Professional Development Conference Report

Cathy Kaus
TE 875

University of Nebraska Kearney

Professional Development Conference Report

I attended the Nebraska Fall Ed Tech Conference held in Kearney,

Nebraska. The conference was held on October 9th and 10th at the
Younes Conference Center. This is the second year for the fall
conference. Thursday, October 9th, included a pre-conference
workshop. After the pre-conference workshop, dinner and a keynote
address was delivered by Dr. Robert Dillon. Friday, October 10th, was
divided into seven session times allowing participants to choose from
many different topics. Each session was approximately 45-60 minutes
long. Although the conference was not designed specifically for
librarians, there were many sessions that apply to the library media
center. The conference focused on technology based instruction.
Many sessions offered ideas and resources that could easily be used as
collaborative projects between teachers and librarians. In addition to
collaborative opportunities, there were many ideas to help the librarian
advocate for the library and build interest in order to increase library
usage.

Preconference Workshop
Dawn Ferreyra presented: Power Up Your Digital Classroom!
This session focused on gamifying the classroom. Ms. Ferreyra
explained the different types of games (sandbox, role play and

platform). Teachers need to consider the interests, likes and dislikes of

the students in order to choose a game platform. She further
explained setting game objectives, learning missions and activity
loops. Games can last for extended periods of time or they can be
shorter depending on the needs of the teacher. She stressed the
importance of keeping the game fun and having rewards. Rewards can
be both tangible and intangible. This session provided many ideas to
get kids interested in the library and reading. Librarians could design a
role-playing game in which students move through the game while on
a quest. Students are able to earn "power ups" or tools needed to
complete the quest as they read books or complete literacy skill
activities. The game could last for a quarter, semester or year. I would
probably start with a game that lasts a quarter in order to make
adjustments and create a game that will maintain student interest.

Session I
The first session that I attended on Friday was Digital Declutter
by Jason Everett. This session focused on how to organize your digital
life. It included how to organize files, emails, passwords, contacts,
notes, bookmarks, etc. This session captured my interest because
when I take students to the computer lab, they often can't remember
passwords or can't find files they saved the previous day. I think this is
one area that gets overlooked. Students open accounts for many

different programs (quizlet, iCivics, padlet, etc.) and have little

guidance as far as choosing passwords or keeping track of that
information. Mr. Everett explained how several folders with generic
names could serve as a way to organize projects and emails according
to dates or importance. This would be a great way to help students
prioritize and organize assignments. This session not only gave me
ideas for how to help students but how to organize myself. He
mentioned LastPass and two-factor authentication in order to keep
information secure. Information from this session can easily be
included in a digital citizenship unit.

Session II
Create Video What You Need to Know! was the second session I
attended. Corey Dahl and Ann Feldmann led this session. It was fun.
There are so many ways to make video. The session primarily focused
on the YouTube platform. YouTube is a very easy platform to operate
and the result is a quality video that can be easily shared. In addition,
there are controls that allow the creator to decide who can view the
video. In this session, there was collaboration between the
participants. I was able to discuss ideas about using video to promote
reading with several other reading teachers. One idea was to have
students create video messages recommending a book to another
student and sending it via email (copy to the teacher). If the student

received a book recommendation, they had to recommend a book to a

different student in return. This would also be a great way to create
book trailers that promote the newest additions to the library.
Students could use this to promote their favorite books and "advertise"
book talks.

Session III
The third session was chosen for personal reasons but I was
surprised to find some apps that I could use in the classroom. The
session was Get Your Groove On! Apps and Tools to Improve Personal
Wellness presented by Lynne Herr. The focus of the session was on
personal fitness and using tech tools and apps to promote fitness. Ms.
Herr discussed several apps she used to assist her in losing weight and
reducing stress. In addition to the personal aspects of the
presentation, she also shared several things that can be used in the
classroom. One of the things she mentioned was the MoveIt chrome
extension. This extension automatically pops up to prompt different
movement activities at predetermined timed intervals. I think this
would be a great addition to the computers in the library computer lab.
Students tend to sit for hours on the computer, the MoveIt extension
could be set up to pop up every 20-30 minutes prompting students to
do a quick, short activity that gets them on their feet and moving
allowing them a brain break. Ms. Herr also shared GoNoodle which is a

website that has free brain breaks for the elementary classroom,
although I have used them with middle school students. Students
need to be active in order to stay focused both of these are quick
simple ways to help students by giving them brain breaks.

