Sessions
Breakfast
Breakfast
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Please let us know if you intend on joining us for breakfast on Thursday.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Lunch
Lunch
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Please let us know if you intend on joining us for lunch.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Social Mixer
Celebration of Educators-Rusty Deweese
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Entertainer, Comedic Artist, writer and musician, Rusty Deweese sets the stage as an eclectic and innovative act. He sells out shows around New England! Join us for an evening with Rusty.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Workshops
Alternate Assessments: YouTube and BlipTV
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
The Universal Design for Learning is all about using technology to give all students alternative ways in which to learn and be assessed to meet their individual learning needs. Using video podcasting/movie making as a learning tool and then sharing it with the world on YouTube or BlipTV gives students an authentic way to learn and teach others. Talk about the world’s largest refrigerator to “hang” your work on!! Making videos and video podcasts can cover many different content areas of the Vermont Standards as well as facilitating student learning in 21st Century Skills, Collaboration, and Teamwork. This session emphasizes how YouTube and/or BlipTV can be used as an assessment of student learning in a fun, collaborative and global way.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Beep and Honk Your Way Into Learning
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and Tool Factory
Experiment with activities that develop critical IT skills such as mouse control and keyboarding. Learn to make friends with funny characters who respond differently to each mouse click. Hone your click-and-drag skills with painting and easy animation projects. Learn timing and targeting while chasing animals in the animal parade. In the literacy spectrum, we’ll look at activities for visual discrimination, letter learning, and phonics. Internet permitting, we’ll wrap up with a visit to Elementary Zone and discover 100 activities for English, science, and math. Attendees get a free software program (worth $69), plus a subscription to Elementary Zone.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Beginning School of Photography-PAY Session
Sponsored By: Vemont-NEA and Tool Factory
FEE: $509 per person. This fee will be due the morning of the workshop.
Each attendee receives an Olympus FE Series, 10 megapixel digital camera (worth $250) ideal for daily classroom shooting. This camera features 12X zoom, macro mode, panorama, and video. Plus receive a detailed digital photography book, lesson plan packet, and a free copy of Tool Factory Workshop (worth $199). You’ll be taking quality photos for yearbooks, newspapers, flyers, lab reports, worksheets, presentations, bulletin boards, and much more! Construct a report that includes narration and sound effects. Use a paint program to enhance your images by creating frames and adding special effects. Smudge out a frame, stamp a border, and email your creation to your pen pal. The instructor will walk you through some impressive projects that can be done with simple mouse clicks. Come and explore various camera features, learn about storage formats, and decipher the often-cryptic terminology you’ll encounter when learning about a digital camera. We’ll cover the basics of digital photography, and practice using resolutions, zoom, and macro. Learn about the rule of the thirds, leading lines, and foreground interest. Complete a series of mini-photography assignments, transfer the pictures to the computer, and touch them up. Edit your images, improve lighting, and eliminate red-eye. Then we’ll show you how to create a one-click slide show, and build impressive worksheets with your digital photos. Add captions to photographs, and turn a photographic scene into a background with clip art characters for story writing. For math and science, we’ll create a photo-enhanced database and spreadsheet. Finally, we’ll build a more serious report that integrates photographs, text, video, and sound effects. Come prepared to experiment!
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Big Brother is Watching
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
The “Big Brother is Watching” training will acquaint attendees with VT statutes and US law regarding free speech, academic freedom and school employee discipline. We will detail issues surrounding the ownership and control of school owned and controlled computer systems, proxy servers and tracking computer use in schools. We will discuss computer use in schools including school policies, passwords, viruses, software, the danger of email, privacy issues, jokes, inspirational and religious messages, access to personal accounts from school, criticism and sexual harassment. We will also detail the perils of internet use for school staff including Google, My Space, Face book, You Tube, pornography, shopping and personal information sharing. We will consider the dangers of blogs and blogging by school staff. There will be time for question and answer and actual scenarios will be discussed in detail.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Claymation Creations
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and Tool Factory
Using only a ball of clay and a digital camera, we’ll show you how to make a clay character come to life. The instructor will demonstrate how to shoot a sequence of digital photos, transfer images over to the computer, and assemble the frames into a looping cartoon. Get loads of laughs as we share each finished project with the class. Each attendee receives a free copy of Tool Factory Movie Maker (worth $69.95).
