Teach Beyond the Buzzwords

This year I was lucky enough to head to the National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) national conference in St. Louis. This was my second year attending and getting to present. Jenny O'Sullivan and I presented our Green Screen + AR session to highlight the First Grade Garden project. Then we had Suzette Milu join us to share how we integrate tech into science. We discussed the importance of meaningful integration to increase engagement and document mastery of content. If you are interested, you can check out our NSTA presentations and materials for  Bringing Student Creativity to Life in the Elementary Science Classroom  and Transforming Your Science Classroom Through Technology  at bit.ly/nsta19 . Every time I go to NSTA, I realize how much I DO NOT know. I can definitely learn SO much about good science and STEM integration. I definitely don't do enough STEM lessons in my first grade classroom so, these last two years, I chose to attend sessions that focus on j...

For the last few Januarys, I have been lucky enough to attend the Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC). This was my fourth year attending, and thanks to my colleague, Jenny O'Sullivan , who pushed me to submit proposals with her, it was my third year as a presenter. Each time I present it feels like the first time, yet I am getting more and more comfortable doing it. This year’s presentation was a big one for me. I was able to present my first 2-hour workshop. These sessions cost extra money for attendees to attend so the pressure was on. We presented our Green Screen + AR session, and this time we walked everyone through the process of duplicating our First Grade Garden project. Overall it went well, but I am looking forward to our next opportunity to present it. There are definitely things we will tweak to make the presentation better. I think my favorite part of presenting this topic is the reaction we get when we show the final "product." When we ...

Wow, what a turn out for our presentation! Thank you, everyone! Can’t believe it’s over. Thank you to everyone who stopped by my poster session, AR + Green Screen = App Smashing Success, with Jenny O’Sullivan.  Here’s a link to our resources . There you will find everything needed to duplicate our Garden & LEGO projects. We LOVE combining augmented reality with green screen to make student work come alive. Read more about the Our Garden project via Jenny’s blog now!   Again, thanks for checking us out. Until next year, ISTE!