ACTEM Conference 2007

I started my day by going to the 20 Ways for Teachers to Use Google conference. This was full of information pertaining to Google. There are lots of free tools that I did not realize were included at the Google website. The website that highlights what this conference included is: Www.top20googles.wikispaces.com. The only disappointing part of this conference was that the Internet was down the whole time, so we had to have a lecture style demonstration. Sharon Betts did a wonderful job sharing even without the visuals.

The second session, I chose to attend the MEDMS update conference.
I learned a lot about the plans for MEDMS for next school year. MEDMS is the informational database used in Maine. MEDMS stands for Maine Education Data Management System. The new changes will be more formal most likely in November. I will share more then as nothing is quite final. Some of the changes will be very helpful.

My third session was Technology-Rich Project Based Learning. This session was presented by Jim Moulton. His website is www.jimmoulton.org, and his project based learning portaportal guest name is techpbl. I was very excited by all of the different ideas that Jim shared. There are a lot of project based learning ideas that can be included in many different subjects and can make great use of technology. I have already signed up for the Flat Stanley project and plan to use this with 3rd and 4th grade classes this year.

The fourth session that I attended was Web 2.0 for Elementary Teachers. This shared a site that shows great examples of blogs and wikis. As this was the keynote address by Will Richardson, this session was a great eye opener to what can be done with this type of tool. The wiki for this information is: http://web4elementary.wikispaces.com/.

One other note of interest that I have heard a lot about was the K12 Online Conference. This is a free resource. Check it out when you have a second! The site is just www.k12onlineconference.com.

Thanks,
Jaime