My Conference Top 5

I know I posted last week that I would blog about PE technology, but the conference has swept away my attention! So instead, I will make a list of the top 5 (1=best, 5=worst) coolest things I saw/heard about at the conference and why it has relevance to me!

1. Moviemaker!!!!!!!
The workshop in Fulton on MovieMaker was so exciting! I had no idea about all of things that this software is capable of. Pam pointed out one great use for it: subplans! On a day when you know you are going to be absent (because you are going to another professional development centered on technology, hopefully), create a movie to start the students out and get them engaged for the day. I also loved and second everything Pam had to say about the MovieMaker in her blog about the conference. I plan on creating two beginning of the year/welcome back to school movies: one for students and one for parents. I think I'll even give extra credit to the students who e-mail me or post a message on the message board with comments about the movies. As soon as the seminar was over I went out and bought a nice headset with mic and headphone and I am now using it to make a tech related movie for us. As soon as it's finished I'll find some way to share it with all of you!

2. Googledoc. and other network backups
Hot Pot of Coffee (as Ron Burgundy would say)! Why didn't anyone tell me about this before? Thank you, thank you, Karen for talking about tech survival tools in your keynote!! If I had a nickel for everytime I left my flashdrive in the tower at work (or at home) or saved something to my PC and forgot to e-mail it to myself, then I would no longer have to whine about no funding for technology!! I am currently backing up my PC as we speak and I'm making a special trip into work to back that PC up and tomorrow I'm going to campus and backing up my P drive. No more worrying about having all of my documents ready for my tech portfolio! They'll all be backed up!

3.Gizmoz Characters!
I created one just for practice, follow this link to check him out! I used the text to speech tool so he pronounces the conference Mahetch instead of M.A.H.E.T.C., but it's a start.
I'm really glad Tony brought these little guys up. I had seen ads for them and just assumed that they are similar to those spam electronic paper dolls that pop up all over MySpace and other sites targeted towards screenagers. I really liked the ideas Tony had for ways to integrate these little guys into curriculum. I already can think of a unit in which I want to incorporate them. In fifth grade, my science students study space theories and the theorists that came from them. As it is now, I dress in full costume one day and teach the whole class as if I taking them through a time machine to live the life of one of the scientists. But wouldn't it be cool if one of the stops on the time warp was to meet my "friends" (Gizmoz characters representing other theorists of the time period)?!

4.Wikijunior!
I can think of so many ways for my students to use this! There is the obvious use as a research source. But, even cooler, is the possibility for them to practice critiqueing the validity of a source (among other aspects)! By critiqueing Wikijunior books, students would be meeting both tech and content standards as well as developing the life skills I mentioned in my Life Skills Blog and we discussed in our Wikinomics Chapter 9 discussion blog. It also supports a lot of the research I read on digital textbooks (see my blog on digital textbooks).

5.Texting Google
I was unaware of all of the things that you can get sent to your phone by text messaging! I assumed that "all of that stuff" only came with subscribing to web service on your phone! How exciting!

5.5 (Okay, so I cheated) I love how the conference practices what it preaches! All of the session speakers I went to had all of their information on the wiki. Now more collaboration is happening even after the conference is over! Not only that, but by reading the blogs of others, like Tara's blog on Palms for example, I can learn the information from sessions I was unable to go to!