Tag Archives: Angie Kalthoff

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CMLE Winners at the ITEM Conference!

It is always good to get professional awards. And when they come from your peers, they are even more special! At this year’s Information and Technology Educators of Minnesota (ITEM) conference in Minneapolis, CMLE was proud to have not one but TWO winners!!

item-award-winners
From the left: Willie L. Jett II, Angie Kalthoff, Maria Burnham, and Erich Martens

Angie Kalthoff, @mrskalthoff,is a Technology Integrationist in St Cloud School District 742. She won the award for Technology Support  She was joined by her very proud Superintendent Willie L. Jett II. Right after the ITEM conference ended, she continued her advocacy for libraries and technology work by leading sessions at the Code.org workshop at the North Dakota Association of Technology Leaders conference in Minot!

Our own CMLE Board President Maria Burnham, @MariaBurnham4 ,Technology Integrationist at Sauk Rapids-Rice High School, won the award for Library Media Specialist of the Year. She was joined by her equally proud Principal Erich Martens.

Both Angie and Maria have been very active in the library community of central Minnesota; as well as both reaching out to work with their peers. I can tell you that the applause for both women was thundering, as the conference attendees recognized the work they have done to improve service and technology for their communities. It was great to see, and to be a part of, the celebration of the achievements of so many interesting library people.

Take a moment to applaud their achievements! It is great to work in a community with high-achieving people; we all benefit from their example, and we can all work out new strategies to keep our skills sharp and our library services aimed helping our patrons!!

General, School Media Specialist

Guest Blogger: ISTE 2016, A CMLE Scholarship Report

ISTE photo 2The following post was submitted by CMLE scholarship recipient Angie Kalthoff, Technology Integrationist at St. Cloud Area School District. You can also view the post on her blog. 

This blog post is my reflection for the CMLE scholarship I received to help cover part of my cost to attend ISTE 2016. I am sending a big THANK YOU to the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange (CMLE) for your support. 

The two questions I will reflect on include:

  • What were your favorite takeaways or new things learned?
  • As a result of attending this event, can you identify and explain a few things you can use/apply to your work or practice?

BreakOut EDU

Who is ready for something different?! I am, and I am excited about BreakOut EDU. James and Mark created a box with locks that correspond to numerous lessons you can pick for your students to solve and break open the box. It has been really neat to see their journey and BreakOut EDU grow over the past year. If you were one of the lucky attendees who got to participate in the challenge, you got to experience their new BreakOut EDU bus. I was not one of those lucky people but have had the experience at a few Google Summits in classrooms.
The two games I got to experience were Time Warp (where players are lost in time and need to navigate the history of communication in order to return to the present) and Decoding the War (where the war is at its peak and the only way to get an idea of what’s going to happen next is for the team of codebreakers to decipher the encrypted messages from Germany). Check out their site for more games and information.

While participating in the game, I was part of a team of educators who all had the same goal, to solve the puzzles to break open the box. Each time I participated, my role in the game changed based on the other personalities in the room. One time, I was a leader in helping others figure out what to do. The next time I was a worker and was assigned a task to figure out with a small group of people.

I now look forward to leading my first BreakOut EDU in August at a workshop I am leading for Innovative Educator Consulting as a team building activity. The website shares that “Breakout EDU creates ultra-engaging learning games for people of all ages. Games (Breakouts) teach teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, and troubleshooting by presenting participants with challenges that ignite their natural drive to problem-solve.” Exactly what I am looking for!! I hope the participants are inspired, like I was, to bring this back to their schools.

I challenge you to try it and share your experience on social media with the team: http://twitter.com/breakoutEDU

Computer Science for All is an effort many are participating in…

Sunday afternoon I participated in the Computational Thinking Playground. As people walked towards the auditorium with the keynote, they passed the playground. Many stopped in to see what it was about. I was able to lead a few unplugged activities.

