PPS Instructional Technology

It didn't take long at the MACUL 2016 conference for our next guest blogger, Katelin Lopez - Central Middle School World Languages, to find her inspirations.  She found her big take-away in the opening keynote by Jaime Casap.  Here is her thought provoking reflection... Katelin Lopez - April 13, 2016  My biggest take-away from the MACUL '16 conference was not from a workshop, although they were great too, was actually from one of the keynote speakers, Jaime Casap.  Jaime Casap is part of the Google for Education Team and works with organizations, helping them find ways to improve the quality of education by using and enabling technology capabilities. As Jaime spoke, I kept thinking, "WOW. This guy thinks outside the box. He is so right!" And “I wish my brain worked like his.” Everything he said made total sense to me, but I never would have come to those conclusions on my own. This sheer epiphany in and of itself is exactly what Jaime spoke to. I never w

As promised, here is Part Two of Collin Nuismer's - Central Middle School ELA - MACUL 2016 reflection: Iteration and Student Expectations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA Iteration . I did not know what this word meant before going to MACUL. Now, 3 weeks later, I think this word might define the future of educational design. Iteration consists of success and failure. It’s a techy word used most often to describe endless variations of code, but my favorite definition of it comes from Jamie Casp’s keynote address at MACUL, “[With iteration] there is no end point. There is no final. Do it, learn from it, do it better, keep doing it.” It sounds so simple, right? Do something, learn from your mistakes, do it better next time, learn from those mistakes, do it better again, repeat for infinity.  In a nutshell, that is the formula to being successful at anything in life. Even babies understand iteration. For example, I’m a tremendous walker. I bet you are too. But, you wouldn’

Our next guest blogger, Collin Nuismer - Central Middle School ELA, has written an excellent two part MACUL reflection which I am very excited to share with you all. Below is the first part is his series - Common Ground. What was my big takeaway from MACUL?  To answer that, I want to start with a conversation I had a few weeks after MACUL. After school, I was out enjoying some beverages with a few colleagues and myself and a colleague started an in depth conversation on the role of technology in the classroom and how its role impacts the role of the teacher. My colleague is an over 25 year veteran of teaching, and, seeing as I’ve only been alive for 27 years, you can imagine that we might have had some differing opinions on the role of technology in the classroom. And, for the most part we did. When I mentioned the word “facilitator” instead of “educator” or “instructor” I could see my colleague cringe, as I did when they mentioned teachers being “replaced by technology.” But, w

In Portage, we are rapidly approaching our district-wide 1-to-1 implementation.  As part of our preparation for this implementation, we have been diligently training our teachers on integrating tech into their teaching and blending their instruction.  It has been very exciting watching the teachers rework their instruction and engage their students in new and exciting way.  Our next guest blogger, Darcee Thomas, fifth grade teacher at Moorsbridge, took her MACUL experience to reinvision what her classroom will look like with consistant access to technology tools for her students. I enjoyed attending MACUL this year.  It had been several years since I had been to this conference and it was a great way to get energized about technology in my classroom, especially as we get closer to 1-1 devices in our classroom.  One of the sessions that stood out to me was the “ Breakout EDU ”.  I loved the activity and immediately began thinking of topics/themes to use the classroom.  A few of our st

Collaboration - an education buzz word that gets thrown around as much as a baseball at spring training.  But what happens when we ignore the buzz and truly reflect on what it means to collaborate as educators and to promote true collaboration with our students?  Our next guest blogger, Malena Schrauben - Central Middle School, Science and Computer Science - reflects on those very questions after her MACUL 2016 experience. #Collaboration   “How many of you can tell me the first four presidents of the United States? Not many right? But, if I gave you 30 seconds to collaborate all of you could do it.” -Jaime Casap, Google   These words, from the opening keynote of MACUL ‘16, really hit home for me. I promote a blended learning classroom, and I am constantly looking for ways to make the most of my learning environment.  Learning in isolation is a thing of the past and does not promote an environment where our children will exist in the future. With our transition to 1-1 technology i

