JP's METC Presentations

The Midwest Educational Technology Conference is February 11-13 in St. Charles, MO. Come hang out with me in my conference presentations:

Monday -  I just Attended the Best. Conference Ever. 10:00am Agusta
Tuesday - The Edtech PodSquad LIVE, 2:30pm Grand Ballroom B
Wednesday - Memes, GIFs, & #Booksnaps, oh my!, 8:00am Grand Ballroom A

The Edtech Minute

Google Arts and Culture: Virtual museum tours and close up views of historical artifacts and pieces of art.

Featured Content

Josh Howard is the Instructional Technology Facilitator for Fulton Public Schools in Fulton, MO. Josh is passionate about teaching students to be creators while keeping the barriers to creativity low. In our conversation, Josh and I discuss  how to use Google Slides to create a wide variety of project types including choose your own adventure games, podcasts, and getting to know you activities.  We also share a few best practices for facilitating collaboration in Google Slides. 

Josh's METC Sessions:
Using Google Slides as a Video Editor
The Edtech PodSquad LIVE


Josh's blog postBaby's First Podcasting Studio

Josh's favorite podcasts: 99% Invisible, Reply All, Google Teacher Tribe
Josh is reading: The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle and Brain Rules by John Medina
Josh's Twitter recommendation: Laura Steinbrink
Josh's teacher shout out: Mrs. Redden

What I'm Learning

The Educational Duct Tape Podcast by Jake Miller focuses on viewing #edtech as a tool used to meet goals, address learning standards and solve problems in the classroom, much as duct tape is used as a tool that solves a plethora of problems in our lives. Each episode, Jake talks with a different inspiring guest with awesome ideas for using tech in the classroom.

The Edtech Minute

formRanger is a Google Forms add on that will eliminate an answer choice -actually replace it with a blank space or other text - on a Google Forms multiple choice question after it has had a specified number of selections. Three reasons you might use formRanger:

1. Capping session or event registration to a specific number of participants.
2. Limiting sign up numbers for after school tutoring sessions.
3. Automatically populate and update multiple choice answer choices from a spreadsheet.

​Here is a video tutorial I made that will walk you through setting up formRanger

Featured Content

The first blog post I ever published was a guest post on my good friend Justin Tarte's blog, Life of an Educator. This post was called "5 Tech Tips for the not-so-tech-savvy teacher". I later republished the same post on my own blog. 

As I reflect on that blog post that hit the Internet just over 8 years ago, I wanted to share the 5 tips I most often give teachers when integrating new tech in their classes:

1. Don't get lost in a sea of apps.
2. Our students know a lot...about social media.
3. Be aware of the limitations of the tech you use.
4. Don't try to master the whole Internet at once.
5. Know who has your back.

What tech tips do you have to share with teachers? Leave a comment below or let me know on Twitter.

What I'm Learning

The Edtech Takeout is a podcast hosted by Jonathon Wylie and Mindy Cairney from the Grantwood AEA in Iowa. It's an excellent show that shares edtech news and updates, featured content, and the popular (at least Mindy would say so) Tech Nuggets - quick useful edtech tips.  Episode 51 called Edtech Mythbusting was a great episode in which Jonathon and Mindy debunked a variety of edtech myths for the audience. Check out this episode and subscribe where ever you listen to podcasts.