My Summer of Learning - 2016

My summer is rapidly coming to an end, but it has been a great one. I have presented many times both in person and virtually. I also attended many conferences and training opportunities.

School ended for me the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, so I took off and spent a few days to relax and revitalize in Bioxli, with one of my travel buddies, Janet Keller.

June

1. I met with my EdcampNOLA co-founders and organizers to plan our upcoming edcamp. We decided on October 29th for this year and our venue is the ReNEW McDonough City Park Academy in New Orleans. 
2. I presented for SimpleK12 twice during June. Once on Impromptu Skype Calls and the other was on Using Google Hangouts to Connect with Other Classes. 
3. I attended several OK2Ask webinars and another one by my friend and fellow LACUE board member, Desiree Alexander. 
4. The LACUE Tech Leadership Summit took place in Baton Rouge in the middle of June and I both presented and attended many sessions. 
5. One of my team members, Elisa Western, and I met several times to do some cross-curricular 4th-grade planning. Our principal, Audrey Easley, even joined us for one of these meetings. 
6. At the end of the month, I flew out to Denver to spend a week at ISTE Unplugged and ISTE2016, which is always the highlight of my summer. I got to spend time with members of my PLN from around the world who gathered for ISTE. It was especially nice this summer since I had to miss last year due to having surgery. 

July 

1. I spent the 4th of July weekend in Natchez, MS, with my dear friend, Janet Keller, and helped celebrate our friend, Mr. Bob's, 95th birthday. 
2. I did three more online presentations for Simple K12.
3. Twice I did a Google Hangout (GHO) with Amy Shah from Peekapak, which is a new social/emotional online program I will be using this year with my students. I met Amy while attending ISTE and agreed to work with her and her company during the year. 
4. Our #4thchat moderators, Nancy Carroll, Jennifer Regruth, and myself,  got together in a GHO and planned out our chat topics for the first half of the 2016-2017 school year. 
   
5. I presented to Tammy Seneca's teachers in West Baton Rouge via GHO and talked about how I use GHO to connect with other classes and different collaborative projects I'm part of. 
6. Elisa, Audrey, and I had another 4th-grade planning meeting.  
7. Next, I attended and presented four sessions on BreakoutEDU at the LACUE Region 4 LETA conference in Lafayette, LA. 
8. My learning was extended with even more OK2Ask webinars. 
9. EdcampNOLA organizers met again to do even more planning and help me prepare questions we wanted addressed when I attended the Edcamp Organizers Summit.
10. I finally got to meet Dave Burgess in person, when he presented in Baton Rouge. Dave is the author of Teach Like a Pirate and is a very inspiring member of my PLN. 
11. My cohort from when I did my Masters program at SELU got together for coffee and catching up time. 
    
12. I attended the Edcamp Organizer Summit in Atlanta with #edcampCenLa founder, Emily Swenson, #edcampLafayette QT founder, Natalie Chustz, and over 100 other edcamp founders/organizers mostly from the southeast region of the United States. 
    

I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting for my flight home from #EdcampOSAtl16. I decided to write this post as I waited. Here is want I have planned for August before school starts for me on August 8. 

1. I'm presenting about Chrome Extensions tomorrow for Simple K12. Also, I will be presenting in person a 90-minute Breakout EDU session and a concurrent session on Mystery Location Calls via GHO at the Mini LACUE Region 3 Conference in St. John Parish. 
2. Friday I will be presenting a one-hour webinar for LACUE on No Email, No Problem - Great Sites To Use that Require No Registration. 
   
3. Saturday I will be doing a GHO with Heidi Samuelson(@swampfrogfirst) to discuss some collaborative projects we hope to do during the 2016-2017 school year. 
4. During the first week of August, I will be "hanging out" with the #4thchat moderators again to do even more planning for our weekly chats. I will attend EdmodoCon2016, an all day online conference, and a Remind Train the Trainer online session. I will end the week by attending some PD sessions at my school and getting my classroom ready for the new school year. 

My summer break consists of exactly 41 weekdays and I think I used them well. I have been very busy, but extremely happy during this summer and am looking forward to a wonderful school year as I begin my 41st year of teaching. 

#4thChat Moderators Meet F2F at ISTE2014

I can't wait! I can't wait! Those were the words that swirled in my head in the months, weeks, days and hours leading up to heading to Atlanta for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference.

Why was I so excited? After all this would be my eighth ISTE, so I should be an old pro at this. Right? Wrong! Each ISTE I've attended has had its share of thrilling firsts for me. (Read more here and here.)
As ISTE2014 approached my level of excitement built. Let me share with you the four main reasons why this was so.

Going Early to Sightsee and Be with Some Old Friends
I arrived in Atlanta early to spend time with some very good friends and do some sightseeing before ISTE began. I know many who wait until the conference is over to do so, but I know from past experience that once ISTE ends I just want to go home and sleep. The long days and longer nights really wear me out. You can read about my pre-ISTE adventures here.


