The ISTE Conference is concluding. It was an amazing crowd, very large. Most were walking around with their iPad or tablet gathering information in many forms. There were many conversations to be had. I had a great experience networking with likeminded professionals.
Tom and I conducted a Poster session. At first I was unsure of what I should do, but then I thought people will ask me then I will know… Hmm well it worked out ok. We had a great poster (see below) highlighting some mapping tools which we wanted to share at our Model Lesson session. The people came in mass numbers. We talked to so many people about how to engage and motivate kids with these types of tools. What amazed me was their willingness to accept the ideas and try. Most were just trying to wrap their curriculum around our concepts and ideas. But through the power of conversation lots of ideas were shared.
Today Tom and I conducted our Model Lesson. We did not have a full house but we had a very engaged audience. After our short introduction the ‘students’ were put to work. They were challenged with creating a map with at least 5 points of interest using Scribble Maps. Many questions were asked and the ‘students’ did the answering. At the end of the 20 minutes we had over 30 different maps that were produced for all kinds of reasons, vacation travels, historical points, tourist attractions, just to name a few. The session turned out to be informative and engaging. I was pleased.
Dr. Sue Bedard 