Saturday, July 16, 2011

Day of Discovery

Yesterday I was able to attend Discovery Education's Day of Discovery conference. Although I had to start my day extra early, drive an hour and 45 minutes, and give up a beautiful, sunny Friday I was not let down. This conference had a lot to offer and it was all for free! Thank you Discovery Education, USD, and Lindsay Hopkins for organizing a wonderful event.

As soon as we arrived we were greeted with lots of helpful DE staff, beautiful decorations, a nice breakfast, notebooks, and other goodies. The day started off with a general session meeting followed by the first two individual sessions. After the first two sessions, lunch was provided, and then we attended another two sessions. The day ended with a general closing and a prize giveaway. The only bummer was not being able to attend all the sessions that were offered. Although some of the tools and information may be repetitive for more advanced tech teachers, a lot of it was new for me. I had heard of some of these sites but have not used them in the classroom. In addition, I was blown away by all the things I could do with Discovery Education beyond just streaming videos and songs for students. Now all I need is the classroom to implement it all in. If any of my fellow teaching friends would like help developing lessons are implementing them in your class I would be thrilled to help! 
  
Tech Ed Tools Wiki   is the link to the Wiki page I used for note taking during the presentations. I wanted something that I could share, change, and add to as needed. I am more excited about all the training resources and links that they will be emailing out to us (those who attended the conference) within the next few days. If I can, I will share them as well.