Check One Box off the List!

I just finished the 4th proposal I submitted to the #NCCE conference! 4!

Last year I applied to perform  present two proposals and was not accepted. But I am not one to give up! I come from a long line of tenacious women who don't take no for an answer (is that good or bad?). And lately I must admit some "no's" have been dragging me down. But after reading a chapter in, "Girl, Wash Your Wash" by Rachel Hollis I am back to saying, "Nope, I won't stop. I have places to be, goals to achieve, dreams to accomplish."

So I won't give up! I'll dig in and  I'll try again because dog-gone-it I am good at what I do, I like to share, and I have information to help others.

Wish me luck!

A Room With a View- NCCE18

I am gazing out of my window at the beautiful city of Seattle, my Chromebook resting on the remodeled windowsill of the Sheraton Hotel, which is the perfect spot to park my CB and still enjoy the lights... I am a big fan of neon at night. I am curled on a new chaise lounge...it could be described as hard as a rock, and yet it is still comfy, maybe firm would describe it best. My roommate is quietly snoring away as I type...an end to the exhausting day that started at 4 am.

I have already learned from 3 amazing teachers today: Jeff Utecht, Conn McQuinn, and Sylvia Duckworth during 5 awesome sessions. I have come away with amazing learning already (on just the first day!) and ran into some fantastic members of my PLN. We met for dinner tonight and talked about the ability of Twitter to bring us all together, to form a group of former strangers, now friends, who can collaborate and help one another. We talked about our joys and pains in education, including the inability to reach other teachers on the importance of Twitter.

Those of us here at NCCE, those of us in the trenches know the benefits of Twitter and how important the camaraderie is to our typical silos. But many do not. They see it as one more hoop.

I am excited for tomorrow. I am also excited about the carrot cake at the Cheesecake Factory sitting opposite my window. And the ability to create more memories with fellow learners.

I only wish more had the opportunity to enjoy this...the conference, the connections, the 30 escalator rides a day. If I do bring them in the future I will advise them...bring your computer, as it is a TECH conference, and also your magnifying glass. The program is damn near microscopic!

I'm in LOVE.....with Seesaw

It's only appropriate that I am in love with something as Single Awareness Day approaches. The day when people profess their love so much that single people fall ill in the fog of it.

I have been in LOVE with the Seesaw App ever since we met at the NCCE 2015 conference in Portland.

This was my first ever tech conference. I scoured the program for interesting titles. I had no background knowledge of Seesaw. My only construct was the name similarity to a Scholastic book club magazine, which I was sure had nothing to do with it.

Heather Marrs was our teacher and led us through activities a class could easily do: interview a partner, take a selfie, add text to a selfie, add a comment to a photo, solve simple math problems by using your finger as a stylus to show how you found your answer. Our "work" seemed more like "fun."

At the end of our workshop I was smitten. Heather mentioned how she was a Seesaw ambassador and I immediately scoured the web to find out how to become one.

What I saw was a digital online portfolio created by students and teachers. One that allowed students to be engaged in authentic audience interaction. Depending on the age of the student, they can provide positive comments on classmates work and see positive comments written by family members. No longer do you need to ask the dreaded, "What did you do at school today?" question. The one that is answered by a shoulder shrug, an, "I don't remember" or "nothing."

Parents, aunts, uncles, long distance grandparents can all check in on their smart phone or computer and see at a glance what and how their loved one is doing. They can see the joy in their heart during science centers, they can see them goofing off in the back, sometimes, but they see it! Like a porthole on a steamer Seesaw brings that authentic learning to life.

This time of the year I teach a few friends to start doing the seesaw documenting for me. It's a little bit of a learning curve...blurry photos with heads cut off don't quite equal quality examples (it is Kindergarten! but everyone is a beginning and soon everyone is an expert.)

Thank you Seesaw for such a great portfolio system!!

Top 10 Reasons to Try Seesaw
1. Its FREE  and parents can access it on their smart phone or computer.
2. The kids are excited to share what they learned.
3. The kids can no longer claim you teach nothing during the day.
4. You've got documentation for parents, TPEP, or any other hoop thrown at you. ❤
5. Students can document learning while you are teaching. They can capture what you miss.
6. Students not only document but they interact with assignments posted via teachers.
7. Students can work towards mastery: they can reevaluate work and edit it as their knowledge base expands.
8. Using it for reading fluency peaks student interest on attaining personal goals. They hear themselves read!
9. It translates posts into 55 languages!! There is no language barrier!
10. It can be used to connect with other classes (the blog feature) or to share information (like class newsletters) via notes!

If you try Seesaw I bet you will love it too. Feel free to text me with any questions.

Happy Seesawing!!

The NCCE Conference: How to Know You Don't Travel Enough

I'm so lucky to be writing you from the 26th floor of the Sheraton in Seattle! I am attending my second #NCCE conference. Last year it was in Portland, Oregon. I made some great new friends and learned a lot, so I planned to go again as soon as it ended!

It's a good thing...because it is completely apparent that I do not travel enough to keep my big city schema up to date! Here are 6 ways I know.

1. When I entered the elevator, and pushed the button for my floor, it wouldn't work. The next guy that came in slid his room key into a slot and then pushed the button. Oh, is that how that works.

2. I didn't realize the hotel had more than one tower and therefore more than one set of elevators. Whoops!

3. When I talked to my daughter, I said I was at the "motel" as in Motel 6. LOL Big difference between a motel and a hotel!

3. Every time I left the conference center, I went any direction besides the right one.

4. I was blown away by everything in Leslie Fisher's sessions. Apparently, I have been living under a rock.

5. I suggested we go to Target so we could watch the escalator for carts.

6. At the conference center I got in an elevator and panicked when floor 4 was not an option. I still don't know where that elevator was going. I stuck to stairs...

Thank you NCCE for another EPIC conference!

I met several new friends, meet several Twitter friends in real time, had an awesome team bonding during the scavenger hunt, and broadened my knowledge base on Seesaw, Twitter, Evernote, and Augmented Reality. I came home way cooler.

See you in Portland next year! Maybe I can work again answering questions I didn't know the answers for (it was actually a lot of fun!).

*Disclaimer: Yes, I was having too much fun at the conference to finish the blog post. It's just about a month late. :)