On Saturday, January 21st, three members of the Cathedral staff attended a technology conference in Orange County. Math teacher Ms. Katie Linn and history teachers Mr. Matt Baier and Ms. Melissa Padgett attended the annual Orange County Computer-Using Educators (CUE) Technology Festival 2012.
According to the conference’s website, the mission of CUE is to “provide leadership and support to advance student achievement in the educational community.”
This is the second CUE conference for Ms. Padgett and Mr. Baier. Both also attended the SD CUD (San Diego Computer-Using Educators) conference at Cal State University San Marcos last November. Cathedral teachers Mr. Joe Filippone, Mrs. Kathleen Garcia, and Mr. Stephen Anderson also attended.
“We choose to go because we are excited about all of our students getting iPads next year, and we want to help make that transition successful and be able to create meaningful learning experiences for our students next year,” Mr. Baier said. “There is so much to learn, and it is great to be around other tech-oriented teachers and learn from them.”
Ms. Padgett said, “I decided to attend the conference to gain a deeper knowledge about how teachers are successfully integrating technology into their classrooms.”
The conference featured different sessions and exhibitors showcasing different types and uses of technology in education. The teachers received schedules and decided which presentations they wished to attend.
“For example,” said Mr. Baier, “during one session, Ms. Linn attended a presentation about math while I attended a presentation about copyright and fair-use.”
A keynote speaker gave a presentation about educational technology, and there was also a Student Technology Showcase, during which students from various schools presented projects or activities they had completed at their schools.
“It kind of looked like a science fair, but with tech projects instead of experiments,” Mr. Baier said. “It was really cool to see these motivated students be able to present work they had done to so many teachers.”
Regarding the transition to iPads next year, Ms. Padgett said, “I feel pretty confident. I have been trying to use technology regularly in both my first and second semester classes.”
“My Government students are creating e-Portfolios to showcase their work and also to use as a study guide throughout the semester. My Sociology students use Google sites to make websites for a variety of projects throughout the semester,” she said. “Also, in my study skills summer school class, my students maintained online blogs as opposed to ‘old school’ pen and paper journals.”
In the classroom, Mr. Baier uses iPads to facilitate communication among his students.
“One of my favorite activities is to have a ‘fishbowl’ discussion and use the iPads to have a back channel discussion with the students who are ‘not in the bowl.’ This allows all students to participate in the discussion simultaneously,” he said.
He also uses the iPads to create multimedia projects, including posters and videos. He said he is thinking about doing a comic book style project in the coming weeks. With the help of other government teachers, Mr. Baier is currently working on creating his own government textbook.
“If it ends up good enough,” he said, “I would like to use it in class instead of our current textbook because we can make it available to students for free.”
Mr. Baier said, “We also use the iPads to make websites. Over the break, I worked with some of my colleagues to design a digital portfolio project, where students can display and reflect on their work throughout the semester. We are trying it for the first time right now, and I hope it is successful and meaningful for the students.”
Senior Katharine Redoglia, who took AP Government with Mr. Baier last semester, enjoyed utilizing the new technology in class.
“I really like how the iPads allowed us to research topics in class and look up different articles that related to what we were learning at the time,” she said. “I also really liked how we were able to silently discuss topics in a chat room while they were being addressed out loud by another group of students in the class.”
Concerning the upcoming school-wide transition to iPads, Mr. Baier said, “There are some concerns, of course. It may be challenging to keep students focused on the lesson if they have an iPad in front of them with games and apps and access to the Internet. I think the best thing I can do is try to make my lessons interesting and meaningful for students, so they will understand why it is important. Hopefully, if I’m doing a good job, students will pay attention to me when they need to and use their iPads to create great stuff.”
Similarly, Ms. Padgett said, “There will obviously be a learning curve about how to make sure that students are using the iPads appropriately. But hopefully by creating engaging lessons, the students will be less likely to want to do bad things!”
“I don’t feel that we are prepared for iPads yet, but I do think we will get there,” Mr. Baier said. “Fortunately, we still have more opportunities for training as a faculty, and I am confident that we will be ready before the new school year starts.”