My eyes start to soak in the scene in front of me.  A lobby FILLED with people walking in all different directions, some chatting with colleagues, some looking down at a device, others standing and looking around trying to figure out where to go.  A smile reaches across my face, my nose scrunches up, my heart starts to beat a little faster and a tiny giggle secretly bellows in my belly.  I want to let out a little scream… My first ISTE Conference and I can’t wait to share a few of my favorite sessions!

Fostering Creativity through Visual Storytelling with Keynote delivered by fellow ADE’s Wes Molyneaux @WesMolyneaux and Ben Mountz @BenMountz
This session on using Keynote for storytelling was awesome! Not only did you get to use a new iPad with Apple Pencil, you also had many ADEs around to help you if you got stuck.  Participants were led through a series of activities to try on the iPad.  We were able to choose from all of the new shapes and manipulate the size, color, and direction of the shape.  We also got rid of the unwanted background in photos using instant alpha, animated the shapes and photos using magic move and my favorite, using the drawing tool and animating the drawing.  (I will be posting about another Apple session and share some fun ideas that I will be trying for the beginning of the school year, so come back soon!) Everyone Can Create Curriculum
My takeaway from the session: You can use Keynote to tell a variety of different stories using animation, audio, video, drawing and more ALL created IN Keynote.  Oh, and a big game changer, you can export your keynote creation AS A MOVIE!!

One STEM Chicago: Building a Digital STEM Community delivered by Michael Kosko @mrkosko
This presentation highlighted the program developed at CPS “One STEM Chicago” which uses the hashtag #cpsSTEM to help build communication, collaboration, and showcase all of the wonderful things students and teachers are doing in the classroom.  Three times last school year, teachers were asked to participate in a STEM related challenge/activity.  If a teacher was interested in participating, they filled out a Google form providing information such as school, grade level, and most importantly, a time that is good for the class to Skype or Google Hangout with another classroom.  Within a specific timeline in the fall, classrooms set time aside during recess, choice time, or whenever the teacher could find about 30 – 60 minutes in the schedule to let the students create a film canister rocket.  As the students create their rockets, they document EVERYTHING; steps in creation process, photos and videos, data collected from the rocket taking off, changes they had to make after testing, etc.  Students also spent time watching a video of an actual rocket scientist who shared information about rockets.  The last part of the activity was the time to Skype with the other classroom.  During this visit, students shared their creations, answered specific questions, and had meaningful conversations around the topic of the rocket building.  This whole process happened two more times throughout the school year with different STEM challenges.
My takeaway: This is definitely something I am going to try and duplicate within my district.  I think it will help build community around the topic of STEM which is needed right now.

#BookSnaps: Snapchat for Annotation and Digital Visualization delivered by creator Tara Martin @TaraMartinEdu
If you are looking for a way to get your students excited about sharing their thoughts on what they are reading, then you should give #BookSnaps a try!  Basically, you take a picture of a page in a book you are reading and annotate it “Snapchat” style. There are only two rules, include the title of the book and the author in your snap.  That is it, the rest is up to your student’s creativity.  Students can make #MathSnaps out of math problems, #Historysnaps, or #Sciencesnaps.   Whatever subject you teach, you can use this idea! My favorite #snap for the beginning of the year: #REALyouSnaps where the student takes a selfie and adds emojis, stickers, words, etc. showing who they are.  You can put them all together in the Clips app to make a movie and have it playing during Open House Night at the beginning of the year.
My takeaway: Tara’s story of how #BookSnaps became a huge sensation really hit home for me as her story is a perfect real life example of the message I share with my students ALL THE TIME.  Don’t be afraid to take risks, share your ideas with the world beacause your voice matters and you never know who will be listening.

I “heard” the same message over and over at ISTE, and I am so glad I did.  This message is what I try to do each day as I work with students in our weCreate Lab and it makes me smile, scrunch up my nose, and giggle secretly to myself: The job of a teacher is to help students become curators of ideas, creators, change makers, and global partners.

Now that… is Positively Techie!