TCEA 2014... Learned Some Things

I was lucky to be able to attend TCEA 2014 which is basically a technology conference for educators for those not familiar.  Since I have become embedded in edu tech over the last few years, I have looked for more and more opportunities to share my thoughts and learn from others.  TCEA is just one of those venues.

Over the course of this semester I will be looking into and implementing some of the following ideas I've gotten from TCEA sessions this week (more to come).

1.  Pen Pals - Oldie BUT  a Goodie with a Techie Twist
I am hoping to find digital pen pals with another secondary class somewhere outside of TX.   I'm actually hoping to find a class outside of the U.S.  I will ask them to email or use some other form of written communication (blog?) that I can monitor for a period of time and use this to help students with their writing...  Maybe even do a Google Hangout at the end.  I LOVE GHO, but that's for another blog.

2.  Google Docs - specifically for student collaboration
I use Google Docs for myself a lot for collaboration with coworkers and other edu tech colleagues, but I am now going to jump in with both feet to incorporate collaboration among my classes/students and PBL groups using Google Docs.  No MORE WASTED time!  This is a big subject, so I will just leave it at that for now until I implement.  I will post more during a project.  Perhaps our Novel unit coming up in a few weeks.  (See later Blog labeled Doctopus)

3.  Gamification! - for flipped learning and stations
I will use some cool gaming sites to deliver some of the more boring content that needs repetition and perhaps in a flipped setting.  This is REALLY new to me, so I'm looking forward to this one. Kahoot is a big one I'm excited to try out!  Google Forms is an option as well.  We currently have a staff member using Google Forms for student game end products, and it has worked well.

4.  ePortfolios
Still not sure what platform, but plan to use an ePortfolio next school year and do a trial run for our Research and Creative Writing units coming up after testing.

Those are my BIG ideas for now for implementation.  I will blog in more detail about each as I implement and share their projects/end products as we move through them and test them out!

That's it for now...

Maas Out!