DEN+2011+Institute

1. For the last 2 years I have attended the greatest workshop ever known to a techie teacher...The Discovery Educational Network Summer Institute! Here I have met many interesting and talented people, engaged in activities that stretched my brain and learned about ways I can incorporate technology into my classroom. Each of these reasons I enjoyed the past institutes is the exact reason for my motivation to return. Chad, Dennis and I sat around the table one night after ICE and chatted about all that we had learned and the people we had met and were all equally humbled and thankful for the opportunities and connections made through Discovery. As you can see from the video below, my PLN has expanded all over the nation, and helped me right in my own classroom.

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2. As a professional, I have branched out a bit and spoken at a couple conferences-one was a small, local conference for West 40 here in suburban Cook County and the other was for ICE, the Illinois Computing Educators conference. For all three talks-one was an all day workshop at West 40 and the other two were hour sessions at ICE-the one thread other than technology woven in each talk was the resources available through Discovery. Not only was Discovery Streaming embedded in my content, but concepts and activities throughout my presentations were ones that originated from my time spent at DENSI! In my own district I have also continued to be the trainer for Discovery Streaming, and a leader in helping teachers incorporate the technology we have into our lessons. I also have just begun as an LC member and look forward to helping spread the word and help other teachers navigate the sometime difficult challenged technology can present. You can see from a Prezi I used, that I used ideas from DENSI (Lodge's ideas) and Discovery resources (the digital images and such).

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3. My expertise...Ha! I guess I am too modest a person to consider myself an expert. I would say my best asset is my ability to take technology and see what its uses might be in the classroom. Brainstorming, creating and seeing these tools in a practical sense has been my strength for my district and during my presentations. After each of my presentations, many teachers complemented me, "So now I know how to USE all these tools I have already learned how to use!"