Live Curious, Go Beyond 2015


What do you do if suddenly at school you are granted (almost) one full day for professional development? You run a conference! That's what happened to us. 

 These were exciting times for the Tech Integration Team. Just a few weeks ago, on February 20th, ASFM offered its first in-house conference. The name of the conference was inspired by the TI Team's belief statement: Live Curious, Go Beyond _______. (You fill in the blank.)

 With only a month to get ready, we were faced with an enormous challenge. A great deal of planning and organization took place. All the details could easily be taken care of, but, who would run the sessions? We sent out a call for presenters form. Fortunately, we can always count on the amazing group of digital teachers. ALL of them jumped right on and registered as presenters. Even a few other teachers participated too. 

 Results:

  • Presenters - 32
  • Attendees - 225
  • Sessions - 32
  • Learning talks - 6

For all the details, visit the Live Curious, Go Beyond web site. Follow the hashtags #asfmtech, #livecuriousgobeyond for snippets of the conference too.

 Each of the sessions focused on one of the six strands, that stemmed from the Ed Tech Challenge.

  • Collaboration Tools
  • Learning Management Systems
  • Personal Learning Networks
  • Formative Response Tools
  • Open Educational Resources
  • Electronic Portfolios

One week prior to the conference, all ASFM teachers responded to the Ed Tech Challenge self-reflection survey, customized to our school and named ASFM Tech Challenge. Teachers reflected on what were their personal needs and this guided their decisions as to which sessions to attend.


Organizing a conference proved to be a huge challenge, but it also turned out to be a huge success. We are already looking forward to next year's and hopefully we will be able to open it up to external participants. We'll see!

 Cheers!

Comments

  1. Carissa PeckApril 10, 2015 at 3:50 PM

    I would say, "Live Curious. Go beyond the classroom!" Get students doing activities that apply to real life. Why pretend to write a letter to the author when you can actually mail it! My students made persuasive speeches that they recorded and are now using to fundraise. No need to keep things in the walls.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Diana Irene SaldanaApril 10, 2015 at 3:56 PM

    Hi Carissa,
    That's the idea, right on! So true, for example, our second graders are learning to write letters by sending real emails (and learning a great deal about digital citiizenship along the way!).
    Thank you for your comment!
    Diana

    ReplyDelete

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