Presenting a Workshop
Bill Krakower, Jerry Blumengarten, and I presented an hour and a half workshop at ISTE. Our topic was "Connecting Your Students to Collaborate with the World".

We taught our participants how to conduct Mystery Location Calls by dividing them into two groups. Each group represented a class from a state of the group's choosing and through a series of yes/no questions, had to figure out what state the other "class" was located in. Each group used maps to eliminate states, backchanneled in an Edmodo group, and took pictures of the whole thing. The workshop was a great success and we are so glad we had them do a "mock" Mystery Location call. By being assigned the various Mystery Location jobs and stepping through the entire process, we know they are well prepared to do these calls when they return to their classrooms.

Our resources for the workshop can be accessed here.

The Mappers

My co-presenters - Jerry Blumengarten and Bill Krakower

#4thchat Face-To-Face Meeting
I would finally get to meet the gals who co-moderate #4thchat with me every Monday night at 8ET/7CT. I have been doing so with Nancy Carroll since the very beginning of #4thchat back in March of 2011. When previous #4thchat creator and co-moderator Jeanne McQueen (teaches 5th grade now), and previous co-moderator Justin Stortz needed to step away, we added Jennifer Regruth to the team in 2012.

Nancy, Jenn, and I have also been collaborating most Sunday evenings via Google Hangouts with 5 other educators. We chat and plan projects our students can do collaboratively. Our GHO group had submitted a proposal to present at ISTE, but unfortunately it wasn't accepted. I was thrilled when they decided to attend their first ISTE anyway. Seeing their little avatars on Twitter and their smiling faces on my computer screen during the GHOs still didn't prepare me properly for meeting them is person.

The magical moment happended on Friday, June 27. I was eating lunch outside across the street from the convention center with Jan Wells and Kelly Kastner when someone said, "Here come Jenn and Nancy." I remember jumping out of my chair and then feeling like I was trying to run underwater as I hurried to get to them for our first "real" hugs. We laughed, we cried, we hugged a lot. Jenn is much taller than I thought she'd be, and Nancy is much more petite.

Paula, Nancy, and Jenn with Brad Wilson 

Our time together at ISTE wasn't enough. When it was time for them to leave, I couldn't bring myself to tell them goodbye. I was so sad and heartbroken that it had all come and gone so quickly. Luckily, I have memories of our time together that will last a lifetime and sustain me until the next time we meet face-to-face. Now our online exchanges have even stronger ties and bring back the great memories we made while at ISTE.

Part of our GHO gang- Jerry, Jenn, Bill, Nancy, nnd Paula

Nancy and Jenn, I love you both and miss you so much.

Reuniting with PLN Members and Meeting New Ones
Some of you might know, I'm divorced, never had children, and don't have any surviving family members, so my friends, both in real life and online, are my family. My PLN (personal learning network) is near and dear to me.

For quite a few years now, I have paid my own way to ISTE and consider it my summer vacation. After all I'm going to what I consider a family reunion in whatever city ISTE happens to be visiting for the summer.

Those educators who have not experienced the thrill of meeting their online tweeps face-to-face just don't quite get it. Why would a person what to room with someone for a week that s/he has never met? Why would one what to spend lots of money sightseeing and traveling with people s/he barely know? Why would educators spend hours setting up Google documents to organize and arrange their "down time" while attending a huge conference like ISTE? The answer is simple. The people we are connected with online are more than just online aquaintances, they are more like family members. And we are thrilled to see them each summer at ISTE.

I know this to be true because as the last words of the closing ISTE keynote fade away, you can hear the buzz of plans being formulated to see each other at next year's ISTE. It warms my heart to see "newbies" like Jenn and Nancy excited to be a part of it all again next year.

I hope to see you in Philadelphia for #ISTE2015. 

ISTE Unplugged 2014

I always plan to arrive the day before ISTE officially starts so that I can attend ISTE Unplugged. This great unconference is organized by Steve Hargadon, Audrey Watters, and Lucy Gray.

Steve Hargadon

On Friday, June 27, I attended Hack Education (formally EduBloggerCon) with about 300 other educators from 8-4. I was amazed that over half of the people in attendence were doing so for the first time. This event celebrated its 8th birthday this year. There was quite a buzz in the air as people connected or reconnected with members of their online PLN.

Some of the participants gathered for Hack Education 

My Mentor from Classroom 2.0 Live Peggy George

Reconnecting this year with +Anibal Pacheco  Photo Credit - @MyClassFlow

The participants determine how the day will be structured by suggesting a discussion they would like to see facilitated. The sessions are then voted on and the schedule is made. I attended sessions on Leadership in a Digital Age, Digital Citizenship, Building Teacher/Student PLNs Using Social Media, and helped facilitate Twitter Tips for Newbies.

