Time for a new blog post and this time I am on the road and blogging from ISTELive 23 in Philadelphia. I’m going to blog my way through each session I go to/each activity that I do. That means these posts will get updated throughout the day and I’ll post at night.
First session – Designing for Deeper, Personalized Learning with Scott McLeod
This session is all about moving tech to an integral part of the lesson and using the 4 Shifts Protocol to help us get our students to deeper learning. It was a longer session that was designed to help us work through the protocol to redesign lessons. It was a great session for coaches, teachers, teacher prep teachers, etc. Love these ideas surrounding the 4 Shifts protocol and I can’t wait to incorporate this into my teaching, especially when we talk about lesson planning with the Job-embedded Practitioners. You can out more about Scott’s work with the 4 Shifts Protocol at dangerouslyirrevelant.org and about the books he has written for everyone involved in Education.
After the first session, I had volunteer training. BTW, volunteering is a great way to save money at conferences. A lot of times being a volunteer for a set number of hours will get you a discount or free registration.
Second Session – Creative Journaling for Teachers with Nichole Carter
This session is all about journaling and the benefits of journaling as a teacher. Nichole went over the 8 key concepts in a journal, but also emphasized that you don’t necessarily need to use all of them. Lots of great info about how to make your key and when to know that you might need to take something off your list. Thinking through how you want to set up your journal, how you want it to look, paper vs. digital, how you want to use it, etc. Super interesting thoughts about how to use a journal to help us save time and give us an outlet for creativity for ourselves. You can find more info about Nichole and the books she has written about journaling and sketchnoting on her website : https://www.mrscarterhla.com/. If you haven’t head of sketchnoting, it is a great way for students to visualize concepts and take notes. It definitely speaks to your students that prefer visual learning or love to doodle.
She also talked about ways to use reflection layouts to help us as teacher to think positively about the classroom or to do a lesson reflection at the end of the day or week. Really stressing that journaling is about making it for you, not for everyone else. If you think back to some of the things we have discussed on the Perfect Chaos Podcast, you know that both David and I are big about being your own kind of person and being your own kind of teacher. She’s also talking about how you can use those school planners that schools give students and use washi tape or stickers to help those become more interesting and more likely to be used by students. (Side note: It seems like this would be one of those skills that we need to teach our students. Things like planning or journaling). Giving great ideas of how to make the things that are cute in a way that is super easy.
ISTE Mainstage
Ok. I can’t even describe to you what the ISTE Mainstage is like. The music was rocking, everybody was excited, speakers were great, and exciting announcements were shared. It was so much fun to just sit and chill and listen with several thousand of my closest friends.
ISTE Community Leaders Meetup
Okay, Margret Atkinson (the fearless leader of the ISTE Community Leaders and so many other things) is an absolute rock star. She got us all together, we went bowling, we ate, we networked, we hugged, we put bodies to the Zoom heads, it was an amazing time! I cannot stress enough the importance of conferences with like minded people. People that get you and share your passions. People that roll their sleeves up and work together to find solutions, people that inspire you, people that you would love to learn more from, and people that seek you out of a crowd of over 17,000 to check on you and say hi. Back to Margret. I honestly can’t say enough about Margret. She knows all the community leaders names, she recognizes us, she speaks to us, she gives the best hugs, she’s always smiling, she’s so appreciative for what the community leaders contribute, I truly can’t say enough about how much I appreciate her. She’s one of the most amazing humans that doesn’t truly know what she means to the people around her.
End of the Day
Ok. That brings us to the end of the day. I’m super tired. I’m a little hoarse. I didn’t eat appropriately today, I walked a ton, I met new people, I collaborated with people that I had not seen in person before, and I feel overwhelmingly amazing. It is busy and crowded and so much fun. I’ll try to make sure I blog throughout the day tomorrow as well. For tonight, peace, love, and perfect chaos.
