Gail Moore just shared two links with me today that I promised not to explore until after Christmas.  It will be hard but I will try to behave myself.

Near Pod

Today is Friday, December 6th.  It's been a VERY long week.  My week started on Sunday when myself and two other colleagues left Amherst to travel to the VSTE conference in Virginia Beach.  It was an amazing conference!  We arrived in VA Beach around 12:30 and headed straight into our first session.  Each session was an hour in length.  We had four sessions on Sunday.  On Monday we attended 6 and finished on Tuesday with 4 more.  The conference was sandwiched in between two amazing instructional technologists!  Steve Dembo from Discovery Learning opened VSTE this year and Tammy Worcester, an ITRT from Kansas closed the conference.  All of the notes and handouts are on Edmodo so it was nice not having to take notes during the sessions.  That left the time open to play with the tools each presentor highlighted.  Some years the conference isn't so good as all the sessions are vendor sessions.  I don't like sitting through an hour long ad on a product I know my division isn't going to purchase.  However, this year's conference was EXCELLENT!  Lots of free sites and tools were recommended.  This may be my last VSTE conference, which is sad.  This year I turned in my intent form and requested to return to the classroom.  There is a multitude of reasons for this request but I am excited.

At one of my schools I am less of an ITRT and more of a reading specialist.  This is okay for the most part although I am not qualified as a reading specialist.  I hate the thought that I may not be all that my students need.  Anyway, at this school I have three groups of students for 80 minutes each.  The groups are working on a targeted skill.  One of these is a group of third graders.  They are ABSOLUTELY the sweetest bunch of kids you would ever want to meet.  Today we were working on asking and answering questions.  We read a biography about President Barack Obama from Reading A to Z.  Studentes were to come up with some questions before reading and I asked them to phrase their questions as if the President were in the room with us. Some of these questions were so sweet that I had to share!


1.  How does it fee to live in a big house with a small family?
2.  Do you have a lot of work to do and is it scary?
3.  What do you do when you get to be by yourself?
3.  When your wife goes to work and your children go to school, do you get bored?
4.  Do you have a game room?
5.  Did you pardon a turkey this year?  Did your turkey have a name?  Did you keep it for a pet?
6.  Do you think you are a good president?
7.  How does it feel to think you are doing good things when some people say you are doing bad things?
8.  What did you have to do to get to be president?
9.  Do you get scared talking in front of all those people?
10.  Did you have trouble learning anything at school, like reading?

This last question came from a child after the reading of the story.
1.  The book says that when you lived in Indonesia you were poor.  How does it feel to be rich?  Do you help people by giving them some of your money?

Kurt Kohls and Russ Brown
Chesterfield Elementary School
VSTE 2012

http://www.edmodo.com/file?id=a063bd2e35830cbe19016f3f38336267

QR codes are like an electric thumb print. Started in Japan.

QR stands for quick response.

QR can replace student response system.

QR voice.net

Zxing.appspot.com

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57324275-93/work-with-the-cool-kids-culture-is-a-weapon-in-2011s-hiring-battle/ 

Having a zero presence online is worse than having a bad presence. http://resumup.com/

Social networking makes you feel like you are in a group even if you are isolated. http://delivr.com/

http://www.imaginality.com/imaginalitydesigns/Welcome.html  

Aurasma is a free app. http://www.aurasma.com/

VSTE 2012

Michael George
Fredericksburg City Public School

Presentation site: http://www.cityschools.com/portfolio/

F in Exams, the totally best in incorrect answers.

The last time I was a classroom teacher I used a pizza box as the recepticle for their work. I am hoping I will get ideas for doing this online should I ever return to the classroom.

One idea I am exploring is using Edmodo as a portfolio.

This presentor is advocating using WordPress as their e-Portfolios.

VSTE 2012

Presented by: Tamara Smith, ITRT
Hanover County Public Schools

Resource Wiki: http://learnededmodo.pbworks.com

Edmodo Group Code: usk36r

Edmodo is a free social learning network for teachers, students, schools, and districts.

Started in 2008. It is a closed environment.

A district can apply for its own sub domain.

A good idea is to have students sign a pledge concerning behavior.