Digital Citizenship Discussion Photo Credit - Kristy Vincent

The conversations are rich and thought-provoking and I always learn new things to take back to my classroom. My Big 3 Takeaways from this year are: 

1. Digital Citizenship should become just Citizenship (thank you @TanyaAvrith) and needs to be taught daily. 
2. Get parents more involved in all that I do with my students especially when using social media.
3. Help my students build their learning networks through global collaborations and projects. 

Here are some more pictures I took during this event. 

Wearing Wanda Terral's Google Glass

Paula Boston and Heather Temske

Nancy Blair, Len Horn, Karrie Vitti

Nick Provenzano, Scott Floyd, Beth Still, Anibal Pacheco

Richard Byrne and Steve Dembo

Billy Krakower and Susan Bearden

Check out all of the tweets from #HackEd14 in this Storify thanks to Craig Yen. Craig did a fabulous job of curating links for those #notatISTE. 

Did you attend #HackEd2014? What are your Big 3 Takeaways? 

So Glad I Went to #ISTE2014 Early

Last year at ISTE in San Antonio, my dear friend from Hawaii, JoAnn Jacobs, and I made a pact to arrive in Atlanta early so that we could spend some quality time with each other before the craziness that is ISTE begins. And am I glad we did!

JoAnn, and I met up at the airport in Atlanta on the Wednesday before ISTE along with Jan Wells, my buddy from Kansas. (Read about my first F2F meeting with Jan here.)

We shared a shuttle ride to drop off JoAnn off at her hotel, and Jan and I checked into our condo at the Peachtree Towers Condos that we were sharing with Beth Still and Kristina Peters. After getting settled in, we met JoAnn for dinner at Alma Cocina, an upscale Mexican restaurant and enjoyed a relaxing time catching up. After returning to the condo, Kristina graciously helped me update my iPhone so I could download the Voxer app. She set up a Voxer group for Beth, Jan, me, and herself and dubbed us the "Peachtree Peaches". 

On Thursday we had a full day of sightseeing and meeting other friends who also decided to arrive early. JoAnn, Jan, Beth, and I started our day at 9:00 at the Georgia Aquarium. I love our aquarium in New Orleans, but was awed by this one. 

We had tickets for the 11:30 showing of Dolphin Tales and it was fabulous. So glad we booked this show and that Beth talked me into seating in the third row. I was worried about getting wet but that didn't happen. What did happen was we had a terrific view of the show. I LOVE dolphins. 

Next we had a nice lunch at BajaFresh with friends from all over the US. In the picture are Margie Rogers (MO), Jan (KS), Carrie Ross (TX), Kristy Vincent (TX), Beth Still (NE), me (LA), Adam Bellow (NY), JoAnn (HI), and Michelle Baldwin (CO). 

Then we headed to the World of Coca-Cola. Besides tasting different Coke flavors from around the world, we enjoyed the 4D show complete with 3D glasses. It gave us lots of laughs. 

Jerry Blumengarten and Bill Krakower met us right after we finished the Coke tour. I love Jerry's sign. 

Our day ended with a gathering for dinner at Sweet Georgia's Juke Joint. What a great place! We had a table right up front for the jazz band that played that night. The Mar-tans play a mixture of New Orleans funk and R&B, but I like to think they were playing in honor of those of us from the NOLA area. Great times with great friends, great food and music, and even a little moonshine. I even lead a second line around the place when the Mar-tans played Mardi Gras Mambo. 

Susie Toso (@SusieToso),  Jan Wells (@JanWells),  Marcie Hebert (@mrsmhebert), Amanda, Martin (@mandymartin1021),  me,  Jerry Blumengarten (@Cybraryman1),  Bill Krakower (@wkrakower),  JoAnn Jacobs (@JoAnnJacobs68),  and Margie Rogers (@mawrogers). 

We had an awesome day in Atlanta and were definitely ready for some shut-eye. If you are going to attend #ISTE2015 in Philadelphia and plan to do some sightseeing while there, I would strongly suggest going early to do so.  I am always so tired when ISTE ends that all I want to do is go home and sleep for a couple of days. 

JoAnn and I started making plans for next year even before we left Atlanta. So start making your plans and arrive early in Philly. I hope to see you there.

Our Inaugural #LAedchat - April 15, 2014

Sometimes bouncing ideas off of others makes them happen.  While attending the Google Summit in Lake Charles back in February, Marcie Hebert, Nate Kellogg and I had a conversation about Louisiana needing to start a state edchat.  We set a date to do a Google Hangout (GHO) after we returned home from the Summit and #LAedchat was born.

Nate crafted an awesome logo. We created a website. We set a date and picked a topic. During our second GHO the weekend before our inaugural chat, we shared a Google document, and created our list of questions, found some resources to share out during the chat, and discussed who we each should contact, and how we should spread the word about #LAedchat.

I was a little nervous as I fired up TweetDeck on my laptop and got ready to participate at 7:00 this evening. Would there be others beside Marcie, Nathan, and I taking part in the chat? Well, my nerves quickly faded as the tweets with the hashtag #LAedchat started streaming. Our topic - Being a Connected Educator - was attracting participation from lots of educators from Louisiana, other states, and even another country.

