The West Virginia Statewide Technology Conference gave me a chance to learn and also give back. I held a session introducing Breakout EDU and reviewing both physical and digital breakouts. When I walked into the room to set up I thought is was way too big for the number of people I expected...but I was wrong. I was amazed at how many people came to find more information about how to get started and the tools they would need.
This conference was exciting for me because I was able to attend sessions from 2 award winning Future Ready Librarians. The first was a day long pre-conference with guest speaker/moderator Leslie Preddy, who is the most recent President of the American Association of School Librarians a division of the American Library Association. She talked about the new "AASL National School Library Standards" which will be released this November 2017. Our district library curriculum was developed incorporating AASL Standards, in conjunction with our own district curriculum in ELA Science and Social Studies, as well as the ISTE Standards for Students. This information will be especially helpful as we continue our interim library curriculum review this year.
The keynote speaker for this conference was Shannon McClintock Miller. Shannon is the new spokesperson for Future Ready Librarians and Project Connect. She also won the "Making It Happen" award from ISTE, along with a "Shorty Special Award for Connecting People". Her message and story how she connected a whole community is important for all of us.
As I was planning my sabbatical and evaluating the best conferences to attend, I came across STEM Camp Edu. When I read the goals of this week and looked at the sessions, I knew this was the camp for me. Many people attend technology only conferences that incorporate STEAM, like ISTE and PETE & C. STEM Camp was all about those technologies, but also included sessions on the design process and methodologies surrounding STEAM lessons. This is, in my opinion, an important part of STEAM education. The technology tools we use like Spheros, Ozobots, Robotics bring technology to our students, but without teaching part of a design or engineering process, I worry that these tools can easily become toys.
I met Tom Guellich (my friend in the top picture) at ISTE. If you've ever been to ISTE you know that there are literally thousands of people in attendance. This year they topped some 15,000 attendees. So imagine how surprised I was checking-in at STEM Camp to run into a long lost friend! Tom is the "FLITE" Instructor at at Hereford Elementary in the Upper Perkiomen School District. FLITE stands for "Fundamentals Learned through Innovation, Technology, and Exploration". What a neat title as opposed to STEAM teacher! He was one of the great lead learners at camp and taught us how to code drones....I was totally hooked!
The 2nd picture were my wonderful dorm mates. They are all Future Ready Librarians who will be incorporating STEAM into their library curriculum. The last picture is our final project for the week long camp. We were to use the provided makerspace to create an arcade game that incorporated the elements of STEAM. I am proud to say our design won first place...thanks to our friend the Pigeon! For those of you who don't know, author Mo Willems has an incredibly popular book series around a rather demanding pigeon. Talk about combining literacy in every aspect of STEAM! The goal of our game was for two players to race each other using a Sphero to get the pigeon ultimately to a hot dog! We incorporated lights and sound to make a really fun game.
After a full week of day and evening activities, I was exhausted driving home from Kutztown University. However, I can tell you the camp was so well run and I learned many things that I can take home for my students next year. The best part of camp though were the participants and friends I made along the way, who are passionate about incorporating STEAM into their lessons. It was a great mix of elementary, middle and high school teachers across varying areas, from schools across the country. I have to say I was most intimated being grouped with the physics teachers, but what a great way to learn from each other! Because of STEM Camp, I am now part of a larger PLN with such teachers from across the country.
Studio A is a conference through the combined efforts of Avonworth School District, the LUMA Institute and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. The focus of these 3 days was to incorporate Project Based Learning, Design Thinking and Arts Integration. The whole idea was to remind us that we can teach PBL and also incorporate the arts for a more rich experience for our students. The best part of the 3 days was a sharing session with other teachers/artists, to share lessons and ideas on how to make this work easily in our classes.
