Web 2.0 is all the rage! Take an enlightening journey through useful (and fun) online tools to help you grow both personally and professionally! After this presentation, participants will both have the experience of learning about Web 2.0 , as well as understand this exciting new interactive environment. Once the participants understand the power of the various components of Web 2.0, they will be better able to incorporate these technologies into their professional life as well as into the classroom to support teaching and learning.

Using Interactive Technology as an Assessment Tool
Elena Aleskiewicz
All Grade Levels

Learn how to use an interactive “clicker” system (The eInstruction Classroom Performance System) as an assessment tool. The computerized, projected assessments can be used in the classroom for formative and summative assessments, standardized test preparation and preparing for academic quiz-type competitions. The assessments have the ability to be completely controlled by the participating students.

Connecticut’s Waddell School received a two-year, Enhancing Education Through Technology State Dept. of Ed. Grant to train teachers and students to use Digital Imagery Technology in the Classroom and to prepare standards-based lessons across content areas that integrate technology as an instructional tool to be posted on “CT.curriculum.org”. The presentation will focus on school-based technology team leadership, innovative/collaborative staff development, program implementation processes, and samples of lessons that integrate digital imagery technology in the teaching-learning process."

See, hear and learn how to plan for successful technology integration with art, music, world cultures and other unified arts curricula in grades K-8. The presenters share teaching and learning experiences including challenges and successes.

Learn practical and practicable approaches to selecting the data-collection and reporting tools that best serve your school or district. This session will present case studies that will help you minimize your expected total cost of ownership (TCO) of districtwide software such as student information systems, online assessment platforms, and student achievement data tools.

Welcome to Spice It up a Notch with Nutmeg!, a collaborative online project utilizing the Nutmeg Book Award program. Through the seamless integration between conventional learning environments and web based environments, students develop the skills needed for their literacy futures. Literature circles, response journals, blogs, discussion boards, and chats, are the tools through which students discuss and respond to the books and each other.

Personal Learning Environments or PLEs are the logical next step beyond Virtual Learning Environments. Clint will lead a discussion and show examples of PLEs in use today that embrace Web 2.0 tools such as blogging and podcasting, social networking services that facilitate collaboration, formal AND informal learning, and personal learning goals. Participants will leave with ideas on how they can begin shaping their own PLE and those of their students.

Google has great, new tools for teachers and students, which are online and free, saving schools the cost of buying new software. They include tools for editing and organizing photos, collaborating online with classmates or other schools, customizing searches for precise results, personalizing Google’s news page, using blogs, keeping online notebooks, searching the text of millions of books, and more. Read news from 10,000 worldwide sources, updated within minutes of publication. Have students read the news in any language, with a click of a button. Observe geography and places in literature come alive as you fly students around the World using Google Earth’s satellite imagery. And, watch students beg you to work on their lessons.

This session describes open source software in K-12 and pinpoints key elements regarding these applications including quality, learning support, and curriculum integration options. Demonstration of various open source programs will be provided. Participants receive a list of open source software for K-12 with curriculum integration ideas.

The electronic portfolio offers us a more flexible and personalized approach to assessment and accountability. This system will serve to demonstrate whether or not the student has met the course’s objectives and the school’s expectations in a more authentic way than grades and CAPT scores.

Web 2.0 is opening a whole new window for educators who want to capitalize on student interest in the online universe. Pioneering educators are using blogs, wikis, podcasts and more to improve student learning. Learn about some of the tools available for educators and view some models of best practice.

Playing games and game-design theory is revolutionizing the way learning happens and the role of the teacher in the classroom. In this session, explore how the strategies used in games and game development mimic effective teaching strategies and how they are motivating children to learn in the 21st century.

Can't stand the sight of another stack of essays? Join us in discussing alternative assessments that take advantage of new technology and Read/Write Web tools like PowerPoint, blogs, wikis, podcasts, WebQuests, and more. Bring your laptop and we'll get started.

This session, designed for academic technologists, trainers, and support specialists, is focused on describing and applying the core components of a support system for electronic portfolios. Topics will include: choosing an ePortfolio system, identifying partners, assessing technical needs, training methodologies, facilities, staffing, and connection to institutional assessment.

E-Reports is an electronic, teacher-based, reporting system that automates graphical and standard reporting forms. Teachers are able to instantaneously generate ‘snapshots’ of a student’s academic achievement with little tech know-how. It is an alternative to databases that are sometimes laborious and non-intuitive. Key features: Report card automation, graphical data generation, and achievement profiles.

Technology has an enormous role in removing barriers to learning and leveling the playing field for diverse learners. This presentation will include a brief introduction to assistive technology followed by a review of the tools that can benefit almost any student and that are available on most classroom computers. It will also review web-based tools to support diverse learners in the general curriculum.

