Special thanks to everyone at the NYC SMART Showroom offices, they were fantastic, they had all the newest toys.  They would be very happy to demo for other groups as well.

NY Tech Ed's first Spotlight Teacher is Cristina Conciatori. Cristina is a Science teacher in Valhalla Middle High School and has always been an innovator in using technology in the classroom.  Recently Cristina has been experimenting with flipping lessons. 

If you would like to see how Cristina using technology in her class please check out her site https://techsavvyscience.blogspot.com and her twitter handle is @techsavvysci

We asked Cristina what aspect of  technology did she find most useful in the class: 
 It's so hard to pick just on aspect of technology, but I love the ability to communicate with people in new and different ways. I like that it allows me to increase my communication with my students both in and out of school. I am able to have things like websites and multimedia presentations to allow students multiple ways to interact with the material.

Congratulations Cristina! And thanks for bringing technology in to the Science class.

We were fortunate enough to be joined by Chris Casal, a technology teacher from the New York City Department of Education and Jennifer Forsberg, Assistant Director of Technology from Ossining, to discuss the impact of Twitter and its many uses in school districts.

NY Tech Ed's December Scripting Hangout with Special Guest Katie Regan. We discuss the most popular Doctopus, and gClass Folder scripts as well as the game-changing Goobric Plug in.
For more details on these scripts check out these tutorials by Jay Atwood 

The Ardsley School District was fortunate to devote their first Superintendent's Conference Day to technology.  Will Richardson's was the keynote speaker, he had a strong message about how teaching and learning must change due to the fact that schools are different now!  Technology allows us to connect to people and communities that we wouldn't have been able to to do years ago, this allows us to create our own personal learning networks.  Since the world is decidedly different from the one we are comfortable with, how do we move practice?  We must start changing what we do as learners.  Twitter is a good starting point for teachers to start building a network.  Teachers need to think of how they would use a new tech tool for personal ways before they can begin to implement it with students. 

Members of the Technology Committee and the students from the Innovate Club worked with the staff in exploring new instructional tools and applications.  Student facilitators showed teachers how using iPads (technology) can amplify the ability to learn.  Teachers were encouraged to explore educational apps in the "iPad Playgrounds".    The slideshow below highlights what a great day it was!

A few months ago I was asked to meet with a student who uses a Tobii Device. The Tobii allows the user to manipulate a computer or communicate purely through eye gazing.  I have seen things like this on TV but never in person.  The young lady I was asked to meet has cerebral palsy and the Tobii is her primary way to interact with the world around her.

Today I finally got to meet her.  I have to say I was nervous. Frankly, I have no experience with adaptive technology, though I have always wanted to be more versed on it, the opportunity and the funds never seemed to be available.

So while still in my car, I said a prayer and asked to be of service, that there is something that I can do to help her.  I needed to remember this is not about my inexperience, but about my strengths, and hers.  She knows her environment and how to manipulate it, I just need to become her student  as well as a teacher.

I enter the classroom to broad smiles from everyone (feeling truly wanted in your job is a wonderful feeling). There she was, the owner of the warmest eyes I have ever seen, smiling brightly and ready to learn.

The Tobii she is using is a loaner, this one does not have Wifi and that can be incredibly frustrating for a teen who needs access to resources to learn, research or just have basic communication. In order to teach her today we had to move to 3 different classes just to find a drop that would give her internet access.

The thing I learned is she is just a teen, who loves Facebook and Youtube (Go figure!).  She likes Keith Urban, so I have found a kindred spirit.  I also learned today that even though the Tobii is an amazing piece of technology, she would often lose her written work and would  have to email it back and forth with her teachers which is cumbersome.  This is where I finally feel like I can help, Google Drive and the Chrome browser is going to be a game changer for her.  By the time I left she had already shared a document with her teacher.  

On our next visit we started calibrating Chrome to save my new student time.  We now have her signed into Chrome, and have pinned tabs for her, so she no longer needs to go through the considerable task of logging in to email, calendar or even Weebly (yes she will be blogging.  From the moment she opens Chrome it will remember where she has gone, and will have her most important tabs open for her. 

On November 7th, NY TECH ED along with several teachers visited Jasper Fox at the Lakeland-Copper Beech Middle School. Jasper Fox has successful flipped learning in his science classes.  As per Jasper, the old model is broken and teachers need to adapt to how students learn in this digital age.  Jasper uses Camtasia Studio to record his videos and his playlist of videos are hosted on Ensemble Video.  His students use Google Drive for most of their work flow, the online tool used for formative assessment is Castle Learning and students communicate with each other during class using TodaysMeet (Back Channel).   
NY TECH ED would like to thank Jasper for sharing his expertise with us and for allowing us to observe his classroom instruction. To learn more check out Jasper's website and follow him on Twitter. 

Watch for updates and hangouts!