On Thursday, I went to the GaETC conference for the first time. It was a very "new but old" experience--meaning that tough I've been to conferences before, they have been related to my subject matter--foreign language--and not technology. It was interesting to see teachers of all levels and fields rather than simply foreign language teachers. I really enjoyed the exhibit hall the most, I think, but some of the sessions were really informative as well. The sessions I went to included one about a guy who used FileMaker Pro to make a database to manage his students' projects and rubrics. I thought it was a very good and very useful idea--the one unfortunate thing is that he does not have the ability to give or sell this software yet, so it's useful for him, but not for others. I also went to a session about google applications, which was a very popular session. It was neat to find out about the google calendar and some of the other applications available through google. After lunch, I went to the exhibit hall for a bit, where I saw Chrissi. We went outside to chat for a bit about our digital citizenship project and when we went back, we attended a session that gave us some good insight about it--the session was about legal issues related to students' and teachers' use of technology in schools. It was very good because it was given by a guy who works in our system (Gwinnett) so it was very relevant. Finally, I went to a session about Photoshop elements, and that session made me really want to get that program! You can do all sorts of stuff much more easily in PSe than in Photoshop itself.
Overall, the conference was worthwhile to attend--I saw a lot of cool uses of technology in the classroom and I feel "in the loop" about what technologies we may see soon in the future at our schools.
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It was nice running in to you.. and you were lucky to get in the Google session. I really need some help with forms and making the tests in Google, so please give me a little tutorial... The presenter form GCPS who spoke on policy was a little scary, but I think the whole thing is scary. It is crazy.. I just make it my own policy not to ever correspond with students or show anything my mother wouldn't be proud of....LOL. Just too many law suits. It was very helpful to go to a conference that had so much variety and relevant material
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you were able to hear and see a lot of interesting information. I was hoping to go but couldn't make it. After looking at the sessions available, it seemed like they were offering some great sessions. All very relevant to what we are doing in our program and in teaching. It is always a little frustrating though when you hear about a cool tool but it is not available for public use. By the time it comes out, we might forget about it! Glad you enjoyed your first experience at the GaETC conference.
ReplyDeleteI've had that same old feeling and experience going to the educator conferences as well. There is always a bunch of stuff that you can do without but the things that you do take away are typically priceless. I went to the math conference at Rock Eagle one fall and got to see a few technology demonstrations and those were by far my favorite. I learned about United Streaming at one of those and that is a website I have bookmarked and used more times than I can count, including for my 6200 project. Moral of the story, conferences are worth it!
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