February+Videos

**60 in 60: 60 Web 2.0 Tools in 60 Minutes**
The first conference video that I watched from the 2011 ISTE conference was "60 in 60: 60 Web 2.0 Tools in 60 Minutes," presented by Brandon Lutz from the School District of Philadelphia. In this presentation, Lutz very quickly presents 60 sites in 60 minutes. I enjoyed this format because many times when attending a conference, such as this, you only get a few in depth web tools presented. For many teachers, all web tools are not going to function particularly well for all subjects. Brandon Lutz's presentation allowed you to pinpoint what web tools you personally would like to explore.

I was excited to find that I know some of the tools but many of them were new to me. One tool that I am going to explore more in the future would be GE.TT. This program allows you to have a document online that others go out and retrieve; great for the classroom or presentations with colleagues. Another helpful tool for the classroom would be Google voice. Google voice allows you to have an alternative phone number that is connected to your actual phone number. As a middle school teacher, this is a great tool because you don't necessarily want to give students your personal cell phone number. Overall, Brandon Lutz presented some useful information to explore more in depth in the future.

**Web Tools that work in a Real-Life Classroom**
David Clough of the Henrico County Public Schools presented “Web Tools that work in a Real-Life Classroom” at the 2011 ISTE conference. In this presentation, David Clough showed several web tools that he, personally, has used with elementary students. Even though I teach middle school, many of these tools were great because with little explanation and more exploration students could learn the web tool. One great quote Clough quoted from one of the keynote speakers stated, "Students (and all people) remember what is different." We should strive for this in our teaching. Make every day in our classroom different.

Clough came up with a code word to keep in mind when learning with web tools and teaching with them, FEAR. The F stood for be Friends with your filter aid in your school district. The E stood for give time to Explore but give students Examples of what you want. The A in FEAR stood for Assess. The R stood for Rotate around meaning have students working in stations to avoid programs freezing up. Overall, FEAR meant that we should not fear the technology but have some procedures in place to avoid many of the technology problems we may face when using it in our classrooms. I enjoyed the tools he presented and that he had real-life projects used in the classroom. Sometimes as teachers we need some aid in how to use the tool so that we can begin to apply it to our own subjects. Several websites from this presentation that I am going to explore more is weebly and tikatok.