#actem

This past week I was able to attend and present at the Association of Computer Technology Educators of Maine conference. I am halfway through developing an English unit integrating three pieces of technology. While this unit is still being developed, it will inevitably teach late middle school students to write short stories. At the conference, I was given the opportunity to present these three technologies.

I used Padlet and explained that I will use this to spark discussions in the classroom. Some students, including myself, may not always feel comfortable speaking up in class, so a website like Padlet would help these students participate without anxiety. As a teacher, I might post a discussion question here and have students respond. My second technology piece is Canva which I would use for storyboard creating, really showing students the importance of having a beginning, middle, and end. Last, I use Medium as a publishing platform for students. This was a big hit at the conference for its lack of distractions. By writing a story on Medium, students do not have the option to spend hours playing with fonts or making things pretty. On Medium, the focus is purely on the content itself.

By introducing a technology like Medium at the conference, I was able to connect with teachers and administrators from around the state, and teach them about something they did not know about previously, therefore growing my own network. Likewise, I was able to learn from many knowledgable educators in their own presentations. One of my favorite things to learn about was Actively Learn, a website in which teachers can take a text and add their own notes and questions for students, among many other features. I would love to implement Actively Learn in my own classroom because of how flexible it can be. It does cost money for some of the features, but I really do think it would be an investment. I learned a lot from the conference, and plan on using a lot of the tools I learned about, such as Actively Learn, and Peardeck. 

If I were to change anything about my presentation for the conference, or if I were to present this again, I might not use Padlet for the same reasons. I think I might have found another, more clean platform with fewer distractions the way Medium is built. However, I would absolutely keep Medium and Canva because these are both fun additions to the unit as well as constructive ones. If I were to attend ACTEM again in the future, I would want to pay more attention to the networking opportunities available and try to catch more names. I feel as though I met many people who could be great assets to me in my career, but did not catch names, and receive or give contact information.