As a Special Education teacher, I sometimes don't get to participate in the training offered to gen ed teachers, but this time I did. And it was awesome! Aside from the sessions, I had the opportunity to get to know some of the teachers I would be working with during the next school year. I think that's crucial. Being able to connect through shared experience allows people to be more comfortable with each other. The inside jokes next school year will make sense, and brings a sense of camaraderie. I was able to have wonderful conversations about the upcoming school year and my role in their classrooms. I've also come to the conclusion that in education and twitter realm, collaboration is to cheating as lurking is to stalking!
So here's a list of my "take-aways" and the best things for me that I will remember from CAMT. I really don't think you can go to a training or presentation and use everything they give you. I think you take what you can use and make it your own. While there was a lot of useful information given during the sessions, these tidbits are what I will remember and what I experienced that I will be able to implement immediately. I saved the best for last.
1. Getting to know my colleagues at a more personal level. Being able to learn about their families and how they view things was very insightful. As an inclusion/resource teacher, I have to blend into their environment. I have to go into their classrooms and not be a pain in their side. Getting to know them before school starts was a great advantage.
2. Getting to see Dan Meyer present. CAMT allowed me to see someone that I probably wouldn't have been able to see otherwise. I'm somewhat technologically competent, but I'm still learning new things every day it seems. Dan shared some tools on how to keep up to date with a rss reader and Keepvid. I will definitely check those out in greater detail.
3. Sharing the experiences from the day with my colleagues over dinner. I enjoyed getting to hear about their sessions and what they took from them. It was like getting the good information from 16 sessions instead of just the 3 or 4 I attended that day. Oh, and dinner...can you say fabulous Mexican food? Me gusta Casa Rio! Muy bien! The wildlife made the experience even better. This little guy pecked (gently) me four times wanting to share my tortilla chips.
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| River Walk Duck (and fish too!) |
4. Learning a new game from another teacher at my table. It was a multiplication (or addition) game with three people and playing cards. Two students draw a card and place it to their forehead so that their partners can see it, but they don't look at it. So, John drew a 6 and Sue drew a 5. Bob says, "The product of your numbers is 30." Well, Sue can see John's card, so she replies, "My number is 5." By seeing John's card and knowing that 6 times 5 is 30, she was able to figure out her number. REALLY like this! Practical way to get in fact practice.
5. "Give me a drum roll! Hands up!" Love this attention getter introduced to me by Hellen Grahmann from Huntsville ISD. She also shared A paperclip spinner. Yep, I'm still new...and learning!
5. "We've Got Ideas, Yes We Do!, We've Got Ideas, How 'bout You?" I was a little leery about the title of this session at 8:30 in the morning, but don't judge a book by its cover, right?! Cathy Redix and Kimberly Capers from Cypress-Fairbanks ISD "brought it" during their session and it was a great start to the day. They shared "Commit and Toss" where students write ideas on a sheet of paper, crumple it up and toss it across the room. I think that would be a great anonymous way to share ideas especially for those students who don't want to share in front of the entire class.
6. Getting advice from another teacher. We were sitting in a not so full room and after looking at the catalog and seeing the info on the presenter she said that she didn't really like to go to presenters that were from a company. She preferred presenters that were actual classroom teachers that were willing to share information and not trying to sell you something. She got up and left. After attending an "Infomercial" session previously, I knew exactly what she meant. I chose the remainder of my sessions more wisely. And will next year too!
7. Having a great roommate. She was very positive, supportive and a great conversationalist. She was so great at conversation and easy to talk to, that we stayed up until 1:00 one night. Great stuff!
8. Coming up with my own ideas during a session. While sitting in Shere Salinas' session about vocabulary a new idea (to me) came to mind on how to use @aurasma in the classroom. She suggested using word walls for vocabulary, but I thought about taking it further and creating an Aura for each word. And maybe letting the students create the auras so its more meaningful to them?! I still have much learning to do about Aurasma, but I hope to use it a little bit during the school year.
9. Rami Tulp's session over Problem Solving and Critical Thinking in Numerical and Algebraic Reasoning. She presented a novel way to review students without making them complete a plain old worksheet. She worked out a test and purposefully answered some of the questions wrong. She made copies of the test and gave them to the students to "check". Their job was to find the mistakes. Kids will love that!
10. Getting to meet Todd Nesloney. The BEST overall experience was getting to meet and see @TechNinjaTodd share his experiences of a flipped classroom blended with PBL. His enthusiasm and passion was captivating. His session was the ONLY session I attended (out of 11) where the teachers in the room, myself included, applauded after he was done. I took a friend with me and we both left feeling excited and energized. She looked at me and said, "Let's do it!" Meaning that she wants to create a flipped and PBL lesson. While in the lobby of our hotel waiting for our luggage and car, she was trying to download Teach Like a PIRATE. After we got our car loaded, I was so distracted by the conversation that I sat behind a parked car for a good 2-3 minutes just waiting for them to move before one of the hotel employees had to tell us that the car was parked! (Duh...!) We spent the next hour of our trip home sharing what we had heard in Todd's presentation. We tossed around ideas about flipped classrooms and PBL too. Throughout the entire trip, I subtly tried to put out plugs for Twitter, TechNinjaTodd and Teach Like a PIRATE. After seeing the other teachers get excited with us while we were sharing his presentation, I really wanted to say (in a loud teacher voice), "SEE!! THAT'S what I've been talking about!" Another teacher also said, "OK, you have me convinced, I'll take another look at my Twitter account." Score!
I was already familiar with a lot of the information Todd shared by reading his blog, but I didn't know what Sophia really was. He explained that it was a place to get flipped class certified. That's on my to-do list before school starts. He also answered some of the questions that I had about students who don't have internet. He said he sent home DVD's, iPad Nanos with the lesson loaded on them, and also loaded the lessons onto USB drives. He also answered what to do about students who didn't watch the videos. They would have to watch the video in class and do worksheets associated with the lesson while the other students participated in the project. And what about those students who were bossy? Just put them together and let them work it out! Love it! Maybe it will give them an opportunity to see what they look like!
Overall, I enjoyed the CAMT experience. I hope to go next year, but I still have @EdcampFWTX to look forward to!
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