Christa McAuliffe 2005 Technology Conference

As a technology facilitator I splurged this year and am attending the conference for 2 days. Today, Tuesday, I attended presentations on: Primary Source Materials, Copyrights (and Wrongs) in a Digital Age, PDA's in the Classroom, "Engage Me or Enrage Me, Educating Today's Digital Native Learners", and Virtual Field Trips.

PDA's in the classroom was interesting and fun, we were given a loaner to try, but I don't see them as having much "depth" in the classroom. The kids would enjoy them but I don't think we could get that deep into a subject using them in the 8th grades. The presenter uses them in a 6th grade classroom on a daily basis.

Virtual Field Trips was very good. The presenter is a technology facilitator in Exeter and her website has several field trips she created(The American Colonial Experience and NH History and Ellis Island) and some sites for further ideas. One idea I liked is that she has several "stops" in her field trip. Teachers can have some students do all the stops and others only 2 or 3. Each trip ends with further study, such as a letter to their favorite historical person or an ad to get people to come to a new colony. I especially liked a website she links to by Jamie McKenzie, a renowed educator, that talks about "slam dunk lessons". These are lessons on the internet using 1 or 2 websites (pre-selected), that take 1 class period. The link is: http://www.fno.org/sum04/fivekinds.html. " How can teachers build brief lessons with digital resources that inspire a high level of engagement while challenging students to interpret, analyze, synthesize and evaluate?"

The Key note speaker was Marc Prensky who spoke on our students of today who are the "new Digital Natives". We, the teachers, are "Digital Immigrants". He says to engage kids with learning we have to make the like video games. Our lessons must: 1.) have frequent important decisions to be made. 2.) level up to clear goals. 3.) focus on engagement 4.) adapt to each players individuality. He is an educational game maker and has an Algebra game in the works and many others available. A game he recommends is called Food Force. You can link to it here and download the game. From the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest humanitarian agency, Food Force is an educational video game telling the story of a hunger crisis on the fictitious island of Sheylan. The entire game consists of 6 mini-missions and could take 1/2 hour. "It's up to you to save and rebuild the island of Sheylan". Another game suggested is the ESP Game. In this game you must type in words that could be associated with an image. You have a partner who is doing the same. If you both type the same word you go to the next image. The whole game is timed.

Primary Source Materials presented by Kathy Schrock has a website with many sites to visit.