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? 

I'm Presenting at ISTE Unplugged

12:00-12:30 pm

Title: Web 2.0 Lessons Learned from an Elementary Teacher Description: I teach 4th graders and I use many of the Web 2.0 tools you've heard of with them - Skype, VoiceThread, Glogsters, Edmodo, Google docs, and more. Join me as I share my lessons learned and best practices for integrating today's tools into an innovative classroom. Let's share our experiences. Presenter: Paula L. Naugle, Bissonet Plaza Elementary School, Jefferson Parish Public School System, Metairie, Louisiana

Well I did it. I signed up to present on Wednesday, June 30 at the unconference known as ISTE Unplugged. I am both excited and nervous at the same time. I figure I'll rally some of my PLN members around me for moral support and I'll be fine. (Sue Waters you better be close by.) I figure with the topic I chose and how I like to share my experiences it should go well. Wish me luck.

Check out the schedule and maybe add your own presentation to the list.