Last week I attended TCEA 2015 in Austin. It is my second time attending TCEA and I cannot wait to go back! This year I spent the whole week in Austin instead of just two days like last year and it was well worth it! The week is spent mingling with other educators and vendors, attending sessions and trying to keep your head from spinning due to the amount of options!
The first two days I spent attending sessions as a part of the iPad and Google Academies. Both days were packed full of intriguing and stimulating sessions! I will go over some of the great things I learned in the next couple of days. After the first two days, I spent more time on the vendor floor and talking to other attendees more than in sessions. You can learn just as much about new trends in education on the vendor floor as you can from the sessions. Each of the vendors has their job to do of selling their product to anyone attending the conference. This can be annoying at times, because they will talk your ear off whether you want to buy their product or not! On the other hand, you can learn a lot about a great product in a short amount of time!
The first two days I spent attending sessions as a part of the iPad and Google Academies. Both days were packed full of intriguing and stimulating sessions! I will go over some of the great things I learned in the next couple of days. After the first two days, I spent more time on the vendor floor and talking to other attendees more than in sessions. You can learn just as much about new trends in education on the vendor floor as you can from the sessions. Each of the vendors has their job to do of selling their product to anyone attending the conference. This can be annoying at times, because they will talk your ear off whether you want to buy their product or not! On the other hand, you can learn a lot about a great product in a short amount of time!
I spent some time at vendor booths of companies that our district already uses, because I wanted to see what new products they were coming out with or how they could help our school even more. One company I am really excited about is Istation. Our district uses their program every day, but it has always been a download to use their program. Now they have released a version that an be used on the chromebooks! This was great news for me, because we are trying to purchase more chromebooks to cut down on the cost of replacing computers!
I also ended up doing a podcast with Istation discussing some of the things we are doing in our district to try and improve professional development. I along with a couple other iTechs have started iTech Nation and are doing Flipped Professional Development along with doing webcasts instead of your usual training. It is always great to get out and talk to other professionals to see what they are doing and share what you are doing. You can learn a lot from those conversations in a short amount of time!
By meeting those new people and discussing what each of you are doing, you can share what works and what doesn't work instead of just sitting and listening in a session. Don't get me wrong, you can learn a lot from just listening to other teachers who are doing great things, but sometimes the discussion is more beneficial. TCEA is a great place to make those connections and find people to have those conversations with. Once you make those connections keep the conversation going and make sure to continue learning from each other!
By meeting those new people and discussing what each of you are doing, you can share what works and what doesn't work instead of just sitting and listening in a session. Don't get me wrong, you can learn a lot from just listening to other teachers who are doing great things, but sometimes the discussion is more beneficial. TCEA is a great place to make those connections and find people to have those conversations with. Once you make those connections keep the conversation going and make sure to continue learning from each other!
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