Are you a teacher, or someone who evaluates teachers, and not sure what appropriate technology integration looks like? We’ll look at examples of how technology can and should add value to instruction. We’ll also take a lighthearted look at composites of some of our colleagues, who perceive that their use of technology actually encourages 21st century learning.

B*B*C* is an ongoing, distance learning project between 5th graders from a school in Barry, Wales, and Brooklyn Middle School. The project addresses mutual standards of both communities in Language Arts, Social Studies, Information Literacy, and Technology. Communication is achieved through the use of the on-line course, eSchoolbuilder. Students engage in writing activities that utilize email, blogs, discussion boards, and closed chats. Issues such as Internet safety and Internet bullying are also addressed. Join us to see how the project works and ways to adapt it for your use. A distance, guest visit from our Welsh partner may be possible.

Over the past year the presenter has been collaborating with several teachers to provide professional development on integrating technology into the curriculum by working with teachers directly in the classroom. One of the most effective tools that have been used in creating a Moodle (CMS – open source tool) has opened the classroom up to a 24/7 classroom experience. This presentation will focus on the process of making this new way of providing professional development a unique and exciting experience.

Boston Public Schools has undertaken a comprehensive Internet Safety Campaign in the district. You will hear from an administrator who is involved with executing the campaign about how it is working and how the district plans to reach 60,000 members of the school community with the critical messages about how to stay safe on the Internet both in school and at home.

The Global Knowledge Communities project in Woodbridge, CT, connects students with global partners to work collaboratively in a project-learning environment. Faced with real-world problems, real-world resources, and real-world communications, international groups of students conduct research and present their findings to their peers. As a culminating project for grade six students at Beecher Road School, Global Knowledge Communities asks students to utilize skills accumulated across the curriculum including scientific inquiry, information gathering, writing in content areas, using technological tools for collecting and analyzing data, and effective presentations.

Think that your district’s budget constraints will keep you from using the coolest new software with your students? Come learn how free software from Google can be used in your classroom to transform student learning experiences. Google Earth and Sketchup will be the primary focus. Blogger, Docs and Spreadsheets, and Picassa will also be reviewed.

Interested in capturing the attention and participation of all your students? Want to appeal to every learning style? Looking to collaborate with your colleagues in the classroom, language arts, visual arts, and technology areas? In twenty minutes of time you can do it all! Political cartoons promote higher level thinking skills, use primary sources exclusively, and provide a creative outlet. Students broaden their knowledge through symbolism, effective use of imagery, and visual literacy by creating their own original cartoons. This workshop focuses on fourth to sixth grade students, but can easily be adapted for middle and high school.

Engage your students in exciting classroom activities that foster student problem-solving, peer collaboration, and higher-order thinking skills. This presentation will demonstrate how educational robotics has been successfully integrated into the sixth grade mathematics and art curriculum of two local elementary schools. Lesson plan ideas and student worksheets will be provided.

See how to capture motion with a video camera, put the motion on a coordinate system, and then investigate the algebra that describes the motion. The big ideas of algebra can come to life. We will look at parabolic motion and circular functions with VideoPoint and Fathom.

Modern media is replete with colorful charts and graphs, often unaccompanied by adequate explanation. To be effective, today’s students must understand this data. Using Fathom, students learn to manipulate data and tables in several formats. The result is a better understanding of the relationship between numbers and the real world.

Discover ways that collaborative efforts can focus on student needs, develop specific strategies, and utilize iCONN resources to help prepare students for CT standardized tests. A panel of K-12 educators representing library media specialist and/or classroom teachers will discuss how iCONN resources can be used to assist in teaching the objectives of the CMT and CAPT and help improve students' overall literacy skills.

Participants will learn how to develop and implement literature cyberlessons to motivate students to study literature and practice reading comprehension skills. Examples of literature cyberlessons developed by teachers for their middle and high school students will be shared during the presentation.

Using the SmartBoard, math teachers record live classes and record mini tutorials that can be accessed from home by Special Education Students. This pilot program studies the impact of SmartBoard technology on student learning and showcases how Assistive Technology applications can successfully migrate over to help all students learn difficult concepts. See how SmartBoard Notebook Technology can enhance student learning.

A digital story uses Movie Maker & iMovie to create a movie from still images accompanied by the author’s narration. This session will demonstrate how digital storytelling can be a powerful way to engage students in the writing process and provide an alternate means of assessment across a number of disciplines.

"Informances" are opportunities for each class in the school to present a piece of new learning to the greater school community.  "Informances"  are presented six times per year and take various forms - skits, original songs or musical pieces, movement, and technology. An interdisciplinary team will showcase how students use technology as a presentation tool to share information with attention to audience, iMovie, KidPix, etc. As a Higher Order Thinking school, informances are a dynamic way of sharing student learning with the school and parent community.

