The International Society for Technology in Education Conference is, in one word, HUGE! This was my fourth year attending the conference (this year in Denver, CO) and my second year facilitating poster sessions and workshops. It is a great place to make and reestablish connections, a place where I get a pulse check on what is happening in the world of Ed Tech, and the opportunity to check out what is up and coming. Amidst the frenzied lines to see the Google Playground, the awesome factor of the EscapeEDU School Bus, and the closed out sessions of one more MindCraft Edu panel (there were SO many of those), the entrepreneurs' hub in the ISTE Expo hall is one of the places I like most. There I spoke with three highly passionate and dedicated educators who are giving back and have developed resources worthy of the classroom, aligned to pedagogy, and with teachers and student centered learning at the forefront of their design decisions. Reading Log Cabin bravewingsapps.com Available for apple and android, The Reading Log Cabin is an app for children as young as Pre-K to complete their reading logs. I had a chance to speak with Evelyn Moldal and she was so excited to share this app and her love of teaching and learning.
Code Monkey playcodemonkey.com Learn real programming by playing a fun and intuitive game. I spoke with Jonathan Schor about this educational game environment where students learn to code in a real programming language. Using CoffeeScript, a modern open-source programming language, the students will be able to develop and generate unique and personalized apps and websites. CodeMonkey fosters the development of executive functioning skills such as problem solving and planning as well as geometric and mathematical thinking.
Writing Project thewritingproject.com Students write their essays through a combination of brainstorming, questions, evidence, description and analysis. This is the resource and ideas I was geeking out about the most. I spoke with Hames Matechuk and he explained this app helps students by giving them prompts and hints when writing essays, papers, etc. As a parent with a student who struggles with writing structure and form, I could not be more excited for a tool like this to empower our kids abilities to write and write well.
Denver was amazing, I learned, I hiked Pikes Peak, and connected with over 400 educators in my ISTE sessions. The energy and impact these educators make every day is overwhelmingly awesome. Thank you, ISTE, and I'll see you next year in San Antonio.
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AuthorJaclyn coaches and assists K-12 educators, ITFs, and Administrators to adapt, not adopt – fostering digital initiatives to transform professional learning through changes in pedagogical shifts and meeting the needs of all learners to champion creativity and innovation. @jaclynbstevens Categories
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