MassCUE & M.A.S.S. Technology Conference 2013

Yesterday I attended the  MassCUE & M.A.S.S. Technology Conference 2013 and had the opportunity to attend Tony Wagner's Keynote. I recently downloaded his new book Creating Innovators and plan read and checkout his videos.  Whenever I attend a conference my favorite part of the day is checking out what students are doing, so I headed to the student poster section where I got to see students from Mashpee High School present artifacts created with a 3D printer from their 3D Animation and CAD classes. I was so impressed with the students and teacher, Salvatore Nocella. My Department has been visiting the website for inspiration.  I then headed over to a session by Dean Shareski, I have been following him on twitter for years and I knew I had to see his presentation "Encouraging Creativity 5 Minutes at a Time"  I found his session inspiring and plan to put many of his suggestions into practice.

After lunch and a few pictures of the field at Gillette Stadium with a collegaue, Linda Offt I wanted to attend Jean Tower's session that she facilitated IGNITE Your Passion in Just Five Minutes.  A great group of educators and administrators spoke about topics in their school or district that inspired passion in their lives. It was very obvious when watching Greg Schwanbeck from Westwood present on implementing Chromebooks for every high school student. The Natick Superintendent, Dr. Sanchioni gave an amazing session on getting everyone on board and prepared to use technology.  Suzy Brooks, a teacher from Cape Code who is so inspiring shared her passion and goals along with other educators. I loved the session and their passion! I was starting to drag by the last session but had to make my way to Building a Student Journalism Program: Empowering PBL/Digital Literacies with Fred Haas and Sterling Worrell for Hopkinton.  I have been communicating with them over the last month to connect one of my amazing teachers, Jacquie Carter who is now teaching Journalism in order to collaborate

One of my favorite parts of the day was seeing several of my former graduate students from Littleton, Quabbin, Mashpee and Groton attending the conference and lighting up as they talk about how embracing technology has changed their teaching and connected them to other educators. I also reconnected with other educators and colleagues for a day of inspiration.