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Cybersecurity
Sponsored By: Vemont-NEA and NEA
Nearly everything we use today from communication tools to transportation rely on computers or the Internet. Discover simple steps, practices and resources you can use to recognize and minimize your risk when using these tools as well as how to respond if your computer has been jeopardized.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Data Driven Decision Making
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and Turning Technologies
It is estimated that teaching the K-12 standards requires 15,000 hours of instruction time with less than 11,000 hours of actual instructional time available. Although as a nation, we have focused on high stakes testing to address these issues, there remains a significant gap between using the results of these assessments for assigning a score versus driving instruction. Student Response Systems can make data collection a breeze and therefore allow the educator to focus on differentiated instruction to impact overall student achievement. In this workshop, we will review the use of a Student Response Systems and their applications in the classroom as well as examine options for authoring content and analyzing assessment data.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Digital Video & Podcasting: Revitalizing the Curriculum
Sponsored By: Vemont-NEA and Tool Factory
Looking for a hands-on workshop? Looking for ways to reinvigorate students? Join us to explore Flip video technology, podcasting, and simple video editing to engage students and enliven any subject. From personal history reports to newscasts and student-created advertisements, you’ll take part in building a curriculum-based podcast. Use multi-track recording to produce easy, sophisticated soundtracks to layer over a video production. Then, learn student-friendly video editing on Tool Factory Movie Maker that makes video production a snap! Each attendee receives a free copy of Tool Factory Movie Maker (worth $69.95), and a year’s subscription to Clip Art Station.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Examining the Teaching and Learning Conditions Survey Data-What does the Data for Your School Mean?
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and The New Teacher Center
The training will focus on three key areas:
1. Understanding how to read, interpret and analyze the item data by examining the factors and examining the items within the factors
2. Explore ways to use the data for school improvement
3. Develop strategies for using your school level data
Participants will receive tools that include descriptive information on many of the survey items. These tools include question prompts to stimulate thought and dialog around the survey items.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Google Tool Favorites
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Google Tools for educators and students are amazing! In this session, I will be showing you what they are, where you can get them, and discussing a few of my personal favorites. They really are powerful and definitely have a place in every classroom for teachers as well as students! It would be VERY helpful for all participants to sign-up for a Gmail account prior to this session as we will not have time to get everyone signed up during the session. To do this, you simply go to www.gmail.com and go through their sign up process. Please write down your user id and password so you can log in during the session. If you are not able to sign up, you will still be able to benefit from this session – not to worry. You can sign up later. It is this account that will allow you to access Google Tools. In this session, you will be given practical tools that can be immediately used in your classroom!
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Grant Writing for Beginners! Opportunities and Tips
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and Tool Factory
Get your school noticed! We’ll look at each step in the process of generating a winning grant application and discuss how to argue for technology. Review libraries of resources that will help you identify grant opportunities. Explore some fantastic fundraising websites and locate free resources that lead you through the preparatory steps of grant writing. Craft your funding request so that it matches the grant’s funding objectives. Avoid common mistakes, and get guided tips from the former judges. Attendees get a list of available funding opportunities, plus a subscription to Elementary Zone.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Does using the internet stress you out? Do you worry about asking kids to use the internet? Do you live in constant fear of your email? Does the cyber-world seem like more trouble than it's worth? Laura Thomas, Director of the Antioch Center for School Renewal and PD Affiliate for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills will lead this discussion and exploration of the ways to make the internet work for you instead of the other way around.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Information You Should Know..Technology Initiatives, Learning Opportunities from the Dept. of Ed.
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and Dept of Ed.
Join Peter Drescher, Education Technology Coordinator, as he discusses ways that the stimulus package is being used to foster 21st century technology and learning across the state. He will be sharing some successes with on-going projects and keeping you abreast of new projects on the horizon. Bring your questions about grant opportunities and professional development offerings that are being supported by Title IID funding.
For more information email: adary@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Making a Smart Board the Centerpiece of Your Classroom
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Interactive whiteboards affect learning in several ways, including raising the level of student engagement in a classroom, motivating students, and promoting enthusiasm for learning. In many ways, they are changing the way we all teach!
