NECC 2008 Reflections from Sessions on Day 1

July3

Session 3: NECC Unplugged Understanding by Design

Live Blog

This was originally a fuller session, but became a short discussion (about 20 minutes) by Chris Lehmann, it was a really great session, where we did a mini plan for a unit on the Alamo as a group using Understanding By Design principals. This is was a very short session, BUT some of the information from it may end up being what I use in the classroom that is the most important, etc. I may have misunderstood in so short a context, but it appear to be about set a learning objective, and making sure that you are both aligning your learning along the way to that, but that you have thinking/actions at each level that tie in, and that you check for understanding along the way. What I learned here became important in a later session.

Session 4: Cell Phones in Learning

Live Blog

NECC Session Description

Presenter: Liz Kolb

This is the session where the connection between the session, and folks outside really seemed to click and I was glad to be a part of it. It was a BYOL (bring your own laptop) and bring your own cell phone session. I was very excited to participate because I habe been playing with my new “smarter” phone, sending a lot photos and videos up to my microblog from San Antonio. The session included a number of activities for us to do with our cell phones. We did polls, sent photos and videos, requested information from services that send out SMS (text) messages in response, and did podcasts. With many of the activities I had remote participants on my live blog of this session participate as well. It was interactive, and remote. It is my sincere hope that this will be a model for sessions in future conferences. It would even help with the problem that NECC had of not having enough seats. With even a simple audio cast, participants at NECC out of the room could have taken part. My thoughts about using this in my classroom. I can see this would be very useful at the elementary for remote podcasting and great for field trip documentation. I have already tried to incorporate this in field trips with my son, but need to practice more, which I will do on excursions over the summer. Part of what kept me from doing it is that it’s hard to manage the phone stuff while herding the kids, but I may need to think more about handing the phone off to the kids themselves. I’m already teaching my almost ten-year old to text. The presenter did an excellent job, and I have only one complaint about the session and it was something the organizers did. They should never have had a cell phone based presentation in an interior room. I began to lose my cell connection towards the end and had trouble doing the final activities.

Session 5: Technology and Differentiated Instruction: A Hands-On and Differentiated Experience – NECC 2008

Live Blog

NECC Session Description

This session was both interactive, and helped me make connections in many ways. First, the session presenter’s recommended text was one on Understanding by Design that Chris Lehman had referenced in his NECC Unplugged Understanding by Design session.

The presenter first had us sort ourselves out by selecting certain links on a wiki that said what we knew/practiced already in differentiating curriculum. There was a “tree” of pages that you went to depending on your responses. We were then sorted into groups. I posted instructions to my live blog, but it didn’t seem like folks were following. So once we were sorted, we were supposed to find some near us in the same group (this was a wise idea because having all of us move around after we had plugged in, etc. would have been awful). We then were supposed to choose a reading, and report back (a classic jigsaw activity on a wiki—I wonder if it could be done between remote participants via VOIP, chat, or asynchronously on a wiki? We did readings, and then shared what we learned. The presenter was attempting to bring in a differentiation expert remotely via Elluminate, but she lost her connection. This seemed a little overly ambitious, but the presence of helpers to facilitate, and assist in this session was wise, since they could check in for understanding.

I am guessing that the resources I got in this session, and some of the techniques modeled for managing group work in a lab setting (a problem I have had implementing sometimes) will be very useful in my current teaching assignment in an elementary computer lab.

by posted under conferences | 3 Comments »    
3 Comments to

“NECC 2008 Reflections from Sessions on Day 1”

  1. July 5th, 2008 at 3:31 pm      Reply Bill Dolton Says:

    Thanks for the post and kind words along with your followp-up post in the NECC Ning session discussion — http://tinyurl.com/6ghuk3. I also appreciated the tie-in with Chris Lehman’s session. In addition to differentiated instruction, I emphasize Understanding by Design, and project-based learning along with a strong curriculum basis for technology implementation to have its greatest impact on student learning. Too often we get caught up with the latest technology tools and gadgets without making sure they are grounded in best practice and pedagogy.


  2. July 5th, 2008 at 10:19 pm      Reply alicemercer Says:

    You are so welcome. You had one of the best, and most applicable sessions that I attended, and it was a session that really demanded that I do further reading, so the learning will keep on coming (sneaky of you). I’m thinking about what you did in the session as I will be doing one on standards based ELD (English Language Development) at ILC (CUE*FETC) in the fall.


  3. July 6th, 2008 at 8:52 am      Reply alicemercer Says:

    Readers, the link to Cell Phones in the Classroom is not correct (it’s a blog for the presenter, the wiki link I’m going to give has more exact info):

    http://cellphonesinlearning.wikispaces.com/NECC2008


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