T.I.E. Conference Day #1

Monday, June 28th

I arrived at T.I.E. at 8:15 AM, and had to rush to get to my first session, which was supposed to begin at 8:30. The format for this year's conference was a little different from ones in the past. Instead of signing up for specific sessions, participants select a "Track" which features several sessions on the same topic. I chose the Information Literacy track. Other tracks offered were: Technology Integration for Elementary or Secondary Teachers, Technology Leadership and Support, or Digital Media and Emerging Technologies.

The Information Literacy session I chose was "Rally Round Research" by Kathy Haywan, Overland High School. This session was geared primarily towards secondary teachers, but there was some information that could transfer to the elementary level. Kathy shared how she goes about the steps of doing research with her students, beginning with an 'essential question' and narrowing down the focus to a specific topic. From a teacher's standpoint, we also learned how to align research with state and district standards. The handouts for this session consisted of 14 pages of organizers, links, and templates that students can use to go through the steps of research. The best part of this session were the Internet links that were provided. I now have ONE place to go to for relevant information about research. Everything from standards to templates, to sites that describe higher level thinking and asking good questions. This information was also useful for a project I am doing for UCD's (University of Colorado, Denver) Masters Program on asking good questions.

The afternoon sessions I attended were only an hour long, as opposed to the 3-hour morning sessions. After lunch I tried to get into a session called "Great Google" about how to do advanced searching with Google. However, every seat was taken, and there were people sitting on the floor and standing in the doorway. Rather than try to poke my head through the door to try to see what was going on, I decided to attend a different session instead, called "Intro to CPS (Classroom Performance System)." This session was about using the 'clickers' which is an interactive assessment tool where each student gets a remote control device that they use to answer multiple choice questions. I recently received a grant from Cherry Creek Schools to purchase one of these systems for my school, so I am very interested in this technology! I've already used this system to set up classes and questions for my Masters project, but I found out that this session was simply an introduction to CPS, and I already was familiar with the basic operations of CPS. However, I did get to speak with a representative from the company named Steve Huff. Steve and I have been talking on the phone about CPS, and he even was kind enough to give me a 'loaner set' of clickers to use until our grant moneys are available. It was nice to finally have a face to go with the voice! Steve suggested I attend his 2-hour session on Tuesday that will go into more detail on using CPS to its full potential.

The last session I attended on Monday was called "Blogging" by Martha Wilcox. Although I was somewhat familiar with blogs already, I thought I'd attend this session to see if some new resources would be provided in the hopes that I could learn something new.

As a result of attending this session, I was able to set up the BLOG you are reading right now! Pretty cool, huh? I will use Blogger.com to post my reflections on TIE, and eventually add some other blogs relating to education and technology. The session was only an hour long, but Martha showed us some good examples of how Blogs can be used in the classroom. I have used LiveJournal.com to do some blogging with third graders, and am excited to start using Blogs more next school year. Blogs are a great way for students to have a wide audience for their writing. The Internet is a very powerful tool, and students need to know that the Internet can be an interactive experience to share their thoughts and views on various topics.

The TIE conference is good for exposing teachers to new technologies, and to get us excited to use these technologies with our students. Last year was the first time I was exposed to the CPS System, and as a result, I applied for a grant to purchase them for my school. This is a perfect example of how T.I.E. has made me a better teacher as well as a leader in acquiring the latest technology for my school.