I attended TeachMeet NJ in August which is a FREE technology unconference with sessions that are usually 20 minutes long. It was amazing! It is always a great experience to meet with new people who have similar job responsibilities, who are using technology in their classrooms, who are willing to share ideas, provide professional development and information to others and so much more!
I met some amazing people who were from Southern Regional School District in Manahawkin, NJ, Liz Calderwood @Liz1544 and Kate Baker @KtBkr4. Others who I met with were William King @wkingbg, a principal from Kentucky, Paula Naugle @plnaugle, a 4th grade teacher from Louisiana, Ross LeBrun @MrLeBrun, Meredith Martin @Geekyteach, Jeffrey Bradbury @TeacherCast, Alicia Mackall @AliciaMackall, Regina Schaffer @ReginaSchaffer, and so many others. I enjoyed speaking with each and everyone of them. They provided me with so many ideas. If you want more information about these people, you can follow them on Twitter. I provided their twitter name as well.
I wanted to share some of the tools and concepts with you. Here is a list of apps/websites that were demonstrated in the Appsmack Down:
- VisibleTweets
- Elementary tech teachers
- Mediacore - makes a cleaner version of youtube without ads
- ipevo - free whiteboard that you can save as .jpeg files
- Blendspace - formally known as Edcanvas
- Toonoisy app - monitors the noise in your classroom
- Zite app - collects articles on your interests
- Polleverywhere - gets your audience to participate in a discussion using their mobile device
- Remind101 - allows you to send text messages to remind students about events/tasks, etc
- 121writing - will allow you to highlight and create comments on papers, no red ink
- Gobstopper - will allow you to post articles to your students, an e-reader
Other sessions I attended were, Mystery Skype, an awesome idea! The students have to guess where they are skyping to. Programming in the math classroom, Digital Portfolios using Google Drive and shared folders, How to become Google Teacher Certified, No Red Ink, Track Evidence on your iPad, Introduction to Inforgraphics, and much more!
I also would like to thank Kyle Calderwood @kcalderw, for creating and organizing this wonderful event!
If you are in the southern New Jersey area, I would highly recommend you attend this unconferernce. I plan on attending and even apply to be a presenter next year!