In this presentation, we’ll focus on using the Smart Board in your K-8 classroom. Topics will include basic operation, using the Smart Board software (including Notebook, Speller and Number Cruncher), creating your own Smart Board lessons, Infinite Cloner and using the Recorder for lesson compilations. We will also share a wide assortment of lessons for grades K-8, show you where to get help, cover some pretty cool intermediate/advanced uses of the Board, and identify a host of Smart-related educational resources.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
School of Podcasting-PAY Session
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and Tool Factory
FEE: $349 per person. This fee will be due the morning of the workshop.
Each attendee receives an Olympus WS series Digital Voice Recorder (worth $100) ideal for daily classroom or field trip recording, Olympus Noise Reduction Microphone (worth $20), Tool Factory’s Simple Guide to Podcasting Book (worth $20), Clip Art Station subscription account (worth $35) and Tool Factory Podcasting software (worth $100). Learn to create podcasts and use all the necessary equipment that will get your students jumping out of their chairs for more! The Tool Factory trainer will give basics of how to podcast using Tool Factory’s Podcasting software and in minutes you will be creating your very own podcasts! More detailed training will include instructional use of the microphone and digital voice recorder. Later, using Tool Factory’s Simple Guide to Podcasting book, the trainer will cover aspects, unknown to most podcasters, such as copyright information and acceptable use policies. Come with curriculum objectives in mind and leave saturated with podcasting classroom applications!
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Seasonal Changes in the Night Sky
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Orion is one of the most beautiful and easily identifiable constellations of the winter night sky - but is nowhere to be found in the summer sky! In Vermont, we can find the Big Dipper every night of the year yet never get to see the stars that make up the Southern Cross. Join a Montshire science education specialist to learn how easy it is to unravel these mysteries along with rest of the seemingly chaotic motions of the night sky. This workshop will move quickly from lessons in daily motion to learning how the earth's orbit affects the seasonal variations in the stars and constellations we see. Finally we will add the planetary motions of the five naked-eye planets as we build our model of celestial motion. All lessons are relevant to teaching in descriptive astronomy in the 4th-8th grade classrooms - and we will practice our new understanding of what's in the sky in the Museum's Star Lab portable planetarium.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Seasonal Changes in the Night Sky-Day 2
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Orion is one of the most beautiful and easily identifiable constellations of the winter night sky - but is nowhere to be found in the summer sky! In Vermont, we can find the Big Dipper every night of the year yet never get to see the stars that make up the Southern Cross. Join a Montshire science education specialist to learn how easy it is to unravel these mysteries along with rest of the seemingly chaotic motions of the night sky. This workshop will move quickly from lessons in daily motion to learning how the earth's orbit affects the seasonal variations in the stars and constellations we see. Finally we will add the planetary motions of the five naked-eye planets as we build our model of celestial motion. All lessons are relevant to teaching in descriptive astronomy in the 4th-8th grade classrooms - and we will practice our new understanding of what's in the sky in the Museum's Star Lab portable planetarium.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Smart Response and Table Systems
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and Valley Communications
Join Valley Communications with Ed Barry as you experience hands-on and first-hand about the new Smart Response and Smart Table systems.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Social Security-A Foundation for Building Your Financial Future
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and Rutland Vermont Social Security Office
Financial planning for retirement is an important but often neglected task. Learning about Social Security benefit programs should be an important part of your planning process. To help you understand how Social Security works and what benefits it offers, Social Security is offering a presentation that covers the following topics:
• The future of Social Security
• Eligibility requirements
• Immediate online benefit estimates
• How a Social Security benefit is calculated
• When to file for retirement benefits
• Who can qualify for disability benefits
• Benefits payable to spouses, children and widows(ers)
• Medicare eligibility, coverage and costs - and when to file
• SSA online services including our recently streamlined retirement application
A PowerPoint presentation along with Social Security literature to take home and study will be offered. Questions and discussion are encouraged.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Songwriting Across the Curriculum
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Emily and Lynn will provide educators with a songwriting strategy which can be easily modified to enhance student learning in any subject area. They have found their strategy to be useful for students of various ages, academic skill levels, musical/writing abilities, and motivation levels. The strategy shows students how to take a piece of writing or an idea and turn it into a song within a few minutes. Using basic information about lyric structure, chord progressions, and various music styles/genres, students edit their writing to fit a verse/chorus pattern, and select chord progressions and rhythms which best match the mood and meaning of their writing. You will experience the songwriting strategy from the student’s point of view, so please plan to bring a piece of writing to work with. It may be your own, or that of an anonymous “friend” or a famous poet, or one of your lesson plans you would like to incorporate songwriting into. For a more detailed description of the workshop please email Emily at musicwoman512@yahoo.com.
