Great Learning Opportunities

This fall I have had the chance to take part in some great professional development opportunities. In October I attended the Monday sessions at the ITEC conference in Des Moines. I would highly recommend this conference to anyone looking for technology professional development. As an art teacher I was very interested in how others have integrated technology into their art curriculum.
iPads seem to be the tool of choice in art classrooms. I was very interested in the SloMo app for the iPad. with this application you can create stop motion videos. My students have expressed an interest in trying this, it should be quite an adventure.
I also learned about Sketchbook Express. This is an application that is similar to Photoshop but more user friendly.
So many great ideas for using iPads in the classroom, Little Bird Tales for storytelling, Auto Rap for creating rap videos, Rory's Story, Screen Chomp, Kabaam, Toontastic Doodle Buddy, bluster, Boogle, Work Flick, JibJab books, Word Monkey and so many others.

But one of the  most amazing things I saw was an iPad orchestra. This is not the exact video we watched that day but it is just as amazing.

Last Friday, November 30th, I attended the 1:1 Conference hosted by Iowa AEA267.
I attended sessions discussing personal learning networks for both students and teachers, listened to a panel of school leaders discuss their success and learning opportunities as they implemented 1:1 programs in their schools. Heard the Waverly-Shell Rock Technology team talk about managing iPads in a 1:1 environment, and listened to a fantastic speaker about Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.
You can access the presentation slides for the Web 2.0 tools session at this link: Http://bit.ly/shannonmmiller
You can also follow Shannon on Twitter @shannonmmiller

I also was introduced to Candy Chang and her I Wish This Was... project. 

How can you not be inspired by this story? 

I have found these conferences to be so valuable to my growth as an educator.  A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to be the presenter as  the Eastern Iowa Catholic Educators Tech Trainer conference. If you are interested you can view the Google Presentation that my co-teacher Pam Schmitt and I presented, introducing Scratch in education. 

If  you are ever wondering if these types of conferences are worth the time and money, the answer is yes, I have never come away feeling that it was not a learning experience.