Whenever you go to a conference you have not attended before, you never know what you are going to get.  Will it be beneficial, or a waste of your time?  Will you walk away wondering if anything you learned will be implemented in your district, or will you rush back energized to try new things?  The MACUL conference is a big investment in a teachers time and energy.  It is a two-day conference that will require the teachers to be away from their students and families for that time.  It means preparing two days of sub-plans, crossing your fingers that they find a sub for your class for both days,   organizing transportation, and figuring out what exactly you want to focus on at a conference with more choices of sessions to attend than you could ever imagine.  It is an investment in time and energy, so I am always curious to hear what our "first-timers" think when they return.  Our next guest blogger is Michal Vandenberg.  She is a third grade teacher at Lake Center Elementary

When we talk about blended learning, many elementary teachers believe we are referring to something that can only be done at the middle and high schools.  This, however, is not the case.  Whether you are hosting a discussion in Google classroom or administering formative assessments on the fly , blending is for everyone, K-12!  Our next guest blogger, Todd Heerlyn - Third grade teacher at Moorsbridge, shares some of the wonderful elementary resources he discovered at MACUL. MACUL was a really good experience! I was completely amazed at what was out there in the world of technology. There are so many opportunities to use technology in any subject in the classroom. I'm really excited and completely overwhelmed to go back to the classroom and start using some of the things that I picked up there.   I started to learn more about the online formative assessment tools ( kahoot , quizizz.com , socrative.com , Google Forms , etc.).  I'm hoping to utilize more of this in my classro

We have been focusing a lot on Blended Learning here at Portage Public Schools, and each day we continue to introduce new teachers to the concept of Blended Learning.  It is always great when teachers are able to go to a conference and explore the topic you have been investigating from another district's or teacherss perspective.  Today's guest blogger, Ally Leverett - fourth grade teacher at Lake Center Elementary, was able to learn how to incorporate aspects of coding and blended learning into her classroom thanks to the MACUL conference. "Well...there are so many things that intrigued me at MACUL that it was hard to choose just one "big idea" I walked away with. However, since the conference I have showed my students the Scratch website, as well as the 21Things4Students website. They were so excited to be able to code and I actually have some coding experts in my room that I didn't even know about! Those students are now the "go to" references

I have been attending MACUL now for five years and each year I notice that the conference morphs more and more from a solely technology-focused event to a conference that focused on teaching and learning with technology.   I see this as a valuable transformation.  Our next guest blogger, Kevin Luteyn - Fourth Grade teacher at Moorsbridge Elementary in Portage, models this blended focus on instruction and technology with his takeaways from his second MACUL experience. "This year was another great year at MACUL.  There was yet again so many different ideas on ways to incorporate technology into the classroom.  What I thought was most intriguing was the fact that most of the sessions were not total technology-based.  They shared ideas that they used for learning and showed how you could use technology to enhance the learning, which is exactly what needs to be done.  It really felt like the main idea is still that technology doesn't replace teaching, it is used to offer alternat

March is a hard time to try something new in your classroom.  You already have your routines set, your expenctations are crystal clear, and your curriculum is rolling along at a steady pace.  Breaking that flow and trying something new can not only be challenging, but also intimidating.  Our next guest blogger, Kitty Broderick - Third Grade teacher at Woodland Elementary in Portage Public Schools, shows us all why it's okay to make the leap in March and try something new... your students will thank you! "This year at MACUL I was ready to take something back and implement it right away!  That was my goal.  No longer would I say, "Oh that's a great website.  I'll plan on starting it next school year.  I don't think I have time for it in my schedule at this point in the school year." Starting something new in March is hard (for teachers).  We already have a set routine, students know the expectations for each part of the day, and teachers are busy tryin

There are certain learning opportunities that, as an ed-tech educator, I look forward to each year.  The MACUL Conference is one of those.  I love learning new instructional techniques, tools, and tips that I can use with my students and pass on to my fellow teachers here at PPS .  I love the energy of the conference and the way I come back rejuvinated and ready to race to the end of the school year.  This year the MACUL (Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning) Conference took place March 9-11th in Grand Rapids.  Portage was able to bring around 50 excited educators and administrators to the conference this year.  We also had numerous staff members who presented at the conference on topics that ranged from Modern Media Centers to Blended Learning.  I had so many "proud parent" moments watching our teachers and students present, share, collaborate, network, and learn together.  I feel very blessed to work with such an amazing group of educators. As a way to re