ISTE Thoughts - Day 2

Now that I'm back in the comfort of my own home and not the rat-trap, hell-hole, worst. hotel. EVER. - Holiday Inn where my friend and I had to stay... I can happily give you my Day 2 ISTE report.

(Side Note... I feel it's my civic duty to tell you, my faithful blog readers, that if you are ever in San Diego and need a hotel STAY FAR AWAY from Holiday Inn on the Bay.  My friend had bed-bugs in her room...  I saw cockroaches running around the exterior of the hotel.... A shoebox was larger than my room...  Hotel Management was awful!  ::Shudders::)

Anyway, on to nicer things.

Here are two pictures I took from the view from the hotel.  Lots of great views in SD... 

For ISTE Day 2, I didn't go to as many sessions as I did on the first day.  There were a few that interested me for sure, but I had discovered that many interesting sessions were going to be available for "Video-On-Demand" starting today.  So, I can sit back and view those sessions from home.  I went to one fantastic session, though!  It was by Adam Bellow from edutecher.org.  He listed through so many great education websites that we can use in our classrooms.  For the list... you can check them all out at his edutecher website - HERE!

Also, his company is launching a Pinterest website that is strictly for education called - educlipper.org  I think he's on the right track with this website and it will be broken up into the sections we've all be creating on our own through Pinterest.  It's in beta, but check it out and sign up.

A view from the back upstairs patio of the San Diego Convention Center.  Beautiful.  I love California.

What my friend and I did devote our time to was the Exhibit Hall, since that wouldn't be around to watch later.  We sat through presentations from companies, got more free stuff and... we even WON a few things.  I mean, check out all this stuff!

My friend - WON AN IPAD2!  Amazing right?!  I'm happy for her, since she hasn't been able to get one yet and I already have one.  We both won cool stylus/presenter laser pointers too.  We were able to rock this American President game from All in One Learning.  Their program seems very informative about grading and linking back to common core.  If only our very NON-Techie Principal will go for it.  (He likes to let other schools take risks and then see if they work out before signing us up for things.)

Here's the pile of freebies from the exhibit hall on Day Two.  My husband tried to be excited when I showed him all this stuff... but I know you guys will share my joy!

Then, when I got home, I checked my work email and lo and behold.... I won a free school site subscription to Brain Pop!!!  Whoo hooo!  I'm SO happy because I think that's a great prize that my entire school can benefit from.

Then, finally... we were headed home.  My wonderful husband and son were able to come down and spend the last day there with me.  This is Liam when he gets a hold of my iPhone.  Goofy kid!

ISTE Thoughts Day #1

I. Am. Tired!

Today was the first day of the ISTE conference and my friend and I hit the conference with a vengeance.  We were there for the first set of sessions that started at 8:30am and stayed straight through to the last set of sessions that ended at 5:15pm.

...passes out from exhaustion...

Before I hit some highlights, I'm going to share a few pictures.  There's also a very FULL exhibition hall (that we did about half of), poster sessions with students (which we skimmed) and checked out the bookstore.

I got a free shirt for facebooking about this company!  Teachingfirst.com

eBooks on Demand!  Download for $1.00 each!

Interactive Maps Poster

The ISTE "Sails" Pavilion - The bookstore, blogger lounge and other hangouts were in this area.

Inside Ballroom 20cd...  Great because I finally had some room to breathe!

A collection of all my FREE stuff that I got in the exhibit hall.  I still have 1/2 the booths left to visit!

Cute Shirt!

Awesome canvas tote bags!

Conference Highlights...

Alan November - November Learning -- a pleasure to attend his sessions because he's always so thought-provoking!  He mentioned that we need to help our students learn how to accurately search the internet and not just use whatever junk pops up in Google first.  Also, did you know that your Google searches will change based on your geographical location?!  So, if I'm in Southern California, I could receive an entirely different set of google hits versus someone who might be searching from England.  That's important to consider.

Tammy Worcester - Tammy's Technology Tips -- Despite a few technology issues getting started, it was a really quick paced session that discussed a bunch of different ideas.  Check out QR Hacker - take student audio and make it into a QR code!

Google Certified Teachers SLAM - Again, another quick session that had multiple teachers share some quick Google Tips!

Cool Things I Never Knew About...

beta.ck12.org - Create free custom online textbooks!  The booth guys were really great and this seems like an awesome resource!


plickers - Do you want clickers for your classroom, but can't afford them?  Check out plickers - you hold up the card in a certain way in front of a webcam (mounted to shoot the whole class) and it will record your vote!  Awesome.

PollEverywhere.com -- Have your kids with smartphones or computer access vote remotely!  This is awesome and FREE for classroom teachers (if you keep the presentations small.)

And a big sparkly THANK YOU to all my newest followers!  108?  Insane!  I started this crazy little blog because I missed my teaching friends at my old (now current) school.  Thank you for listening to me and I will definitely be rewarding you all when I do my 100 Follower Giveaway.  (Sometime NEXT week.  I have to recover from ISTE!)