It may be gray and dreary outside, but inside Cal Poly’s Cotchett Education Building the ideas are shining! Today is Central Coast Teacher Tech Challenge Day (#ccttcd2014). What an awesome day!
The day began with Holly Clark giving us an inspirational talk. She challenged us to actively engage ALL students. She reminded us that engaged students are talking, moving, collaborating. Holly also brought up the fact that collaboration isn’t Student A does part 1, Student B does part 2, and then coming together to report out the information. Collaboration is working TOGETHER on a joint project. A great example she cited was Mystery Skypes/Hangouts. Students work together, as a class, to discover where in the US another class might be.
cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by Langwitches
We then went off to our sessions. What made this different from others I have been to, is that 1 session contained 2 presentations. The presentations were paired to compliment one another. My first session was on Blogging. I was paired with Teacher Hovey and Teacher Townshead, who shared about music in the classroom, and the different tools that could be used. Each presentation lasted about 20 min, with 10 min at the end for Q & A.
Finally Dr. Beverly Young spoke about CCSS and Next Generation Science Standards. A brief history of the new standards was given. She went on to state that assessment should be an extension of the learning process, this is what SBAC was designed to be. Dr. Young pointed out that students will be tested on a new assessment based on a curriculum in which they have had little experience with (1 year in many cases). She posed the question, how long will it take us to see the results of CCSS curriculum?
All in all, I LOVE hanging out with Ed Tech folks. It energizes and inspires me. It makes me happy, and remind me that I’m not alone!
Nowa Techie 