WeTech Symposium 2013

West Essex Technology Symposium 2013
Formula for Success: Technology + Teaching  = Student Engagement

I attended the West Essex Technology Symposium at West Essex Regional High School on Saturday March 2nd, 2013. I was asked to present on 21st Century Administrator and on the Connected Educator versus the Connected Generation by Raquel Williams, the organizer of the event. Before the event, through Twitter, I realized that some of the members of my Professional Learning Network (PLN) would be also presenting at the event which was exciting because it is always great to see colleagues, more like personal friends, that as passionate about instructional technology as yourself. Some of the presenters included Elissa Malespina, Melissa Butler, Kevin Jarrett, Scott Rocco, Samantha Morra, Lisa Thumann, Diane Potts, Patrick Higgins and others that focused on the theme of the conference on student engagement using technology.

Scott Rocco was the keynote speaker and he gave the attendees "food for thought" regarding engaging students in the instructional process by the integration of technology within the classroom. Scott stated technology doesn't care about the title we hold, it cares that we are educators. He suggested the need the to get the formula out of technology+teaching= student engagement to be as popular as Einstein's E=mc2. Technology in the classroom should be viewed as a tool just as a pencil is a tool. Students wants this technology and they want it now as apart of their classroom instruction. In order to engage these students, we as educators, therefore need to be engaged. As educators we need to help others to adopt the use of technology during day to day instruction so that it becomes a part of their everyday life and decision making. The 21st century employee or entrepreneur will need to use technology be innovative and creative in the economic climate present today and for the future. His keynote can be found here Keynote Presentation

After the keynote, I then attended Scott's session on Rethinking Leadership through Social Media. One of the highlights of attending this session was to meet William Stites from edSocialMedia. He has been mentioned several times to me by the district Apple representatives on the technology integration at Montclair Kimberly Academy and it's 1-1 program. In the presentation by Scott, he mentioned the need to use Social Media to get the positive message out about our schools and a means to communicating to stakeholders of the district. Scott's blog Evolving Educators can be found at http://tinyurl.com/ccaks2j. Modeling the behavior that he wanted his staff to follow was important so that his staff begin to follow his methods. Using technology to communicate to his staff on what was happening in his school district was something he wanted to implement. He shared several Web 2.0 Tools he used including LiveBinder, Smores, Twitter, Blogging, etc. His video interview with Teachcast can be seen here Scott Rocco's Interview with TeacherCast. 

After this session, I attended the session where a student panel, moderated by Lisa Thumann, discussed the use of technology in the classroom. Students were primarily from West Essex but there were students from Caldwell. The students believed that the use of technology in instruction is positive, and there is a need for more teachers to get involved in using technology in the classroom. As quoted from the Alternative Press in West Essex, Andrew Rubinich of Fairfield, who hopes to become an English or business teacher, said he would like to see more teachers “utilize devices  that students can control for themselves.” He said it would benefit students if more teachers used Edmodo which allows students to submit work online.

I then presented/presided on the 21st Century Administrator round table. Many of the attendees were from West Essex Regional High School and the conversation was about using technology in their everyday duties. Everyone mentioned that the lack of time to do Social Media, Blog, etc. is very hard to do because of the demands of the administrative position. Some of the demands mentioned were the new HIB guidelines, New Teacher Evaluation requirements, student discipline, budget, safety and other leadership duties of a school administrator. 

My TeacherCast Interview.