Tag Archives: ISTE

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Seven Takeaways from ISTE 2014

ISTE2014logoIf you were lucky enough to attend the ISTE 2014 event in Atlanta this year you probably already know what a ground breaking year it was. If you weren’t one of the lucky ones, SmartBrief put together a list of the top seven takeaways. From discussions about BYOD to “all-in-one” solutions ISTE 2014 covered it all.

ISTE is the International Society for Technology in Education and works to engage educators and education leaders in learning and teaching through the innovative and effective uses of technology in PK-12 and teacher education.

ISTE 2015 has already been scheduled so start making your case why you should attend!

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist

Who Should Deal With Cyberbullies?

Image by J_O_I_D. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons' licensing.
Image by J_O_I_D. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons’ licensing.

Recently on the ISTE Connects Blog, Nicole Krueger wrote a great piece titled, Who’s Responsible for Teaching Kids Not to Be Cyberbullies? This type of bullying has gotten a fair amount of play in the media recently, often leading to tragic endings. In first person, Nicole describes what it is like in the  life of a bullied middle schooler before social media, and after. Her post made me realize how much additional stress is placed on kids who are bullied today, and it is time to figure out who should address this topic. Sometimes, parents think schools should handle it, while school administrators say they cannot ensure what students do outside of the school day. An interesting conundrum, but worth addressing.

Krueger goes on to  write….“In a typical classroom of 30 middle or high school students, 21 students  will have experienced some form of cyberbullying, according to the Annual Cyberbullying Survey 2013, which included responses from more than 10,000 teens worldwide. Of those 21 students, more than 10 are daily victims. The top venue for bullying: Facebook, which is used by 75 percent of respondents — more than half of whom have been bullied there.” And now that Facebook has loosened its privacy rules for teens, allowing minors to post publicly instead of just to their friends, the door to bullying has gotten a little wider for everyone from “mean girls” to sextortionists.

Does cyberbullying happen in your school? Who is responsible for teaching  this important content, and does your school develop its own curriculum on this subject?

School Media Specialist

1:1 Snapshot Survey – Please Respond

The ISTE SIGIS group have put together a 1:1 survey that will be of great benefit to all of us as educators and advocates for 1:1 programs. Would you please either respond to this survey or send this along to the best person at your institution?

This 1:1 Snapshot Survey aims to inform educators about 1:1 initiatives and programs across the country.

The survey can be found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/1to1TodayFall2012 and must be filled out by October 31, 2012.

CMLE will follow-up on this survey by providing a link to the results/summary in November.

School Media Specialist

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!!

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

ISTE Conference Recap: A CMLE Scholarship

The following report was submitted by a recipient of our new CMLE scholarship program.

Submitted By: Laurie Conzemius

I attended the ISTE 2010 conference in Denver Colorado, from June 27 – 30 at the Colorado Conference Center. To say that the ISTE conference is big would be an understatement. Over 14000 attendees experienced this exciting event, which boasted over 500 vendors in the exhibit hall, over 600 presenters, representation from more than 20 countries and literally hundreds of sessions and activities to choose from.

The convention, titled Exploring Excellence, was organized around four themes:

  • School improvement
  • Technology Infrastructure
  • Professional Learning
  • Digital-Age Teaching and Learning
  • Virtual School/e-Learning

There are multitudes of ways to interact and participate that span almost 24 hours each day! Students and teachers from around the world are sharing at poster sessions, educational technology experts offer lecture, panel and spotlight sessions, model lesson sessions are offered, and the convention attendees enjoy a large number of “café’s” and “playgrounds” based on topics of interest. It is overwhelming – and frustrating, because there is so much to do and just not enough time to do it all!

 When I attend a national conference I find it helpful to consider my goals and objectives prior to even leaving home. ISTE provides a great online tool for searching the catalog and selecting possible sessions to attend and this is extremely beneficial. I wanted to attend sessions of best practice for media specialists. I was hoping to find sessions that dealt with leadership and school change that would be helpful in my own school. I always love the Web 2.0 tools and I wanted to catch some new tips and tricks for using Google Docs. I was hoping to do some networking, both with members of our special interest group, SIGMS, but also with some school districts around the country who might be interested in collaborating on some projects. In addition, I was hoping to briefly visit the exhibit hall and see the new options with interactive whiteboards and projectors.

 On the ride from the airport to the hotel the networking had already begun! I got one of the best tips of the conference there – when a media specialist from Virginia told me their kindergarten and first grade classroom whiteboards are mounted on adjustable mounts so they can be pulled down to “kid-level”. On Saturday, the day before the conference started, I attended an ISTE Leadership training day. We focused on leadership within our own special interest group and then broadened to leadership in our district and state. I got some great tips there.

 Sunday kicked off the official start to the conference with the opening keynote. From there the conference took off quickly. I spent much of Monday working in the 21st Century Media Center Playground, sharing ideas with media specialists from around the world. I was also able to attend a terrific session on leadership in schools by Cheryl Lemke from the Metiri Group.

 Session speakers from the next few days included Will Richardson, Joyce Valenza, Tammy Worcester, Doug Johnson, Alan November, Kathy Schrock, David Thornburg and David Warlick. I also listened to many presenters without big names, but with great ideas and suggestions. I was also able to make it into the exhibit area and not only learn about interactive whiteboards, but also make some other connections with vendors.

 ISTE provides an archive of recorded sessions through ISTEVision, so attendees are able to go online after the conference and view sessions they missed. There is a conference wiki where most of the presenters post not only their PowerPoint slides, but also links to their WebPages and a large number of additional resources. The conference will not end for me for quite a few weeks as I sort through these amazing materials.

 Although there are many more thoughts and ideas to share, there are a few take-aways that I have already determined I will use.

  • For our teachers in Sartell, who will be moving from Microsoft products to Google Apps this year, I have picked up a great resource of training and support materials.
  • For leadership among my ISD 748 media and tech team I plan to share a great session online that included a huge number of web 2.0 tools and great suggestions for using them with students. I thought I would invite them over for an informal gathering where we can actually watch the session together and further discuss the use of these tools.
  • For my own teaching I am now armed with a great resource of digital storytelling ideas and plans. I’m excited to incorporate these into my own teaching and into our school curriculum.

 I know that as I reflect on the conference over the next several weeks there will be a number of other invaluable lessons I will apply as well.

 As we left a particularly great session on Tuesday, the “Smackdown” for library media specialists, David Loertcher left us all with this great action plan for our new learning, and I believe it is important in my own staff development, in the SCSU classes I teach, and in my day-to-day work with students. He asked us to complete the sentence: “Today I learned _______” but to extend that with the question: “So what?” A web 2.0 tool, fun new technology gizmo or slick piece of software is only valuable if we use it to increase student achievement and success.

 Thank you to CMLE for the scholarship, which helped allow me to attend ISTE 2010. ISTE 2011 will be held at the end of June in Philadelphia. I would love to bring a large cohort from Minnesota. Will you join me?