Session IV
Session four was designed for social studies teachers. The focus
was on historical thinking and technology. The presenter, Caitlin
Leuenberger, shared a list of online sources for primary and secondary
sources. She shared different activities in which students interacted
with primary and secondary sources and evaluated them for context
and purpose. Some of the activities required students to work
independently while others relied on collaboration. She also shared a
couple add-ons (marker.to and internote) that students can use when
conducting research. This session directly related to social studies
content but the skills being used and taught fit with the information
literacy standards. Librarians could easily integrate the information
and activities from this session into collaborative projects with
teachers.

Session V
GClassFolders, Doctopus & Goobric OH MY by Nick Ziegler was
the fifth session I attended. I chose this session because it dealt with

Google Classroom. Chadron recently held its own tech conference in

which one of the sessions involved setting up a Google Classroom. I
felt this session would give me additional information that I could share
with colleagues. This session felt rushed and is going to require much
more time on my part before I can share it with others. The
information was good but it does require practice in order to be used
in an efficient manner. The end result is that GClassFolders, Doctopus
and Goobric can work together to organize your drive, hand out
assignments and assess student work in Google Classroom. This
session did allow for some brainstorming to share how these scripts
can be used in the classroom. After the brainstorming, I am willing to
spend the extra time it will take to learn the scripts because of the
possibilities in the classroom. One of the biggest advantages is the
manner in which students receive feedback.

Session VI
Technology is constantly changing. One of the biggest
challenges for me is keeping up with all of the changes. For that
reason, I chose session six titled Keeping Up With Technology: Free
Online Professional Development Resources to Enhance Your
Technology Skills and Understanding. Kelly Gatewood and Dr. Sue
Adragna presented information on self-designed professional
development. They included many different resources to assist with

staying current in the rapidly changing use of technology in the

classroom. They shared how to access and implement new ways to
incorporate technology in the classroom. The resources included
websites, Twitter, LinkedIn, podcasts and webinars. All of these
resources will be extremely helpful in keeping the library media center
current and relevant for students.

Session VII
The final session was perhaps the most interesting. Rhonda
Jindra and Chris Good presented Generation iY . . . Why Not?. The
focus of this session was how to engage the iY generation in the
classroom. The session emphasized how todays students interact with
each other and adults within a technology rich world. It addressed
some of their hopes and fears. Many of these students are focused on
I and me. They are often overprotected and over served. As a
result, many graduate and are scared that they may not be prepared
for life outside the classroom. This session provided several good
graphics that I shared with teachers and administrators about this
generation and their attitude towards values, relationships, technology,
careers and their view of the future. To summarize this session: We
are teaching an EPIC generation. E Experiential, P Participatory, I
Image rich, C Connected. In order to engage this generation we
need to offer many different opportunities within boundaries. This

session was very helpful for librarians. Library media centers need to
be relevant and engaging to those who use the facility. In order to
accomplish this the librarian must know the students and their values
in order to create an environment that is inviting, safe and provides the
necessary resources for them to be successful.

Networking
One of my favorite parts of attending any conference is the
opportunity to network with other teachers. This conference was no
different. I had the opportunity to network with other teachers and
technology personnel. I particularly enjoyed sharing information with
reading teachers from Lincoln. Another contact I made was a social
studies teacher from Omaha. He shared some information regarding
civics and research for middle school students. I also received
information regarding scope and sequence for digital citizenship from
teachers at Cozad.

The conference was a fantastic opportunity to share ideas for

both the classroom and library environments. It became very clear
that the role of the library media center is rapidly changing from a
quiet place that houses books into a living place that is vital to a
childs academic career as well as their success after graduation.