CUE Conference 2018 - Recap

An Adobe Spark Post I created during the conference during The Tech Rabbi's talk

I recently attended my 2nd CUE (Computer-Using Educators) Conference in Palm Springs! Here's a quick recap of the interesting ideas I took away from those three days:

Breakout EDU

I've been hearing buzz about this platform for a long time now and wanted to see what the hype was all about.

• It's a puzzle box with physical and digital elements for students (or teachers during a PD) to try to crack. 
• You need to buy the kit (each one is about $150) and a digital platform license, and then you have access to lots of pre-made Breakout EDUs or you can make your own. 
• Great for spicing up boring units or lessons and having students collaborate, problem-solve, and be creative!

Michael Cohen's talk "Igniting the Spark: Empowering Students Through Media Creation"

• The World Economic Forum just chose creativity as one of the top 3 skills people will need to thrive in the workforce in 2020. Are we fostering creativity as much as we need to be in our current education systems? 
• Cohen also referenced multimedia learning theory, most popularly attributed to Dr. Richard Mayer. One of the big points in this theory is that people learn better when they are only processing spoken language rather than than spoken and written language at the same time. Text-heavy PowerPoint/Google Slides presentations are not brain-friendly!
• Cohn urged us to seek out the possibilities of visual representations instead of text.
• Easy tools for students (and teachers) to use are the Adobe Spark Suite of Apps.  

An Adobe Spark Post I made during Cohen's Talk

Rushton Hurley's talk on "Much Better Staff and Team Meetings"

• Hurley's basic driving question was, "How do we establish cool meetings?" since so many faculty/staff meetings in the education world are boring, dry, pointless, and even loathed.
• Staff meetings need to be places where teachers can share the great things they are doing in their classrooms and get inspiration to do more cool things that empower students.
• General announcements need to be saved for an email (Typical question that follows:"What if my staff members don't read their emails?" Hurley's response: "What makes you think staff members are listening at meetings?").
• Hurley has a great website with tons of video resources (like inspirational videos) to share with an discuss with fellow educators!

Rushton Hurley's talk on "Four Video Projects that are Academically Meaningful"

• Having an authentic audience changes things for students. Students want it to be good if they know they're sharing their video with peers. They want it to be good enough if they're just making it for the teacher.
• The Creative Commons search page is a great resource for tons of media that's free to use (as long as you still cite that media).
• Project 1: 90 Seconds or Less - creatively explain one thing you might encounter in school (or do a "How Not To..." video).
• Project 2: Service Project - tell about people who make their communities better
• Project 3: EL Project - use focused vocabulary (colors, days of the week, etc.) and make one video with subtitles and one without, then submit to the NextVista EL Project
• Project 4: Submit to the Global Student Voice Film Festival

 Erin Klein's talk on "Creating a Brain-Friendly & Beautiful Classroom"

• We can bring the fun back into our classrooms by redesigning them and rethinking the "Cemetery Effect" (desks are arranged exactly like headstones...depressing...)
• "Traditional" learning spaces reinforce "traditional" teaching and learning. If the goal of a technology initiative is to put technology in the learning environment, you'll only get technology in an old learning environment: 21st century technology in a 20th century classroom!
• We need to create spaces that allow students to create authentic products - not just crank out worksheets - mindset that you're on task when you're doing what you love.

Overall,  it was another great year at CUE! Here are some other "buzzwords" around the conference:

• AR (Augmented Reality)
• VR (Virtual Reality)
• Blended and Flipped Learning
• Makerspaces and tinkering labs
• Universal Design for Learning
• Digital Citizenship
• The 4 C's: Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Communication
• Authentic audiences & authentic products
• Global connections
• Design Thinking/Design Engineering
• Coding and programmable robots!