Integrating Technology into the Classroom

In March, the Farmdale team traveled to Palm Springs, CA for the annual CUE Conference. With some input from the school staff, we thought gaining knowledge of integrating technology into the classroom would help students to make tangible the concepts they were learning in the IB curriculum. Our foci would be information gathering and the production aspects, using computers as the vehicle for both.

As a special treat, the keynote speaker was Sir Ken Robinson:

Some of the workshops we attended delved into topics including:

• The Flipped Classroom
• The iLife Suite: Which includes iPhoto, iMovie (which was used to create this student project), and Garage Band.
• iPad Apps in the classroom; Katherine Burdick even made a Powerpoint tutorial: here.
  
• Using Pinterest for Education
• Adobe Photoshop, courtesy of the folks at Digital Media Academy 

• Self Organized Learning Environments (SOLES); as designed by Sugata Mitra, 2013 TED Prize winner

• Challenge-Based Learning (by Kristen Berg and Dawn-Monique Elkin of the San Ramon Valley USD). For a snapshot of a unit from start to finish, here is one, entitled: Toys for Happiness.
  

CUE Session: Incorporating art, technology, and Common Core critical thinking strategies