Special shout-outs to:

• Tiffany Whitehead for having several of her fellow teachers and her principal join in for #LAedchat
• Marlon Ng for joining in from Hong Kong and giving us a international connection 
• Carl Gaines for always be such a great supporter of Louisiana educators
• Kyle Calderwood who remind me that I introduced him to Twitter and is now paying it forward with this initiative 
• Bethany Hill for sharing this great picture - 

@plnaugle @dayankee @JPPSS Oh goodness! The social media and tech are not the problem... #laedchat pic.twitter.com/E0aNOXvhbe
— Bethany Hill (@bethhill2829) April 16, 2014

Our inagural #LAedchat was inspiring and I look forward to next month's chat.  Thanks Marcie and Nate. We did it!

Showing Up in an Indiana STEM News Coverage Video

Being a connected educator means that you have a network of people most refer to as a personal learning network (PLN). I am so fourtunate to have established an amazing PLN and sometimes they let me know when my name pops up in unusual places. Thanks to Rodney Turner for sending out a tweet letting me know that my name shows up in the Twitter stream near the end of this video news story about STEM education from Indiana. (3:23)

You are mentioned in this video about STEM in Indiana. http://t.co/vgVF1P1OGo 3:20 @j_allen @pernilleripp @missmac100 @plnaugle @mrbadura
— Rodney Turner (@techyturner) February 18, 2014

I love being a connected educator. Are YOU a connected educator?

BC3 - A Website I Can't Live Without

It is so hard to pick just one! But since this is today's challenge (thanks to Kelly Hines), I choose Twitter. Why you ask? Well, because of Twitter and the amazing PLN (personal learning network) I've created since joining in 2009, my teaching has been transformed.

Twitter offers me professional development (PD) 24/7. If I need a resource for my classroom, a read aloud book recommendation, have a tech question, need to understand the lastest tool or app, I turn to Twitter for help.

Because of tweets sent out by members of my PLN, I've been able to attend conference sessions that are being lived streamed while I sit in the comfort of my home. I've learned about the newest innovative strategies such as the "flipped classroom".  I've been invited to participate in webinars, podcasts, and presentations far and wide. I've been lead to the best resources to help me implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). I've learned how to use webtools in my classroom such as Edmodo, Thinglink, animoto, and Google Hangouts.

I love participating I edchats on Twitter. I am a moderator for  #4thchat on Mondays at 7 PM CST and am one of the hosts for #DENchat on Thursdays at 7 PM CST. Through these chats, which are focused around a weekly topic for discussion, I am continually learning new things which I can take back to my classroom.

My friend, Steven W. Anderson (@web20classroom), shared a very helpful hint for those of you who aren't on Twitter, or who have an account but don't "get" Twitter. He suggests to go to http://www.twitter.com/search and enter a hashtag such as #edchat, #4thchat, #engchat, #CCSS, and just view the tweets that hashtag will generate. In seconds you have a stream of tweets organized around a hashtag which relates to something you what to know more about. The tweets will often include links to articles, websites, blog posts, etc. which will help you learn more about the topic.

Some resources to help you learn to love Twitter as much as I do:

1. An Educator's Guide to Twitter (Livebinder) by Steven W. Anderson @web20classroom
2. How to Participate in an Twitter Chat (blog post) by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher
3. Index to Educational Hashtags (Google Doc) by Chiew Pang @aClilToClimb
4. Cybrary Man's Educational Web Sites - Twitter by Jerry Blumengarten @cybraryman1

Do you love Twitter as much as I do? Why/Why not? What is you favorite website? 

Let 2013 Begin - Part 1 - 2012 in Review

The words to John Lennon's song keep swirling in my head
"...And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun." 

Yes, indeed what have I done? And what plans do I have for the new one that has just begun? Well, here in Part 1 I will review my Year 2012. Tomorrow I will post Part 2 about what I am planning for 2013. 

January

Decided my #365Project for the year would consist of me grabbing a screencast of a tweet that I found inspiring each day. As usual, I did not complete the entire project but I continued longer than most. You can see my posts here. **Bonus - I received a DENny award for this series of posts. 

February

I was a featured presenter at METC in St. Louis. I enjoyed my time connecting with members of my PLN and making new friends at that event and I even got to see snow. 

I celebrated my third Twitter anniversary. You can read more about that here. 

March

I celebrated another birthday. 

April

As I prepared my students for the annual high stakes test that is a part of the Louisiana educational system, I couldn't help but be excited for when it would be over. My students did very well on the LEAP test. 

Thanks to a discussion on #4thchat, I began #ImpromptuSkype calls. 

May 

I received a beautiful trophy for the DENny PL DEN Award from the Discovery Educators Network. Read more about it here. 

