What I learned at METC

I can't believe all of the new ideas I gained on Tuesday at this phenomenal conference.  The first session I went to was "The Giant Tablet in the Room".  I have a smart board in my room but there are so many great ideas out there and unfortunately so little time to actually check them all out.  The ladies who presented were great.  They offered some great resources and a great smart notebook slides that allows you to use the great ideas.  One of my favorite things they offered was the Extreme Collaboration.  It is a place where your whole class can get on one page and use their own device to send messages to the board.  You can ask questions/suggestion/praise/etc.  It really is a great tool that students and PLC's could even use.  You could ask questions and answer them at the end of the discussion.

The second session I attended was "Avoiding the Breakfast Club".  This session had to do with using PBIS and making videos to teach the building expectations.  I found this session helpful in ways that I can make the videos and different ideas of what I could do.

The third session I attended was "Reading, Responding, & Researching Using Tablets with the Reluctant Reader".  I found this session hard for me to sit through.  I was hoping that it was more of what I can do with my students who don't like to read by using a tablet.  Instead it was about a school that used the tablets for reading for all students.  They shared a lot of information of how it worked but I struggled with relating this to my class.

My fourth session was by far one of my favorites.  I chose "Ten Ways to Shake It Up".  She had a lot of great ideas and a great personality that made it really interesting.  One of the ones I was really excited about was using Pandora in the class.  I have used it before but was going to start using it again on Wednesday.  I was so disappointed to find out that it has been blocked:(  I also learned about another great  site that streams youtube videos commercial free, safechair.tv.  These were just a few of the great ideas I learned from this session.

My fifth and final session was "Digital Storytelling".  This session had a lot of different sites you can use to help create digital stories.

Overall I felt like I walked away with a plethora of knowledge.  I was excited to use new ideas and be refreshed on the old ones.  I know that there is still so much more for me to dig deeper into, but I felt like I got a great start on some of the big things I wanted to try.