 years old. They displayed imagination and innovation that exceeded past years' fairs. Blue and Red ribbons are awarded, but Purple Ribbons are presented to exceptional projects that "stand out" from the rest. The Purple Ribbon award winners are invited to present their projects at our October ITEC conference in Des Moines. Purple Ribbons were awarded to 5 of the 46 projects displayed. This is a higher ratio than ever before.

The projects included:

• A team of 13 year olds from the Blessed Maria Assunta Pallotta Middle School (in Waterloo) who had learned the Python programming language on their own and created an anti-abduction program. The intent was to create a program for a safety button that would send GPS coordinates to a parent if a child gets in trouble and presses the button. They were already working with law enforcement to develop this project.
• Students from Metro Alternative High School in Cedar Rapids who were using CNC programming to run a mill to create molds for making candy bars advertising the school. They had just begun another project where they were created molded soap that said "Wash Away Stereotypes." 
• Students from Grinnell High School who had "hard coded" a website entitled Permissions Impossible which worked as an online dictionary describing app permissions. 
• A 16-year "George Lucas" from Maquoketa High School who uses the Adobe Creative Suite to create an amazing video, Technology in School. 
• A 17-year old from Oelwein High School who had created 3D images to redesign a oil refinery for a company in Arizona. 

Beyond that, we had students who were creating solar systems, writing music, developing mathematical games, exploring MineCraft, connecting with President Obama, running robots, designing homes, animating book reports, and informing others about cancer.

 

It was an extraordinary fair with extraordinary projects by extraordinary people. 

I hope that you can attend our fair next year. It will be in early April. 

Do your students get an opportunity to participate in a Student Technology Fair such as this?

Z

ITEC 2012 - Making Learning Meaningful for Millennials

What does it take to make learning meaningful to your millennial students?  That is a question that should be on the lips of every teacher.  The first thing that we need to do is realize that our students today are different than 20 years ago.  They are the first generation to live in a digital world.  They may not be born knowing how to use technology, but they have grown up in a world where digital answers have always been available and they are Digitally Comfy (as Angela Maiers says).

I am sharing my ideas about how we can best address our Millennial students' needs.

Here are the resources that I used. If you have additional ideas, please add them to the comments below.

We will be using technology throughout the session so let's begin with some of the opening resources:

Twitter: For all of your twitterers, we will use the hashtag #ITEC12 When you tweet, include this hashtag in your message so that others can follow along with your ideas. If you want to see what was posted, click on the hashtag above and it will show you what has been said.

Collaborative Notes: We will also use collaborative note taking. This is a Google Doc that I created and then laid open to the world for anyone to edit.  This means that you just need to click on the link and it will take you to the Google Doc. You don't have to sign-in but you will be known as Anonymous???? when you are entering your ideas.  Go ahead and add the info that you find interesting.  Go out on the web during the session to find relevant information and add the link to the document.

The Slideshow

ITEC Making Learning Meaningful for Your Millennial Students from Leigh Zeitz

Who Are the Millenials?

• Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change. (article) 
• Echo Boomers by L. Franklin Devine (video)

Readings, Watchings, Listenings and Doings

• Emerging Instructional Technologies
• Educational Technology and Design
• Seminar: How to Write a Grad Paper
• Selection and Integration of Instructional Technologies 

Millennial Mindset

• Boomers, Gen-Xers and Millennials: Understanding the New Students. (article)
• Is Google Making Us Stupid? (article)
• How Millennial Are You? (quiz)
• Networked Student (video)

I hope that this session has been useful for you. I am interested in knowing if and how this material has been useful to you. I hope that this is just the beginning of our connection.

• Subscribe to this blog using the link in the right column.
• Send me an email at zeitz@uni.edu
• Follow me on Twitter:  @zeitz
• Let's visit on Skype:  leighzeitz

 How else can I help you?

Z

ITEC iPad and Google App Training Coming Soon!!!

Want to learn tricks about using your iPad?

Looking for tips on engaging your students using Google Apps?

ITEC has found the need and we are filling that need - - - - - - AGAIN!!!

We are presenting workshops throughout Iowa to support educators in integrating these new technologies into their teaching.