I was invited to join a Skype group called Hello Little World Skypers. There are roughly 100 members from around the world who are par of this group. They are very active and enjoy sharing and learning with and from each other. My students were able to do their first international Skype call this year with Mr. Steve from South Africa. 

School ended for my thirty-sixth time and I attended the Bayou Country Fest in Baton Rouge with my dear friend, Janet. 

June

ISTE is always the highlight of my summer (and my year), but this year it was especially memorable. I finally got to meet my Skype Buddy, Jan Wells, face to face. You can read more about that here. 

I had such a wonderful time in San Diego and would love to send hugs and kisses to Beth Still. She included my on her presentation panel again this year. She also made all of the arrangements for the #educrib we rented while in California, where I got to bond even more with Jan and all of my other house mates. 

June-July

I hosted an online Professional Development opportunity for just over 30 members of the #4thchat community. As different people talked about using Edmodo with their students during our weekly Twitter chats, there were just as many who wanted to learn about Edmodo. So I started the #4thchatPD group on Edmodo, and ran the course over the eight weeks of June and July. Yes, I used Edmodo to teach others about Edmodo. It was a great learning experience for everyone involved. 

July
This month marked the second #EdcampLA. I am one of the organizers for this exciting and different form of PD. We had a great turnout and can't wait for our third one next July.

I began to learn how to use Google Hangouts with various members of my PLN. I knew this would be a tool I would want to add to my toolkit and had fun learning it with others. 

I attended several training sessions on the Common Core State Standards both in person and online. Louisiana will be transitioning to the CCSS with full implementation during the 2014-2015 school year. 

Also during this month, I started collaboratively working on a virtual PD that was being hosted by Theresa for her teachers in Illinois. Ten educators from the HLW Skypers group were involved. We used GHO and a wiki to doing the planning. I agreed to present about Edmodo. 

August

I participated in the Connected Educators' Month. You can read more about that in this series of posts I wrote. I was even the guest tweeter for the day of August 5. 

It was a short summer as I headed back to begin my thirty-seventh year of teaching on the second week of August. I found out that I would teach two blocks of math and science and one class of social studies this year. Woohoo - this science minor finally gets to teach some science. 

I was so proud of my students, who after just a short time in school, were able to do a masterful job presenting virtually to a group of teachers, most of whom were located in Illinois. My kids told them how we are using Edmodo in our classroom as our learning management system. Check out our presentation here by scrolling down to the Edmodo part. Thanks, Theresa Allen, for this amazing opportunity. 

September

We missed seven days of school thanks to Hurricane Issac. When we returned it felt like we were starting the year over again. 

I signed up to have my students participate in Quadblogging this year. Unfortunately the time out of school threw me off schedule and I never had my students fully participating as I had hoped to. Here is my one and only post for our group.

During this month I worked collaboratively with a group of educators to start the Global Collaboration Network. Jefff Bradbury of TeacherCast fame worked closely with us to build this website. Bill Krakover, Nancy Carroll, Dan Curcio, Jerry Blumengarten, Jessica Baumburger, Kim Powell, and I met weekly in a GHO to create the projects and try to build the website. We were hopeful that we would get accepted to present at ISTE. 

October

My students and I participated in Jen Wagner's annual O.R.E.O. Project and had fun with the Great Pumpkin Project. We started doing Mystery Location calls. We call them that instead of Mystery Skype calls because sometimes we use Google Hangouts instead of Skype. Read more about the name change here. 

We also had our entire fourth grade signup for and participate in a webcast by Scholastic featuring Taylor Swift. Our kids really enjoyed it.

During this month I worked collaboratively with a group of educators to start 

November

I prepared to attend and present at LaCUE, our state technology conference. I did four presentation and enjoyed time with my members of my PLN. We had a small tweet up at Deannie's and I enjoyed a stay at the Hilton.

Since I had become a presenter for Simple K12, I jumped at the chance to become an ambassador for them. They were thrilled to have me join their ranks, and I was thrilled to get my very own pair of bunny slippers. I wore them proudly during my LaCUE presentation entitled PD in Your PJs.

Mark, at My Town Tutors, invited me to write a guest blog for them. Here is my post.

I also completed my first formal evaluation under our state's new system and received a highly effective rating.

December
The Sandy Hook tragedy took its toll on me. I went into a depression and had a hard time gearing up for Christmas this year. One of the most hopeful things that came to my attention was this post by Beth Still's husband.

Bill informed the Global Collaboration Network that we were not select to present at ISTE. However, we plan to do a presentation for ISTE Unplugged while in San Antonio this summer.

**********************************

So there is my YEAR 2012 Review.

My Proudest Accomplishments

All of my presentations (check them out here)

My DENny Award

Becoming a Simple K12 Ambassador

My collaboration with others

What were your greatest accomplishments in 2012? 

Day 5 - Connected Educator Month

Today I am the official tweeter for @ConnectedEd. Each day during the month of August one person will assume the profile of @ConnectedEd and send out tweets about their connectedness. Here is the link to the list of tweeters for the month. Thanks, Karen, for setting this up.

