Tag Archives: CMLE Scholarship

TIES Conference Recap: A CMLE Scholarship

The following was submitted by a CMLE Scholarship recipient. 

Submitted by: Holly Pringle, Becker High School

 For a first-timer at the TIES conference, overwhelming isn’t a strong enough word.  I spent two and a half days taking in knowledge, meeting new people, commiserating about iOS devices, talking with vendors, and realizing how much I’ve learned about technology in my first three months as a media specialist…..and how very, very, very much I don’t know yet.

 The theme of the conference was “It’s Personal!  Transforming Pedagogy with Technology”, and transformative it was!  Sessions were offered for a plethora of needs & interests, and my only disappointment was that there were so many concurrent sessions, I had to choose not to see some sessions that looked like they’d be great. I hope the whole technology integration team from my school can join me next year and we can divide & conquer to get even more out of the many sessions offered, because each session offers something, even if it’s a little something, that can come back to our district and make an impact.

Working in an “Apple” district made me interested to talk with the folks from Apple regarding mega-management of iPads/iPods and iOS devices in general, which is something that we’re constantly trying to learn more about.  Evidently, many folks around here are trying to get some of the same questions answered, and it showed me that in Becker we’re going about things in the right way.  I also had the chance to see how other districts and teachers are using iPads and iPods in the classrooms for more than just substitution, but for true and deep learning with their kids.  The most eye-opening presentation of the conference for me involved a fourth grade teacher who showed off the kinds of work his kids had accomplished using various technologies.  I was blown away at what we can help kids create with an iPad.

In all, the conference was worthwhile for me on many levels, and I’m so thankful CMLE made it possible for me to attend.

What’s New in Children’s Literature Workshop Summary: A CMLE Scholarship

The following was submitted by a CMLE scholarship recipient.

Submitted by: DeAnn Redfield, St. Cloud Christian School 

Do you love children’s books and anxiously wait for each year’s new books to be announced? Are you looking for a great professional development opportunity to find out about new children’s books? Peggy Sharp’s program “What’s new in Children’s Literature and How to use it in your Program 2012” offered through the Bureau of Education & Research is highly recommended. The program includes an extensive resource handbook that contains annotated bibliographies of new children’s literature. The handbook has book sharing ideas, student activity resources, and “Top Ten Picks of the Year”.

Benefits of attending this seminar include previewing new children’s books, both fiction and nonfiction; learning about trends in delivery of stories and factual information such as e-readers, apps, trailers, and social networking sites; and exploring teaching strategies to help students get the most out of a book without destroying the joy of reading.

My library will benefit because I learned so much about new children’s books and instructional strategies to incorporate them into the school’s curriculum. Having a resource book to take with me is an added benefit. While I was learning about Peggy Sharp’s top ten books of the year, I made my own list of ideas to use in my library program. Librarians are encouraged to have a wish list of books to order if extra funds find their way into the budget. I am prepared with a list of twenty great books to add to my collection – Peggy’s favorites and my own.

More information about this event can be found at the following site: http://www.ber.org/seminars/CourseInfo.cfm?seid=BE22F1-STC

ISTE 2011 Conference Attendance: A CMLE Scholarship

The following was submitted by a CMLE scholarship recipient.

 Submitted By: Laurie Conzemius, Media Specialist, Pine Meadow Elementary – Sartell

With the support of CMLE I was able to attend the ISTE conference held in Philadelphia from June 25 – 29, 2011. Over 13,000 ISTE members attended this annual international conference. All of those in attendance have a strong interest in educational technology, but I spent most of my time with the media specialist special interest group (SIGMS) where the focus was on technology related to the teacher librarian role.

 The full conference kicked off on Sunday, June 26, with a morning brunch sponsored by the Big Deal Media. MEMO is one of BDM’s member organizations, and we receive branded newsletters from them bimonthly. The people of Big Book of Technology treated about 30 of us (4 from Minnesota, including 2 from TIES and Sally Mays and I from MEMO) to a fantastic meal at Supper, a “farm to table” restaurant in Philly. A highlight was listening to the owner/cook, Mitch Prensky, talk about the meal and menu. Of course the other highlight was eating the incredible food! From there my day was spent preparing for and presenting at the SIG Fair, where ISTE special interest groups provide information about their group. Then it was on to the opening keynote: an exciting way to begin the actual conference.