Effective data management has the power to improve student achievement & educator awareness. Using the Microsoft Office System, learn how to design & implement a data collection & reporting infrastructure to be able to:

• Identify trends & correlations
  
• Make standards work
• Provide evidence for making sound decisions & reflections
• Build a data warehouse for long-term analysis
• Identify effective teaching practices for replication
• Promote cross-curricular connections
• Use common formative & summative assessments effectively

Podcasting is a great way to post and distribute electronic media files online. Podcasts can easily be created by students, teachers, and administrators to share information and programs with a wide audience. This session will answer the following questions: What are podcasts and enhanced podcasts? How can podcasts be used in a K-12 environment? How are podcasts created and published? How are pictures, PPT slides, and music added to a podcast? The session will also discuss what hardware and software are needed on both Windows and Mac platforms and how to setup a web page to publish, and archive podcasts.

See how grade 2-5 teachers designed and easily created motivating interactive PowerPoint, Kidspiration, and Smartboard documents to improve student achievement on specified CMT objectives. Students were then guided through the process of designing and creating their own interactive PowerPoints in their identified problem areas for use in teaching their peers.

Learn how to begin a successful “One Book” school-wide reading program with the collaboration of your teachers and administrators. Find out how one middle school used this program to highlight the importance of reading and how it can help students learn about other cultures in today’s news.

Online collaboration and chat rooms… What do they have in common? They are ways the professional workforce and our students communicate. Though one is for producing work and the other is for entertainment, why not use the technology our students already know to prepare them for the virtual workplace? Participants will be introduced to free online resources and lesson examples that do just that. In what type of class would this work? Any class that: uses (or could use) face-to-face collaborative writing assignments, wants to help improve student communication and writing skills while covering the curriculum, and has access to internet-connected computers.

This presentation will offer practical tips for increasing collaboration, writing skills, and writing frequency by using blogging in your classroom. My students are producing over 3,000 articles per month. http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=55688

In the online high school course “Podcasting and Creative Audio” students created a variety of podcasts as they addressed national and state standards. Students collaborated, wrote, recorded, and edited interviews, research projects, audio tours, and media reviews. The overriding goal was to address new literacies in engaging and substantive ways.

This presentation will focus on using free, web-based technology to help kinesthetic learners study and review their vocabulary words. With minimal instructor effort, students can participate in a variety of vocabulary review activities designed to keep their hands moving and their neurons dancing.

Standards based curriculum models are dominating the educational landscape, but how we interpret the standards into our daily teaching is still a difficult and nebulous task. Since 2001, the CT State Department of Education and the CT RESC alliance have been working with districts to collect student work that exemplifies the standards. The updated and redesigned tool is now available to help districts correlate their interpretations of the standards.

How can we adapt to the Web 2.0 world? This session will suggest projects and techniques teachers of young children can use to explore the new possibilities available, including the use of iPods, podcasts, Web-based tools and other interactive media.

Preparing children with library and technology tools for the 21st century can be challenging. This session will focus on collaborative projects for research, enrichment and skill development that engage kindergarten through third grade learners in the library and computer lab.

The Wacom Graphire Tablets, along with special pens and accompanying software, provide early learners the ability to develop writing and drawing skills by experimenting with print, practicing letter formation and handwriting, creating digital reader-response journal entries, writing and illustrating connections to literature, and developing digital artwork.

Rebecca Tate, a second grade teacher in New Canaan, Connecticut, will demonstrate interactive technology lessons she has implemented in her classroom using a Smartboard and wireless laptops. Lessons will adhere to Connecticut teaching standards in geometry and social studies, i.e. mapping and the Connecticut unit.

As a department supervisor with 19 staff in 16 schools my challenge to provide support for teaching and learning required an innovative solution. This session will focus on using Blackboard, an electronic education platform, to create an online professional learning community. The presentation will include an overview of the development process and a demonstration of the specific features.

State Librarian Kendall Wiggin will demonstrate how to locate primary source materials through the Connecticut State Library, Connecticut History Online and iCONN. He will discuss how teachers and students can effectively use these resources, particularly in studying American and Connecticut history.

While many teachers vehemently refuse to allow the use of Wikipedia in student research projects, this presentation will demonstrate the hidden virtues of the dynamic, online encyclopedia. Rather than utilizing Wikipedia as a traditional reference source, learn how to teach critical thinking skills using this innovative tool.

Cyber-Bullying is a relatively new phenomenon affecting virtually every school in Connecticut. In order to diminish it, understanding what is cyber-bullying and who cyber-bullies are is necessary. This session is designed to explore cyber-bullying as well as what CT law dictates and what best practice suggests for diminishing it.

Robin Brenner, webmaster of No Flying No Tights (graphic novel web site)

Will Richardson, author of the edublog Weblogged and author of the book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Formerly a teacher at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, N.J.

Gary Price, librarian and the Director of Online Information Resources at Ask.com. Gary is also the founder and chief editor/compiler of ResourceShelf.