1. I began my morning at 8:00 and sent out my first tweet after I got logged in and changed the profile to reflect that I was the tweeter for today.

2. I was lead to a YouTube video of Jarrod Lamshed and George Couros (to whom I am already connected -we presented on a panel together at ISTE11) singing karaoke to Justin Bieber's "Baby" by my friend @wmchamberlain's tweet. I decided to check out Jarrod's blog since it is titled "Connected Learning". Loved following this journey and I am now connected to Jarrod. 

3. I didn't get many takers when I tweeted about filling out this survey. Either people don't like filling out surveys, or they aren't sure how they are going to work on flattening their classroom walls.

4. I saw my friend @ncarroll24 had written a new blog post entitled "Schoolmares" so I hopped over to her blog, read the post, and left her a comment. Later in the day Nancy sent out a tweet thanking me for the comment.

5. Discovered Ellen (aka @play@cre8) because she retweeted (RTed) that I was the @ConnectedEd tweeter of the day. I saw her RT in the TweetChat stream and clicked on her avatar which led me to her blog. Funny thing is Ellen, whom I did not know until today, and I were in the Google Power Searching MOOC together this summer. She wrote about an interesting happening in that class here. I left a comment for her and am now following her on Twitter.

6. I spent part of the afternoon working on lesson plans and things for the beginning of school. I start back tomorrow and the students come on Thursday.

7. Unfortunately, I have a terrible head cold, so I took some medicine after I ate dinner and it knocked me out. I woke up and realized I had missed one of my favorite chats. I am a member of an Edmodo book club and we are reading Tony Wagner's Creating Innovators. Jeff McCouch set up the book club and moderates the #cistudy chat on Sunday evenings at 7 CT.

8. I read through the #cistudy tweets and RTed several as @ConnectedEd. One of the teachers who joined the #cistudy chat tonight was Dana Sirotiak, a 7th grade teacher from New Jersey that I connected with face to face last week.

I was presenting for the 21st Century Community Education Conference being held in New Orleans. A Twitter buddy, Bill Krakower, told me Dana would be attending the conference. So Dana and I and her traveling partner, William Diaz met and had dinner while they were in town. I love making connections like this.

9. So as I wrap up my day as the voice of @ConnectedEd, I think all in all it was a good day. I wish I had been feeling better because I wanted to host a Google Hangout or two today and connect with members of my PLN. I believe I sent out over 50 tweets and have others tweeting with the official #CE12 hashtag. So I'm off to bed to get a good night's sleep on the eve of the beginning of my 2012-2013 school year.

10. I am glad I had this opportunity and I am looking forward to the rest of the Connected Educator Month.

Finally, My ITSE12 Reflection

How does this happen? Seems like it was a week ago that I was so excited to be heading to beautiful San Diego for ISTE12, and now here it is two weeks after that event and I'm finally getting my reflection of my time at the conference posted. I know I needed some time to process my adventure and learning before I wanted to write about it, but I honestly didn't think it would take this long.

Being able to present at ISTE on a panel with Beth Still, Josh Stumpenhorst, and Nicholas Provenzano was an incredible experience and helped me hone my presentation skills. Presenting about Building Your PLN with Twitter Chats with Jan Wells, JoAnn Jacobs, Joan Young, and Jason Seliskar at ISTE Unplugged was an extremely emotional experience. (I broke down in tears.) Attending sessions and parties allowed me to deepen my relationships with present PLN members and begin building new relationships with new people I met.

I learned from Vicki Davis to think about your three big take-aways so that you didn't feel overwhelmed by everything a conference like ISTE has to offer, or get upset with yourself because you didn't get to more sessions. 

As I have spent time reflecting on my take-aways, I first had to revisit the goals I set before heading to ISTE. My most important goal this time was to spend lots of quality time with Jan Wells, my Skype buddy and virtual co-presenter from Kansas.  Jan and I have been collaborating for three years and would be meeting for the first time face-to-face. You can read more about that here. 

My second goal was to help ISTE newbies navigate the hugeness of this conference and get connected. I hosted a BYOBreakfast in the Newbie Lounge on Monday morning to get things rolling on that goal. I met and had wonderful conversations with newbies and they were grateful for any advice that I or others shared with them. 

I also had a third goal to spend some meaningful face-to-face time with as many of my PLN members as I could fit in during my time at ISTE. I made this a goal after I left ISTE last year feeling very badly that I didn't get to have meaningful conversations with more PLN members. I was going to make sure that didn't happen again this year. Due to the fact that I shared a house with 15 members of my PLN, this enabled me to do so with them. Each day I sought out other PLN members and had great conversations with them too. 

Do you notice an interesting trend with the goals I had pre-ISTE? I had set goals about conversations and connections with people. I was not worried about learning about the latest tool or teaching technique. Why? Well, I can learn about those things while sitting at home thanks to Twitter. 