Here is the calendar of events:


iPads in the Classroom Training (8:30 - 3:30)
This is a HANDS-ON workshop where you will be introduced to the basics of using iPads in the classroom. Programs will be suggested for you to download before the workshop and we will review using them during our session.

March 24     Cedar Falls @ UNI
March 31     Sioux City
April 14        Cedar Rapids
April 14        Algona
April 21        Decorah
April 28        Nevada

Google Apps in the Classroom Training (8:30 - 3:30)
Another HANDS-ON workshop where you will use and innovate using the Google Apps suite. 



March 31      Nevada


Cost:   ITEC Members   $125         Non Members  $150 (includes Membership)
             Lunch will be provides.

Questions about the workshops?
Contact Andy Crozier (acrozier@gmail.com) or Stacy Behmer (sbehmer@gwaea.org)

Questions regarding payment?
Contact Jeff Sypersma (jsypersma@nwaea.org)

If you have any other questions or comments, leave a comment below.  Have you attended one of the ITEC workshops in the past? What did you think?

Z

ITEC's IT Conference on March 15 & 16 Tailored for Techees

Here it is.  An IT conference specifically designed for Technology and IT Directors.

This is where you can come to learn about Networking, Filtering, Firewalls, Moodle Setup, Google Apps Scripting . . .

This conference is NOT for everyone.  It is for people who have a technical interest in making technology happen in our schools.

When?   March 15 & 16   (Registration Deadline is March 8)
Where?  Ames Middle School in Ames, IA (3915 Mortensen Road)

Here is a list of some of the topics included:

• Google Technical Deployment and Google Dashboard
• Google Apps Scripting
• Filtering and Firewalls
• Networking (both Basic and Advanced)
• Moodle Setup, Management, and Modification
• Virtualization
• Bring Your Own Desktop panel discussion
• Deploying Netbooks
• Deploying Chromebooks
• iOS Management
• Apple Lion Server Management and Imaging
• Wireless solutions
• School Web site products
• Open Source Tools
• How Students Can Provide Technical Support
• Department of Ed session on SIF integration
• How to Select Projectors and other A/V Equipment

Here is the grid for the many sessions. Click on the graphic to make it larger to read.  If you want a .pdf version, you can click here for a link to the actual grid of sessions.

Cost

• ITEC member (1 day)                $65
• ITEC member (2 days)            $125
• Non-ITEC member (1 day)        $90
• Non-ITEC member (2 days)    $150
• Students                                    $10

Sound interesting?  This is the first of its kind in the state of Iowa.  Come be part of history and build technology skills that you can use immediately.

Register today!!!!!!!!

ITEC Student Tech Fair

Students are the Center of Attention this week for the Iowa Technology and Education Connection (ITEC) organization.

Movies, graphics and robots have invaded sites statewide as Iowa K-12 students share their technology projects this week. Sponsored by the Iowa Technology and Education 

This Student Technology Fair occurs as three fairs held this week across the state at Iowa State University (3/12) and Denison High School (3/14). Almost 300 projects will be presented statewide. The projects span seven different categories including multimedia, web presence, programming, video/linear presentation, graphics/publishing, 3-D rendering/non-linear animation, and music/sound design. 

Each of the projects will be reviewed by local judges and those receiving the Judges’ Purple Ribbon awards will be invited to showcase their projects at the ITEC conference in October.

Here is some of the coverage for the events:

Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier

 Students Show Off Tech Skills at University of Northern Iowa

KWWL Broadcast

KWWL TV covers the ITEC Student Tech Fair at UNI

#ITECtechfair Tweet Feed

#ITECtechfair Tweet Feed - See what Twitterers are saying throughout the week.

David Warlick: PLN; A Gardener's Approach to Prof Learning

Warlick is beginning by talking about the different bloggers that he follows. He talks about those who have good original ideas and those who filter other blogs.

3 aspects of PLNs:

• Web 2.0
• Mining the Conversation
• Mapping the Conversation.

Notes that he uses MindMeister to plan his presentations.

Wikis: He claims that he doesn't understand why he has a Facebook account. He uses his wiki to make his connection with his readers.

Twitter: Says that if he tried to explain it, we would say "why would we use it?" He notes that twitterers love it because they have a direct line to new things. Some people won't go on vacation because they don't want to leave twitter. Used the Twitter Search. Spoke about using TwitterPic to find out about a pyramid that he saw while on a trainride.