  • Happy Maps (Course 1)
  • Real Life Algorithms – Dice Race (Course 3)

Throughout the week at ISTE, we had a challenge for people to share how they are using Computer Science (CS) in their classrooms. You can see how people responded by checking out #wecancode on Twitter.

Tuesday morning there was a surprise appearance by R2-D2 and Hadi Partovi, founder of code.org, where he explained how important it is to expose all students to CS. Code.org would like educators to know:

  • “Anybody can learn” (whether you’re a student or teacher)
  • It’s about “computer science,” not “code,” and our focus is on schools
  • Computer science is foundational – for EVERY child
  • Improving diversity is core to our mission
  • This is a teacher-powered movement

Hadi showed how easy it is to get started in your first plugged activity by creating a game in the Star Wars hour of code course. My poster session took place right after the keynote finished and many people stopped by. My topic was on how kids can code and the many ways to approach it. However, many people were interested in Code.org since Hadi had just spoken about it. Since I am obviously a huge fan of code.org, I was happy to talk a lot about it and answer questions.

I was able to connect with many teachers that are implementing CS into their schools. My role at technology conferences has evolved over the past few years. At first, I would attend to consume information. Now I attend to share information, empower educators in their practice, and make connections that last beyond the conference.

**At my code.org workshop last week an attendee shared the following link: bit.ly/ISTE16tote. This document has each day of the conference broken down with resources for each session. Yikes!! This is a great tool. **

 

 

General, School Media Specialist

ISTE 2015: CMLE Scholarship

21413The following post was submitted by CMLE scholarship recipient Angie Kalthoff, Technology Integrationist at St. Cloud Area School District.

Powerful Connections

Edurockstars. Attending ISTE 2015 was a great experience. I was able to connect with many people in my Personal Learning Network (PLN) in person, I refer to these people as Edurockstars. I greatly value the relationship I have formed with other teachers in similar positions. I often reach out via Twitter and Google+, when I need to bounce ideas off of others or have questions. Now, after attending ISTE, I have the personal connection that was made at the conference. An added bonus, was meeting the companies and sometimes person, yes singular, who create the wonderful tools I use on a daily basis. One day of the conference, while walking down the hall I saw the creators of Padlet, Kaizena and EDusight. I pointed out their shirts to my friend and they heard me say their names, they stopped and asked if we use the tools and told us they created them. So neat! This was one of many experiences I had talking with companies and creators. It a great experience because I was able to tell them about the features I love to use, and things I would like to see added or changed. I guess I will have to wait and see if anything comes of it.

I also had the privilege of presenting at ISTE. This was my first large national conference presentation. It was an interesting experience for me to present in front of people from all of the world. My birds-of-a-feather session turned into a lecture at the last minute and the ignite I participated in was held in the vendor hall on a stage. Both were in settings I have never presented in before and I feel went well. I look forward to more opportunities for presenting.

General, School Media Specialist

Local Computer Science workshops available

stickers_largeInterested in learning some more about computer science? District 742 Technology Integrationist, Angie Kalthoff will be putting on some computer science workshops over the next few months in conjunction with Code.org. Check out the full list here: bit.ly/codewithangiews

10/10/15 – 8:00-3:30 K-5 Coding, Google Student Clubs, and Robotic Fun – Onalaska, WI at Globe University

10/15/15 – 8:00am-4:00pm Prince of Peace Lutheran School – St.Cloud, MN

11/14/15 – 10:00am -5:00pm Great River Regional Library – St.Cloud, MN

11/21/15 – 8:30am -3:30pm Grand Forks – Grand Forks, ND

 

What’s in a workshop?
In-person instruction from an experienced computer science facilitator, including an intro to computer science, pedagogy, overview of the online curriculum, teacher dashboard, and strategies for teaching “unplugged” classroom activities.

What you’ll receive (at no cost)
  • Printed curriculum guide
  • Certificate of completion
  • Classroom supplies for the unplugged lessons
  • Fun Code.org swag