So now on to my three best take-away from ISTE12. 

Take-away #1 - Conversations

 I'm not the best at setting goals and carrying them out, so I am extremely pleased that I was very successful about accomplishing the goals I had set before heading to San Diego. ISTE12 will go down as one of the best for the amount of time I spent having meaningful conversations with lots of friends, both old and new. It feels good to be able to say that. 

Take-away #2 - Student Directed Learning

I spent some time thinking back over what I heard during presentations and conversations this year. There didn't seem to be as much talk about tools or devices. I heard more about collaboration and next steps. I also heard less about blocked sites and more about best practices that are happening in classroom all over the country. I heard more about how schools are trying to let students have a hand in their own learning and follow their passions. Helping our students become life-long learners is so important to their successful futures. So is teaching them how best to use the tools and sites that exist, but are always evolving. I will definitely be keeping student directed learning on the front burner this year. 

Take-away #3 - Priceless

I made the right decision about spending the money to attend ISTE. Registration $300, travel and board $1,000, learning and memories priceless. Getting to spend eight days with Jan really was priceless. 

                                       Photo credit - Peggy George

What are your three take-aways from ISTE12? Are you planning to attend ISTE13?

Meeting My Skype Buddy

One of my New Year's Resolutions for 2009, was to get into social media and learn how to build my personal learning network (PLN). By the summer of that year, I was feeling pretty comfortable with Twitter and Nings. I decided my next step was to find another like-minded teacher and figure out how I could connect our classes.

Enter Jan Wells, a fourth grade teacher from Kansas. Jan and I "met" on a Ning hosted by Jen Wagner. We both joined the Skype Buddies group on that Ning, and I responded to a discussion Jan had posted. We chatted back and forth on the discussion thread and realized we were very similar in our approach to teaching in our classrooms. We exchanged email addresses and eventually started IMing each other on Skype. By the time school started that year, we had a very rough plan for connecting our classes through Skype and projects hosted through Projects by Jen. We became Skype buddy classes. You can read more about our Skype adventures here.

Since 2009, Jan and I have been Skype buddy classes, presented together several times for virtual conferences, backchanneled on the Classroom 2.0 Live webinars, and interacted on Twitter. Fast forward to ISTE12 in San Diego. For the first time in our three year relationship, Jan and I met face to face at the San Diego airport. She flew in from Kansas on Sunday and decided to wait for my arrival. When I landed several hours later, we had a joyous "reunion". Yes, it was a reunion, because we had built such a strong relationship online thanks to social media. We were like two high school friends reconnecting at a class reunion. We picked up our conversation right where we had left off on Twitter for the days preceding our trips to San Diego.

We were picked up at the airport by Tim Gwynn and went to the hacienda where 15 members of our PLN are staying during our week at ISTE. It still amazes me how my connections on social media (mostly Twitter) have lead to some unbelievable opportunities and personal interactions with so many wonderful educators from around the world.

What wonderful opportunities have unfolded for you because of social media? Have you had one-of-a-lifetime experiences because of your PLN?

1/365Project

Alright I've decided on a theme for my #365Project. Now let's see if I can keep it updated properly. I will try to add a picture of one tweet from the day that helped me learn and connect with the members of my PLN. Sounds easy enough. We'll see what happens. You can follow my progress on my #365Project by visiting my Posterous site. 

Posted via email from Paula's posterous

#YouMatterDay

I enjoyed another lazy day of my Christmas holiday. Finished reading Mockingjay, the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy that I started reading on December 26, and watched the Saints earn a playoff berth by having a great game against the Panthers.

I cooked dinner, ate and then took a long early evening nap. Of course, when I woke up I picked up my computer to see what was happening of this first day of 2012 on Twitter. I read tweets that took me to several great blogposts, and I even left some comments.

A tweet from Joan Young led me to this post by Karen McMillan. After I read it, I tweeted #youmatter to various members of my PLN (personal learning network) and wished them a Happy #YouMatterDay.

Who matters in your life? Remember to tell them #youmatter and Happy #YouMatterDay to you.

Nominated for Best Individual Tweeter - 2011 Edublog Awards

How sweet it is! Thank you to Patti Grayson, who nominated me for the Edublog Awards of Best Individual Tweeter. I am humbled and honored to be included in this short list of 40+ tweeters. All I have to say is I'm in a win-win situation. If I don't win the category, and believe me, I truly believe there are more deserving people in the category, I still win because I get to reap all of the wonderful resources that these incredible tweeters share each day on Twitter.

If you are new to Twitter, blogging, or social media, the Edublog Award list is a great place to find wonderful blogs to read, innovative educators to follow on Twitter, great free web tools to use in your classroom, and more. If you have been doing this for a while, remember to share the links with your friends and PLN members. I just sent the link to the Best Administrator Blog nominations to my principal and assistant principal.

So head over to Edublog Awards 2011 home page and vote. Voting is open until 11:59 pm EST on Tuesday, December 13, 2011, and the winners will be announced on December 14.

