OTEN Reflection

On September 24th I was fortunate enough to attend the OTEN conference at Willamette University.  I must admit, prior to the conference I was dreading my attendance. I thought that the presenters would eb boring, and that I would not learn anything from the speakers since I am technologically inept and won't be able to incorporate or understand anything that they presented.

I am happy to present that this was NOT the case!

The key note speaker, the head of the Canby School District technology, was fabulous. He discussed all of the huge strides their district has made with regards to test scores as a direct link to the grants they received for technology. He described the many educational uses that an iPad can have, and how they can be applied to any age level (including elementary)!

I was very excited about the first break out session that I attended with Jennifer Roberts. Jennifer was able to show the attendees a wide array of uses technology can have in our classrooms. I was very intrigued when she was able to do an in class poll on the board that updated in real time as we all texted in our answers to the site. It was a fun and interactive way to receive classroom data rather than doing a simple show of hands. Lastly, she showed us numerous websites that could be used for presentations and in-class activities. With this activity she provided us a "breakdown" of these online tools into Bloom's taxonomy.

The second breakout session I attended was a presentation on the use of games in the classroom, presented by a speaker from George Fox University (his name escapes me now). During this session we were introduced to more uses on an iPad with regards to games in the classroom. He showed us an application called "Where's Mommy" and had us construct a game with the program. We were also introduced on how to use a Smartboard to create games as review (such as a football game). I think that games are very important in making learning fun and I think that this session was very helpful in allowing me to explore more options for doing this using technology.