Monday, July 20, 2015

iPadpalooza IN 2015 - #iplzaIN15

I attended and presented at iPadpalooza IN in Noblesville, Indiana on July 16th and 17th. It was an amazing experience. iPadpalooza IN reminded me in some ways of iEngage-Berwyn. A low key local ed tech conference. After the hustle and bustle of ISTE this was a welcome change. The swag in the conference bag was outstanding. We received a t-shirts, a travel mug, and device cleaner! 


+Jordan Garrett and I presented Integrating Tech into the Reading/Writing Workshop and Bringing PLCs to Life with Google +. Both are presentations that we have done before. We had never done the Reading/Writing Workshop session together. The Reading/Writing Workshop was a 2 hour hands on session. That means we presented for 3 hours each day. That left us time to only attend one additional session on both days. We were able to attend the opening Ignite session. +Shelley Coover rocked it and so did +Sarah Thomas. I especially like Shelley's Angry Birds analogy. We presented to a full room on Thursday morning for our 1st Reading/Writing Workshop session. It's funny I didn't feel so good about how the session went and Jordan thought we did really well. I have to say I was not that impressed with the keynote speaker Jared Stein. I was a little turned off by the fact that he was from Canvas (an LMS provider). I prefer to listen to educators not industry people. The food trucks were outstanding! Great lunch! Next we did our Google + presentation to a small crowd. I believe this was our fourth time doing this presentation together. I like this presentation because it really tells a story while talking about the power of an application. The story is a part of the story of District 100s 1:1 journey and how we use Google + as a communication platform for our staff. It is a way for staff to communicate with each other and share student work with the outside world. I am learning that the power in presenting, especially in keynoting, is being able to tell a story. After our session we ended up hanging out in the sponsor area with Bryan Bennett from its Learning. He gave us a short demo of the product. We took an usie because Jordan and I had every intention of completing the AppMazing Race. In the end we decided to forgo the Race because we were so busy presenting.


                                               


The one thing that iPadpalooza IN was missing was an evening social event. After hosing iEngage an going to them at ISTE they really add another dimension to a conference. 

On Friday I went to Jay McTighe and listened to him talk about UbD and Standards Based Grading. Even though our district is doing sbg it was good to hear the information again. I tried my hand at sketchnoting the presentation. It is clear I need much more practice. A good stylus will hopefully help. We did our presentations again. This time we felt just the opposite. I thought it was more polished and Jordan thought we could have done better. Carl Hooker's lunch time keynote was outstanding! According to him, I heard some of it at iEngage-Berwyn. To tell you the truth I was so involved in tweeting and worrying about the conference in May that I did not really hear his message. I got up on stage as a volunteer to help him out with a participation and movement exercise. Of course I messed up! 



In the end I wish that I would have been able to go to more sessions. I was glad I went to Jay McTighe's session. I was really looking forward to hearing him speak. I met John Smith @theipodteacher, and Reshan Richards @reshanrichards, saw Kyle Pearce again, @MathletePearce, and Sarah Thomas @sarahdateechur, but missed Ann Feldman @annfeldman1, Don Goble @dgoble2001, and Tammy Worcester Tang @tammyworcester. 


Food Trucks - Yum!
The conference committee did a fabulous job. You should put this one on your radar especially if you live in the Midwest. 

Here's my Storify as a slideshow. 




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