My NETA 2018 Takeaways

Share Your Story 

I was accepted by my school district to attend the annual conference for NETA. I was very happy I was able to attend this conference the past two days. I know many teachers in my district would have loved to be here so I know that it is important for me to not only reflect on my experience but also share what I've learned as way to share my OWN story. It has been a three years since I've attended the NETA Spring Conference (Here were  My NETA 2015 Takeaways). I really wish more teachers would have the opportunity to attend these types of conferences. This is one of the reason I don't request to go each year to help give room for other teachers to attend.

Friday Keynote Joe Sanfelippo (@Joe_Sanfelippo) was so powerful. A major reason I really enjoy coming to conferences like NETA is a need to be reenergized, appreciated and valued, and a challenge to do better as an educator and leader in my building. I hope that I can take his inspirational message and apply that to help strengthen the culture in my building. I am very interested in his book Hacking Leadership by Joe Sanfelippo Tony Sinais to help start a dialog in my building to strengthen the culture in my classroom, department, and building.

Cultivating culture is so important and it starts with my own mindset each morning, my interactions with my students, and my fellow staff members I work with each day at my school. 

A quote from his morning presentation:

Today I shall behave as if this is the day I will be remembered - Dr Seuss

This is one of the reasons I try to remain active on Twitter and on this Blog so I can share some of the amazing stuff my students do in my classroom.

If you need a good laugh you have to check out their Snow Day Announcement Video. This is a school that is led by a leader who is facilitating a community and culture that was inspiring to get a glimpse through his stories he shared.

A Few Things I want To Try:

I always hope to gain a few ideas from attending a conference and the biggest problem at NETA is not being overwhelmed by all that is shared.

3-D Printing
Had a chance to listen to Eric Langhorst (@ELanghorst) present on what he is doing in his school with 3-D Printing. His resources can be found at: 3D Printing in the History Classroom

There are lots of ways I could see using 3D Printing: 

- Print replicas of artifacts from places like Smithsonian 3D. Even if I don't print 3D models, students can check out some of the cool 3D models available like the Wright Flyer and their tours like the Philadelphia Gunboat they could explore on their web browser.

- Use the website Sightline Maps to create a terrain models for historic locations. I think it would be cool to create one of Gettysburg to help students see how the terrain impacted the Battle of Gettysburg.

- Students could design a memorial/monument to remember a historical figure or event. I've actually been thinking about a project for this for awhile. I have thought about having students use Google SketchUp to design their memorial. I thought I would have students research lesser known figures in history or of lesser known historical events and create a way to visually represent what they learned. Learning about Tinkercad I think it would be cool for them to actual create a 3D design that they would be able to print out as part of their display.

I have lots of things to work out with my ideas these next few weeks. I am hoping to connect with my school's Engineering and Technology Teacher who has a 3D printer in their classroom to see how I could incorporate this into some of my student project options moving forward.

Augmented Reality

A huge takeaway I got from a workshop in DC during the Summer of 2017 was the importance of place in helping us shape our historical memory. I am very captivated by the use of Google Cardboard, VR, and Augmented Reality Apps on Smart Devices. Below are some resources I am looking forward to explore. Many of these I got from Leslie Fischer (Website) who always is both highly informative and entertaining to learn from.

AR Flashcards Abraham Lincoln: App that puts a virtual Mr. Lincoln in our world. I was disappointed my phone does not support this app, but I hope to get this to work on an iPAD and do some exploring with this. Might be a great ay for students to explore Lincoln and listen to him recite the Gettysburg Address. 

Chimani National Parks: Has created apps to help enhance your experience at various National Parks. This looks really exciting and I'm looking forward to checking out the Rocky National Park App this summer with my family. 

JigSpace: This looks like a neat AR app that has lots of 3D simulations. 

Agents of Discovery: Is an AR App much like Pokemon Go (See early post Gotta Catch Them All) where you can design your own mission. Students would download the App and would be able to explore the outside world. There are already built in missions, in many National Forests 

I think this has some neat potential and would be fun for my school 7th Grade Orientation Day as a way to help students learn about the School or for my students to help design a game for our community to explore local history. There is a price to this so I am going to need to do some further investigation on this to see how practical this could be. 