 Dr John Medina was our opening keynote speaker. Dr. Medina wrote the book Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School. We were all encouraged to tweet our questions and responses, and in a group of many thousands the comments were engaging, fun, and provided hours of continued conversation. There is nothing like an opening keynote event to provide excitement for the coming days! Although I found the keynote to be extremely thought provoking, one of my take-aways was in how the technology was used to encourage discussion. This continued through many other sessions, as the “back-channel” was well used in Philadelphia.

 On Monday our small group sessions began, and ISTE offers many hundreds to choose from! I spent the early morning volunteering at our SIGMS Library Media Playground. This is an open area with 8 stations where practicing media specialists demonstrated animation, video, wikis, and a huge array of web tools. I snuck away to attend a fast-paced session titled Learning Tools Family Feud, which provided a lively break mid-day with plenty of laughs, but lots of learning as well. On the serious side I attended a session on top 20 favorite free web tools (by one of my favorite presenters, Tammy Worchester), a hands-on training on Glogster EDU, and a session on developing your personal learning network by David Warlick.

 Tuesday came fast and furiously; with many more sessions than I could possible attend. This is where the power of an ISTE conference is, however, because I simply made a note of all the sessions I had hoped to attend and then didn’t go to those that were being recorded. ISTE records and posts many sessions so I can view these (and share them) following the conference! Yay! It truly is a way to be two places at once! I attended a breakfast sponsored by ProQuest in the morning and was pleased to be able to eat a good meal and give personal input on the CultureGrams program. It is extremely rewarding to have the opportunity to give suggestions on a software program that I use regularly with my students and staff!

 Along with many great sessions, the SIGMS Forum was a Tuesday highlight. Doug Johnson moderated a “Ted Talk” event with Anita Beaman, Cathy Jo Nelson, Gwyneth Jones, Buffy Hamilton and Shannan Miller. You can view the entire event here: http://bit.ly/mGFQB4. I recommend you watch it with a few of your teacher librarian friends however!

 Wednesday, which was the last day of the conference and our travel day, started with a quick hotel checkout and the SIGMS Breakfast, Board Meeting and Keynote Will Richardson. It was also the last time that the members of the SIGMS board (with whom I meet via Skype monthly) were together in person. Outgoing chair Lisa Perez gave her final words to the group, and then incoming chair Maureen Sanders Brunner spoke about the direction SIGMS would be taking in the coming year. I will be serving one final year as communications chair for SIGMS. I truly have to say that this committee has been the most organized, most focused committee with whom I’ve ever had the opportunity to serve.

 I could go on and on about the sessions, events and experiences of ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia: attending this international conference has been so instrumental in my professional career. Next year’s ISTE conference will be held in San Diego (a wonderful city to visit!) and ISTE 2013 will take place in Chicago. I encourage you to attend! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or want to know more about how you can get involved with ISTE, and especially with SIGMS! (Conzemius@q.com)

 Thank you once again to CMLE for assisting me in attending this fantastic professional experience! I appreciate CMLE!!

Mulan, Manuscripts, and More!: A CMLE Scholarship

The following was submitted by a CMLE scholarship recipient.

 Submitted By: Jenny Hill, Media Specialist, St. Michael Elementary

 The 32rd annual Children’s Literature Workshop was held June 20-21 at the Kelly Inn, St. Cloud MN.  I had the opportunity to attend thanks to a generous scholarship that was awarded to me from CMLE. The workshop was jam-packed with information and activities; here are some of the highlights.

Jenny Hill and Robert D. San Souci

 The workshop featured author Robert D. San Souci (www.rsansouci.com) who has the distinguished honor of having written the screenplay for Disney’s 1998 animated classic, Mulan.  San Souci stressed the importance of completing thorough research when authoring a folk tale.  Accurately portraying cultures featured in folk tales is both a challenging and crucial research task.  Inaccuracies can be offensive to readers and are not easily forgotten. 