What Does That Mean?

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time trying to keep up with all the acronyms being bantered about on Twitter. Most of us have learned about RT (retweet-send someone's tweet out again), DM (direct message-send a tweet to just one person), PLN (personal learning network) and ISTE (International Society of Technology in Education). Since I wasn't into texting when I joined Twitter, I remember when I didn't know what LOL (laughing out loud), IMHO (in my humble opinion) or TIA (thanks in advance) meant. I actually asked on Twitter what LOL meant. Well, I guess I made more than one person LOL and I think I made a couple even ROFL (roll on the floor laughing). But, hey, at least I learned.

Since that time I've always asked when I don't know what an acronym means. Yes, I might make someone else roll their eyes or snicker under their breath when they see my tweet asking, but at least I will know what is being said.

When I blog I always write out the words for things like personal learning network the first time I use it, followed by the letters in parentheses (PLN), so that my reader will know what I'm talking about. My good friend, Beth Still, wrote a great blog post reminding us to spell out what we mean if we want to be understood.

I remember last summer reading a tweet from a member of my PLN that said, "I'm going OTG to spend more time with DH and DD." I had to DM (direct message) her and ask what she meant. Translation: I'm going off the grid (Twitter and other social media sites) to spend more time with dear husband and dear daughter.

Here is one of the responses I got when I asked my PLN on Twitter for some acronyms to help newbies. Funny thing is, I didn't know any of them. (LOL)

Just last week I told a member of my PLN to DM me and I would share the code to our LMS with her. She quickly tweeted back asking what an LMS is? And so she should. I answered her by explaining that an LMS is a learning management system. This occurred during an #edchat (educational chat) on Twitter and it is easy to talk in acronyms because you only have 140 characters to deliver your message. (I'll talk more about #edchats next time.)

I'd love to hear about some of the times you were left scratching your head and saying, "What does that mean?"

Others tweeting answers about acronyms @katiechoudhary, @jdornberg, @derrallg, and @marsacat.

(Cross posted on Tweachers.)

Thank You for Reform Symposium 2010

Shelly Terrell, Kelly Tenkely, Jason Bedell and Christopher Rogers were the organizers of the Reform Symposium 2010 that took place online July 30, 31 and August 1. I can only imagine how much work went on behind the scenes to get this symposium planned and then to make sure it went smoothly over the three days. Saying thank you seems so lame, but sometimes keeping it simple is the best so…Thank you!

The organizers used the whiteboard on Elluminate to discuss some of the numbers that were generated by RSCON10.

I liked that idea and decided to compile some numbers of my own.

3 days

18 sessions

14 hours

10 sessions where I took the mic

19 presenters and organizers in my PLN

unknown number of chat entries and tweets

Here is the list of the sessions that I was able to attend virtually this weekend:

Friday July 30, 2010

Opening Keynote – Steve Hargadon 4:00-5:00

Identity Day: Revealing the Passions of Our Students – George Couros 5:00-6:00

It's Not the Tool, It's How You Use It – Mary Beth Hertz 6:00-6:30

Saturday, July 31, 2010

StudentCon: Students Teaching Teachers - Jerry Swiatek 8:00-8:30

Creating a Personal Learning Network (PLN) – Tom Whitby 8:30-9:30

What the Heck is a 21st Century Skill Anyway? – Angela Maiers 12:30-1:30

Skype Around The World - Silvia Tolisano 2:00-2:30

Technology, what's in it for my students - Alexandra Francisco 3:00-3:30

Back-channeling in the Classroom – Richard Byrne 4:00-5:00

New Teacher Survival Kit – Lisa Dabb and Joan Young 5:30-6:00

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Tech in 10 – Kelly Hines 8:00-8:30

Students Refine School – Monika Hardy & students 9:00-10:00

Abolishing & Replacing Grading – Joe Bower 10:30-11:00

Everything I Learned About Tech Integration I Learned From Movies - Nicholas Provenza 11:30-12:00

Innovative Practices in Education–The Power of Students Producing for Authentic Audiences with Authentic Assessment – Paula White 12:30-1:30

This Ain't Your Mother's Classroom: Why You Need to Use Social Media in Your Classroom – Tim Gwynn 2:00-2:30

Education: Timeless and Priceless – Steve Anderson 3:00-4:00

Closing Ceremony – all the organizers 4:00-4:45

I heard Vicki Davis say at one of her ISTE10 sessions I attended this summer, “try to limit your take-aways from a large conference to the top three”. So my top three are:

1. Every student is like a box of Cracker Jacks. Find the “prize” inside of every student.

2. Let students discover their passion and set aside time everyday to let them pursue it.

3. My students and I should be “educational architects” in our classroom.

I have a lot of information to process from the Reform Symposium. I can't wait for the 2010-2011 school year to start so that I can implement some of the things I learned. I am tired and my brain is on fire.

What are your big 3 from RSCON10?