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#FallCUE19 – My Top Takeaways

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This year’s Fall CUE Conference was held at Cordova High School, an 18-minute drive from my home (in Folsom, Calif.). Nice!

Opening Keynote

Catlin Tucker gave the opening keynote. Thank you to the CUE team for recording and posting her talk. So many great time-saving tips and strategies for teachers, designed to put students in the driver’s seat.

Sessions

Micro + Macro Writing: HyperDoc Lessons that Matter for Today’s WriterSarah Landis: This was my first time to meet Sarah Landis. Knowing that Sarah is one of the “hyperdocs girls,” I already knew her session would be a treat. I’ve also known, through my own teaching experiences, the power of limiting students to a set number of words or syllables. From 6-word memoirs, which Sarah had us delve into, to haiku, the format limitations seem to spark unlimited searches for just the right word – often pushing students to write beyond the school day – to write when they don’t have to write.

It Doesn’t Get Better Than This – EDUInnovators Unite!Kevin Fairchild gathered a group of educators from San Diego and asked them to share ‘one best thing’ to ensure their “technology integration provides relevant, engaging, and MARVELous learning opportunities for all.”

  • Brenda Gillies – Brenda introduce us to Thrively, which looks like a great tool for surveying students to identify their interests. Tip: If you do the assessment at the beginning of  the year, you will have an invaluable tool for helping students see the positives in their fellow classmates and to also analyze strengths/weaknesses of their own work groups.
  • Adina Sullivan – Adina never ceases to inspire me with powerful resources for important topics (accessibility, digital tattoo, and more). Her #FallCUE19 gems:
    • Fontpair.co – Tip: Have students look at a whole block of text to judge the readability. Be sure to checkout Fontpair’s 10 Tips.
    • emojicopy.com – Tip: You can paste emojis in as text to help students easily find things. Works great in Google Classroom.
  • Jen RobertsGroup Creator – Jen created this fantastic spreadsheet, which allows you to create non-random/deliberate groups. Tip: Use for student collaboration groups. Display groups on board for students to see as they walk in.
  • Kevin Fairchild – Accessibility in G Suite – Tip: I knew about using live captions via YouTube captions, as you can see in Catlin’s keynote, but I didn’t know you can now move the captions bar to the top of the video. 
  • Roger Wagner – Roger recommended exploring three programs to build students’ coding skills:
    • Arduino – “Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for anyone making interactive projects.”
    • Make Code – “MakeCode brings computer science to life for all students with fun projects, immediate results, and both block and text editors for learners at different levels.”
    • WorkBench – “Using the Spark Fun Inventor’s Kit, students will learn the basics of programming in Arduino, how circuits work, how to create outputs and read inputs.”Integrates with Google Classroom.

Bull$h!+ Skills – Tools For Fighting False/Fake NewsMark Ray and Kristina Ishmael make a great team. I’ve heard Mark speak before (he is leading the Future Ready Schools charge). This was my first time to hear Kristina. I’ll definitely be exploring her NewAmerica.org site. It was a treat to join their high-energy session on a topic I too am passionate about. Here’s the link to their slides. #MediaLiteracy

Two Adobe Spark Sessions – I’m a huge fan of Adobe Spark, so I was delighted to see that both the awesome Laura Bradley and Brooke Carey Ahrens were offering sessions: Media Literacy through Media Creation: Graphics, Web Pages, and Videos, oh my! (Laura’s session) and Using Adobe Spark as a Transmedia Storytelling Tool (Brooks’ session). Love how Spark builds in proper attribution for Creative Commons content.

Podcasting 101 – I’ve been a long-time fan of Brian Briggs and Ryan O’Donnell. Love the many ways this dynamic duo infuses humor and practical tips into powerful tech integration. I could only stay for the first half of their workshop, so I’m looking forward to exploring their slides and playing with the Anchor app (now downloaded on my phone). In my district, elementary teachers are looking for meaningful ways to structure (and assess) speaking and listening activities. Podcasting meets – and exceeds – that requirement, with so many options for taking student voice beyond the walls of the classroom.

Closing Keynote

I’m hoping CUE will post Ed Campos Jr’s closing keynote. This 3-minute snippet gives a peek into his warm, embracing, hilarious style. Equity, empathy, and the “Pedagogy of Poverty,” were infused throughout – with a call to “release the learning and the writing to the kids.”

The biggest challenge in attending a CUE Conference is to decide which sessions to attend. The good news is that many of the Fall CUE presenters often present at the Annual Spring CUE Conference in Palm Springs. Starting the countdown till March.

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