 Local presenters Sara Martini, Laurie Conzemius, and Dr. Marcia Thompson gave information to  attendees about the 2011-2012 Maud Hart Lovelace (MHL) nominees, how to integrate technology into  classroom activities in order to motivate readers, and what award winning books of the year are worth the read! 

 After attending there sessions, I have come away with three goals:

  •  To use the promotional resources available on the MHL Website (http://www.maudhartlovelace.org/) in order to generate reader interest.
  •  To have students create their own book trailers using Animoto (http://animoto.com/).
  •  To read and promote award winning literature, inspiring students to read.

 The workshop concluded with a presentation by 2011 Newberry Honor winner and fellow Minnesotan Joyce Sidman.  Sidman gave the audience some insight in the inner workings of her own creative writing process and shared some poetry techniques that can be used in the classroom.  More information about these techniques can be found on her website (http://www.joycesidman.com/). 

 Other workshop activities included a presentation by Susan Carr Brown of the Hennepin Public Library (http://www.hclib.org/) who reviewed new literature of 2011, a make and take puppet workshop facilitated by Dianne Gausch (http://www.gaschstories-puppets.com/), and an instructional and participatory storytelling lesson by the WonderWeavers (http://www.wonderweavers.com/).

 This particular workshop was historically significant.  Sandra Williams and Dr. Chris Inkster “passed the keys” to Drs. Merton and Marcia Thompson who will be in charge of the workshop next year.  The dates of the 2012 workshop are June  18th and 19th at the Kelly Inn.  Attendees are encouraged to bring a friend or colleague to next year’s extravaganza.

TIES Highlights: A CMLE Scholarship

The following was submitted by a CMLE scholarship recipient.

Submitted by: Nancy Lorentz, Becker High School Media Specialist

Monday’s speaker, Sir Ken Robinson, gave an inspirational as well as humorous keynote. He discussed the state of education in the United States, and our emphasis on standardized testing and continuing to train our young people for an industrialized economy that simply no longer exists. We need to expose students to all sorts of experiences–arts, music, movement, technology as well as academics so that they can discover where their passions and talents lay.

The most valuable sessions I attended dealt with the use and management of mobile devices in education–specifically the iPad, and putting content on-line (especially using Moodle).

Becker High School will be rolling out a one-to-one program next fall, and every student will be issued an iPad for use during the school year. One of the challenges we will face is management of over 800 devices–without any extra personnel. A seemingly great solution was presented by JAMF Software out of Minneapolis in their session titled, “Apple Mobile Device Management Using the Casper Suite.” Some of the management capabilities of the Casper Suite iOS device management software include: Remote Wipe, Remote Lock and Remove Passcode. Mail can be set up on devices remotely; configuration profiles can be pushed to devices; the App Store can be removed from student devices; LDAP groups can be used to push out content and it automates the Apple Volume Purchasing Program. Sadly, there is a cost of approximately $8 per device for this service, so there will need to be a discussion about how to pay for it.

Because of our one-to-one initiative, the other topic I was interested in at TIES is creating content for the iPad. There were several sessions about future of textbooks in our schools. With more and more content being available digitally, teachers are able to find free materials and customize them for their own courses. A California initiative (CK12.org) provides “flexbook” content free for anyone to download, although most of the content is presently math and science/engineering related. The availability of this type of digital content, the ePub capabilities in iWork, the ease of creating presentations and video on the iPad will someday (hopefully soon) make the purchasing of expensive textbooks unnecessary.

Presently, about 25% of BHS teachers use Moodle and our wiki to put their content on-line. When all of our students have access to iPads 24/7, that means they will also need access to our content 24/7. Moodle is a free and easy way for teachers to post assignments, upload worksheets, link to websites, and create lessons and quizzes that students can access any time. The blogging and forum features of Moodle and wikis also make it easy for students to communicate with their teachers and each other on a regular basis. The math department in Byron, MN has done away with textbooks completely and now have all of their content–including videos of their lessons–on Moodle. While they pay licensing fees for some resources, the rest is a blend of open education resources and teacher-created content. Wolf Creek Online High School has used Moodle as its content management system for the past three years, using forums and on-line texts and journals with students to create and foster relationships between the students and their Learning Managers, and amongst themselves. The teachers have put together learning modules to teach academics, technology, career planning and personal and social skills to their students.