Leveling Up at #GaETC18

I have “leveled up” after spending three days attending the Georgia Educational Technology Conference (GaETC) in Atlanta.
​I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend the annual #edtech conference and connect with champion educators from around Georgia and beyond. As a learner, I always relish being around other avid learners.  
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This year’s theme was to “level up your learning!” So my goal for the conference was to gain new ideas, tools and resources that I can share with the Atlanta Public Schools teachers, staff and students I support. With #edtech trends constantly evolving, I am always seeking tools and resources that can enhance instruction and engage students.

Fostering students communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking skills is essential for college and career readiness. I think another important C, that ensures students’ success, is choice. Of course tools and resources to foster 21st century skills were a focus of this year's sessions.

I was honored to have the opportunity to share during two sessions this year. My first session was “Get Going with Google Drawings” and I was thrilled to have a room full of educators eager to level up their Google Drawings skills. Drawings is probably my favorite Google app because of its versatility.

​During my session, I shared ideas for teacher utilization and student creation; I highlighted student projects completed during science and social studies lessons facilitated at Inman and ML King Middle Schools. Participants also got a chance to complete tasks to get some hands-on experience with the tools in Drawings, while creating original emojis and memes. By the end of the session, I think quite a few people leveled up with Drawings.

Full house for "Get Going with Google Drawings!"

Dedication, they made it to the last session.

My second presentation “HyperDocs, Say What?” was the last session of the day at 4:30 PM and I was excited by the number of dedicated educators eager to level up with #HyperDocs. I was thrilled to shared the "what, why and how" of hyperDocs. I highlighted the benefits of using hyperDocs to provide engaging and differentiated content for students. We explored examples and ideas for implementation. Attendees participated in a hyperdoc lesson and experienced different Web 2.0 tools used for a lesson introduction (Powtoon), student-response (Answer Garden) note-taking/collaboration (Google Doc), assessment (Quizizz), and reflection tool (FlipGrid).

Getting to share at GaETC was an awesome and humbling experience. 

My goal was to learn, share, and connect during the conference. Connecting with passionate educators and learning from #edtech gurus is energizing.  

​It was great getting seeing Steve Dembo (@Teach42), his session on
digital literacy was interesting and timely, as we need to support
students as they become critical consumers of information.
​The session addressed analyzing as well as creating content such as memes. I am excited to share www.historicaltweets.com  with my social studies teachers. 

I attended an engaging and relevant session on Visual Literacy with Ken Shelton (@K_Shelton) and found his observational analysis activity to be a great way to help students hone their viewing and critical thinking skills. As much as I enjoy video production and working with students to create projects, I loved the video creation and analysis tips shared.

As always, I learn great tips and tricks from Tony Vincent (@TonyVincent) and his “Friendly and Free Photos Clipart and Icons” session did not disappoint. When he showed how you can edit free images available on www.OpenClipart.org with their online editor I was blown away.
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As a avid user of Google Drawings, his session “Create Learning Activities in Google Drawings” provided some ideas to share with my teachers.

A fast-paced and idea infused session “21 Things Every Educator Should Try in the 21st Century" with Carl Hooker (@MrHooker) provided some new tasks to try including drawing a virtual world with www.panoform.com, hosting a student-led podcast, creating student portfolios with www.bulb.com and more.  

Of course I had to grab a front row seat for “Leftovers with Leslie (a tradition)” with Leslie Fisher (@Lesliefisher) and was amazed by the Google Experiments especially Creatability. The Mystery Animal by Google was amusing and a great way to engage students in life science.

​ Two favorite drawing apps Quick Draw and Autodraw are great creativity and critical thinking activities. Of course Leslie loves to share AR & VR tools (MSQRD, Quiver Masks) were a hit.  I am also inspired to start using my Rocketbook.

The closing message from Adam Phyall (@Ask_Adam3) was humorous and inspiring.  You have to "get salty!"

I loved that he had the audience dancing in the aisles.  

Attending and presenting at educational conferences affords me the opportunity to learn best practices, implementation ideas, technology tools and motivates me to grow as a teacher trainer and presenter.

​This year’s GaETC was no exception. Thanks to all the presenters, facilitators, attendees and the conference team. I am excited to share my leveled up learning and already looking forward to #GaETC19.