Second Life: Talks about the unusual experiences he had when he gave a speech in Second Life.

Nings: turns out that about half of the 200 people in the room don't know about nings. Nings developed by the same guy who developed the first web browser, Mosaic. Just shared the Classroom 2.0 ning. Now shared the learning 2.008 ning for the conference in Shanghai.

Blogs: "The Blogosphere is the exhaust of the human mind." Shows Technorati (Blog search engine). Just did a search of Technorati about "cartography". Technorati allows you to search specifically in Posts, Blogs, Videos or Photos. (this makes it much more functional than search.google.com) Just showed a blog called Strange Maps - hmmmm, interesting.

Delicious: Showed how he is using Delicious to sort and store and search resources.

It has been a good presentation and I like how he is sharing his PLN. Good job, David.

Z

Using Google Form for Surveys

As you may or may not know, Dr. Z and Garey G are giving a presentation at ITEC 2008. It is entitled Dr. Z and Garey G's Creative Cookbook for Collaborative Communication. During that presentation, they will be sharing the incredible opportunities available through using Google Forms with Google Docs.

Hopefully, they will have an auditorium full of laptop-toting folks so that they can enter their information into this form. If you would like to make your own contribution, no matter where on earth you are, please complete the form below. You might even tell us of your actual location in the last field.

It would be useful to have your input but it would EXTREMELY IMPRESSIVE if you could add it between 3:00 - 33:0 Central Standard Time. That way the could see you doing it live.

ITEC was AWESOME!!!!

OK, you know that I spent Sunday through Tuesday in Des Moines at the state technology fair for the Iowa Technology and Education Connection organization. It was an opportunity for over 500 educators to compare notes and learn new things.

We, the Instructional Technology division in Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Northern Iowa, tried something new this year. We had a booth where we promoted our Instructional Technology Masters Program. This is a 2-year distance education cohort that is delivered through the ICN (a state-owned video conferencing system.)

We handed out stickers (see above). Steve Wozniak (Apple Computer inventor) and David Pogue sported our stickers as you can see on the Rob Blog.
It was exciting to see scores of attendees wearing our stickers. This allowed us the opportunity to talk with lots of people hopefully they will join us in our program that begins in Summer 2008.

The greatest part was seeing all of our graduates who were running the conference and who had leadership technology roles in the state.

Technology Coordinating for NewBees

This is a session designed for betining tech coordinators - hence the name. =-)

Each plan is part of the CSIP.

Technology Planning:
CIPA - Children's Internet Protection Act (Governs Images).

Tech Plans: Every school applying for State telecommunications discounts, must have a tech plan approved and on file with STate of Iowa.
Must cover at least 3 years and include goals, strategies and budgt informaiton for 3 years.

Usually includes AUP

Most efficient way to do an AUP is to use an "Opt out" policy instead of an "Opt in." This means that the students only have to sign a sheet if they DON'T want their kids to use the Internet.

Usually files as part of the District's CSIP in a 4 question format.

Question asked what to do if the Register photographs kids and then posts the kid's names on the web. If it includes the child's name, it circumvents all of the work that the school is doing to guard the kids' privacy.

What if an employee posts a photo from school on a private web site.

Legal Issues
-- Implement an acceptable use policy for all students
-- Implement an AUP for all employees. Employees can be the greatest offenders.
-- Maintain accurate reords: Software licenses, invoices, purchase orders, & inventory.

Key Relationships
Success as a tech coordinator depends on relationships with:
--District Staff - Admin, School Board, Secretaris, and Custodians.
--Community - Phone company and Co-Ops
--Vendors
--Area Education Agency (AEA)

Managing Chaos
Create a district policy on how to request tech requests:
email
---Phone calls
---Helpdesk
---Software/databases
---Use "Techies" to handle the easy stuff
---Manage emails
---Communicate with staff

Data Management
--Increased role in Data managemnet and SIS
Student Testing Data
--ITBS/ITED
--MAP Testing
State Reports
--Project EASIER
--Certified Enrollment
--BEDS

http://tim.geyer.googlepages.com

David Pogue @ ITEC

I am sitting in the Keynote of David Pogue at ITEC. Should be great. (Notice that he is wearing the UNI I.T. sticker?)

