Monday, October 11, 2010




2010 NJAET 23rd Conference "Riding the Tech Wave"

at Georgian Court University

I will be attending the NJAET conference tomorrow 10/12/10. Some of the workshops that I will be attending include " Reaching the Digital Immigrant", "Web 2.0 Riding High on the New Wave", "Increasing Functional Language in Preschool Children with Special Needs", etc. Many of the workshops look very interestingand I am looking forward to learning new technology tools and strategies for the classroom. Hopefully, I will be able to implement some of these new ideas in the school district. I will be twittering taking pictures and videos during the conference.

4 comments:

Sandra Paul said...

The conference is well on it's way. Many of the attendees are already in their workshops which include "Using Educational Blogs in the Elementary Classroom" by Dr. Nicole Luongo, "iLife-Digital Multimedia for Education!" by Dave Marra, Reaching the Digiatl Immigrants by Mike Marotta, etc. The attendees seem excited about the conference and many are planning to integrate what they learn today into the classroom. The casino has many vendors including Teq, ZUMU, Meru networks, Read Naturally, etc.

Sandra Paul said...

Second session is almost done and some of the attendees are now entering the casino for lunch.

Sandra Paul said...

I attended an afternoon session on Portable,Cost-effective, Interactive Technology Infused Learning Experience by Agnes Zaorski. She mentioned about using the Mimio interactive device that can be used with any whiteboard in her classes in Eatontown. She mentioned how she used Stationery Studio for used to use for writing lesson at the elementary levels. The students can type in their information directly on the templates and create multiple pages for their projects. This can then be converted into a book format. These books can be shared between students or classes that also allows for additions to the book with whom they shared their books with in the classrooms. These interactive books were used in email to keypals to communicate with other students in the same grade level. The interactive book can be exported to a website in a jpeg to other image format. She mentioned the Drupal website for creating websites and Smart Moves created by Stationery Studio that teachers can use to get students to move around before beginning class. The presentation was very good.

Sandra Paul said...

Later attended a workshop on Connecting the Community by John Volpa, a NJAET grant winner. He used the grant to purchase the Pasco Spark Science Learning Systems. He was looking at the Pine Barrens preservation and trying to mimic what the preservation found. He wanted his sixth graders to understand the ecosystem around where the students live. The students collected specimens in the area including prints of Black Bears which are not native to the Pine Barrens. The students found a Pine Barrens frog that is an endangered specie. The acidity of the water in the area is high and the native specie can survive these areas. Using GPS and GIS with the ArcGIS program, the students had an opportunity to use this technology to map what they saw from the information they found regarding their research. He overviewed the entire project with his students. They used GPS and measuring wheels to loacte sizes of properties. ArcGIS mapping was uses layers to show lakes and streams. He used this to access each student's home property and demonstrated how much of their property was native and how much is non-native (grass). The presentation was very good!