Websites....Websites....And More Websites

One of the challenges I've always had attending NETA is the steady stream of new resources and websites. It can be a little intimidating and leaves me exhausted by Friday afternoon. Here are some noteworthy websites I'm hanging onto.

Archive of Google Doodles: Look at all of the cool Google Doodles they have had. Each is full of information and you can even go back and check out their Interactive Doodles. I loved their Pony Express Doodle when it came out and was sad when it was taken down.  Now I go down the rabbit hole of Google Interactive Doodles and spend countless hours.

Game to Guess the AI’s Animal: This looks like a fun game I an play with my Homeroom Students. This is from Google Experiments that uses Artificial Intelligence to see if you can guess the AI's animal. This is like the game 20 Questions. 

Emjoi Scavenger Hunt: This is another Google Experiments game where the website gives you an emoji and you have to find the actual object in the real world in 20 seconds. Might be a fun game to play in Homeroom with students.  

Flippity: This has lots of great templates to use with Google Spreadsheets. There are so many great games that could be used for Formative Assessments. Would be a great additional resource to go with my Digital Dipstick Resources. 

Book Creator: This looks like a great tool to create children books. I have had students in the past use StoryBird to create a Children's book describing one of our Bill of Rights. Might be another tool to share with students to create informative student projects. 

LMGTFY (Let me Google That For You): Allows you to create a video on how to show people use Google Search. I did one such as Who Was The 16th President? 

BingoBoard Maker: Make BingoBoards for student reviews. This is another great tool for my Digital Dipstick Resources. 

Crossword Labs: Design Crossword puzzles for student reviews. This is another great tool for my Digital Dipstick Resources. 

Purpose Games: Design games for student review where students can click on the images. This Westward Expansion Territories Game would be great for my students to review during our Manifest Destiny Unit. This is another great tool for my Digital Dipstick Resources. 

FlatIcon: Website to find clipart icons. For the free downloads you are asked to credit the author. 

VoxVote: There are several polling websites I've seen and used to help gauge student understanding and engage students. What looks cool about this is that it creates Word Clouds. This looks like another one to add to my list. 

TesTeach: This looks like a good resource to help me create Blended Lessons. Looks like a good resource tool to check out. 

WordWall: This looks like another tool to help students review vocabulary and concepts. There are several templates that students can pick from when reviewing. There is a free basic account, but if you want to use this more it might be better to look at some of the paid account options.  

PhotoScan: This app lets you scan pictures of photos. I have a lot of family historical images that I would like to preserve digitally. This looks like a good tool to try to preserve some of my family history. 

Emoji Translate: Might be a fun website to take text from a famous speech or written document and see if students can guess what words are missing or what the document I'm showing them. I quickly created a Gettysburg Address and Preamble to the Constitution using this site. Something to further explore. 

Emoji Encyclopedia: I have used emojis in my Emoji Civil War Soldier Project. I might use this Encyclopedia for my students to summarize their research Civil War Soldiers. Instead of circling from a template I might give them a template with blanks and have them copy and paste their emoji into this template and than write a brief description why they picked their emoji. 

Emoji Tracker: This is a cool website to see what Emojis are popular on Twitter. 

Knight Lab Resources:

Leslie Fisher shared about the KnightLab Resources from Northwest University. These look like some really great tools to use for creating learning content for students or for student projects. 

Juxtapose: Allows you to take two photos of the same area and slide between the pre - post. I would love to do this with historical pictures. This summer I hope to be at the Gettysburg National Park. I hope I can get some pictures of me in the present that align up with some of the famous pictures from the battle. 

Gigapixel: This is very similar to ThingLink. I used ThingLink for my students to examine American Progress by John Gast. This might be another way to help students explore pictures and paintings as a primary source analysis lesson. 

TimelineJS:This looks like a great timeline generator. I have had students create various timelines throughout my course including a post WWII timeline at the end of the year and this might be a viable option for some of my students. 

StoryMap:JS This looks like a great way to create interactive maps. Might be a good way for me to create content for students to explore or as project options. This might make for an extension for my Historical Timelines with Google Maps. 

As always there was so much too take away from the Spring NETA Conference. Do you have any resources that you think I should check out?  I would love to hear about them in the comments section below.