Note: While it is helpful, you do not have to have advanced musical skills or talent to use songwriting in your classroom. You just have to be open to trying something new and fun.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Take the Stage and Create Your First Podcast!
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and Tool Factory
We’ll plan, write, and perform a theatrical podcast in one hour, so bring your dramatic flair! Create a historical re-enactment or a cartoon-voice scene…or even try your hand at Shakespeare. Split into groups and plan the episodes and characters. Write a short script and record the dialog. Search a copyright-free library for music and sound effects. Publish the project on the internet, and then subscribe and listen to your podcast. Wrap up by sharing the best podcasts with your classmates. Attendees receive a year’s subscription to Clip Art Station.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Technology Tornado!
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and Tool Factory
Get ready to explore some of the most amazing technology innovations for education. Play a voice-controlled educational game. Then use the same microphone to build a podcast. Contribute to a theatrical script and watch as we bring a dramatic scene to life. With a standard digital camera, we’ll take extreme close-ups, and then switch to panorama mode and stitch together one amazingly long image. We’ll wrap up by constructing a clay-animated sequence. Each attendee receives a free copy of Tool Factory Movie Maker (worth $69.95).
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
The Refugee Awareness Project, Concept Coming to Life!
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Refugees...The word gets used more and more in Vermont. But what does it really mean to be a refugee? We bring the concept to life.
The Refugee Awareness Project represents a collaborative unit between ELL students, English students, and the school library. During this project students choose a refugee memoir and participate in an online virtual book discussion using a wiki. The wiki also includes resources, assignments, multimedia links, and assessments. Participating in an online game allows students to relive refugee experiences. Students also collaboratively create Google Lit Trips for each memoir. The culminating activity is an in-school field trip that includes a book discussion and a guest speaker.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Using Classroom Audio Technology to Enhance the Learning Environment
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA and Light Speed Technologies
Hearing is the primary channel for learning. Light Speed’s classroom audio systems allow every child in a classroom to hear all the speech components of the teacher's voice – regardless of where a student is seated – greatly enhancing their ability to learn. Independent studies confirm that the use of this technology results in significantly higher academic and achievement test scores for all students. Classroom audio technology is now recognized as one of the most powerful and cost effective tools for improving student learning.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
Using Twitter and Wikis to Enhance Student Learning
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
You hear about Twitter, “tweeting”, and wikis, but what are they and what are the educational applications? This session will examine ways in which you can repurpose these technology tools to enhance student content learning, and help give your students 21st Century skills in the process! It would be VERY helpful for all participants to sign-up for both a Twitter and Wiki spaces account prior to this session as we will not have time to get everyone signed up during the session. You can do this by going to www.twitter.com and www.wikispaces.com to go through each of their sign up processes. Please write down your user id and password so you can log in during the session. If you are not able to sign up, you will still be able to benefit from this session – not to worry! You can sign up later. These tools are highly collaborative and as we all know the ability to collaborate on a global level is very important for our students today!
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
What Makes Day and Night?
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Join Montshire Museum of Science for this special VT-NEA teacher workshop exploring ways to have primary grade students observe and record evidence of the Earth's daily rotation. Both daytime and nighttime astronomy activities will be introduced that can easily incorporated into any astronomy unit. This workshop will use the Museum's portable Star Lab planetarium system to explore the night sky and how it changes. We will also work with daytime shadows, observe the apparent daily motion of the sun, and nightly motion of the stars, moon, and planets as we learn to identify stars, constellations and planets visible in our fall and winter night sky.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
What Makes Day and Night? Day 2
Sponsored By: Vermont-NEA
Join Montshire Museum of Science for this special VT-NEA teacher workshop exploring ways to have primary grade students observe and record evidence of the Earth's daily rotation. Both daytime and nighttime astronomy activities will be introduced that can easily incorporated into any astronomy unit. This workshop will use the Museum's portable Star Lab planetarium system to explore the night sky and how it changes. We will also work with daytime shadows, observe the apparent daily motion of the sun, and nightly motion of the stars, moon, and planets as we learn to identify stars, constellations and planets visible in our fall and winter night sky.
For more information email: adarby@vtnea.org Or phone: 802-223-6375 Ext: 109