I will try to blog this by publishing the posting periodically throughout the presentation.

He started the presentation by saying "Ich Bin Iowaner". Funny.

Just started talking about Skype. 250 million have downloaded Skype. Just noted that Skype would be a good addition to celhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giflphones.

Palm Centro is the new treo. Has the capabilities of a Treo and only costs $99.

Just did some magic. Made the Centro disappear. Showed some magic and mentioned that he wrote Magic for Dummies (check pg 121).

Talking about the T-mobile Hot Spot @ Home. Says that can use it at home and walk away from home to a point where the coverage is handed off to a T-mobile carrier when you leave your home wireless range.

Cool.

Just introduced a phone system that will ring multiple phones at the same time. It is called Grandcentral.com Grand Central gives you a special phone number. You can record multiple messages for specific people - different one for boss or wife or ??

Low price of Free. It is at They have been purchased by Google so who knows . . .

Google Cellular
Text message Google 46645 and enter the business - pharmacy and zip code. Will send you back the number.
Driving Directions "miami Fl to 60609"
Currency conversions "25 usd in euros"
Quotes "amzn"

800-goog411 Can call it too the same way

Voice to Text
You can bypass the long phone messages by using special * Verizon

Simulscribe - Transcribes phone messages and sends them to you on your phone or through email. They also attach the recording to your email. Great idea.

Callwave - won't do the whole message, just the important part. Showed a video of saving a message on a phone. Then shared it

Popularity Dialer - Identify the exact time of day you want your phone to ring. Ples you get a choice of the voice you want to hear.

WIFI WONDERS
Skype phone - can use Skype VOIP for 100% free.
Wifi Camera - Nicon Coolpix S50C Direct to email or Flickr

Just took a photo using the camera and sent it to Flickr and email wirelessly. Went to Flickr and the photo was there.

Slingbox - $250 box to put it on your tv at home. Allows you to tune into your TV from your computer. Can watch your DVD, TV and DVD from the road. This sounds cool for the perpetual couch potato. Only problem is that it controls the TV at home so it will get in the way of your wife viewing CSI at home.
Also has a client for the Treo.

Says that Steve Jobs says that DVDs are dead.

BTW, Steve Wozniak is walking around ITEC with a UNI sticker on his black shirt.

He just finished tell us about how NetFlicks is going to start charging us by the hour. Will be able to Movie surf.

Completed with improvising some songs using a piano keyboard connected to his computer.

Pogue was having problems getting the keyboard to play. Said there wasn't an on switch. Finally, someone went up and showed him how to turn it on.

Just sang a song about Bill Gates called "I write the Code that Runs the World Today."

Sang one for Steve Jobs called "Don't Cry for Me Cupertino" from Evita. It is GREAT!!!!

Web 2.0 Gadgets and Gizmos

I am in the middle of a presentation and I am showing how to post.

Steve Wozniak at ITEC

I have just listened to Steve Wozniak talk about his life of fiddling and creating with technology all of his life. It was really quite interesting to hear that he was a geek from an early age.

Someone just asked him for an outrageous dream. He responded that he would like to create a globe that would display Google Earth. We could just point to places that on the earth and then interact with it that way.

Another guy just asked how it felt to make such a huge difference in the world. I don't think that he really understood the point of the question because he just recounted the things that he did. Said that he invented a computer because he wanted to play games and do his HP work at home.

This is over and we need to get ready to present our panel discussion on Confronting the Challenges of Web 2.0. It will be in this room of 400 people. Wonder how many will show up.

Gliffy Diagram on the UNI IT Program

This is a basic map of the UNI Instructional Technology Masters Program. I created it using Gliffy which is online collaborative mapping software.

Web 2.0 Applications

I am fascinated by the available Web 2.0 Applications. My proposal for doing a presentation on Web 2.0 Applications at the Iowa Technology and Education Connection (ITEC) conference in October was accepted so I am now looking for cool Web 2.o Applications, Gadgets and Gizmos.

What do you know about these? What are your favorites? If you have one, add it to the form on my other posting.

Here is a list from Kathy Schrock:
http://kathyschrock.net/web20/

Go2Web20 is an innovative and comprehensive index of Web 2.0 applications:
http://www.go2web20.net/