#WEMTA17 Evaluation

For those of you who attended, please take a moment and fill out the conference evaluation to help us plan next year's event.

We hope you can join us March 25-27, 2018.

Keep up with #WEMTA17

Our conference begins in just a few days. Sched is a great tool that you can use to create your conference schedule. It will also provide you with information on speakers and exhibitors. You can also locate the conference center map through Sched. If you are using Sched on a mobile device, you also get the option to save it to your home screen.

Two great ways to keep up with the conference are by following the discussion on Twitter using #wemta17 or by following our Facebook page.

Volunteers are still needed to help with our conference. Check out these opportunities.

We hope to see you there!

ISTE at #WEMTA17

Come learn about the ISTE Standards at two different opportunities at #WEMTA17. The first is Sunday at 4 PM at the poster sessions found in Ballroom 4.

Join Carolyn Sykora, senior director of the ISTE standards for Getting Started with the ISTE standards on Tuesday morning at 10 AM in Ballroom 5. Janice Mertes from the Wisconsin DPI and library technology specialist Tina Heizman will join Carolyn for this presentation.

The 2016 ISTE Standards for Students are out. What next? Join us to explore this question from the vantage point of a classroom to a state meeting room. Learn more about how to get started integrating the standards into instruction across the curriculum. Hear from state leaders how Wisconsin plans to use the standards. Share your ideas and questions for how you can get started.

ESSA Workshops at #WEMTA17

WEMTA is partnering with the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), in collaboration with the American Library Association's Washington Office and Office for Library Advocacy to offer a complimentary workshop on the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). These workshops will be offered on Sunday afternoon and Tuesday morning.

AASL leaders will facilitate the session which will include:

• The most current information on developments at the Federal level and work through the sections of ESSA that can be directly linked to the school librarian/library program.
• Connecting ESSA language to the school librarian's role.
• Discussing current state work with recommendations for opportunities at state and local levels to ensure the effective school library program's language in ESSA.

This hands-on session will aid in identifying stakeholders, building 
coalitions, message crafting and elevator speech development. While the content will be directly related to ESSA, the tools and exercise portion is advocacy for positioning school librarians in general as leaders for teaching and learning. Each participant will receive an ESSA handbooks.

Learn from Diana Laufenberg at #WEMTA17

Diana Laufenberg is one of #WEMTA17's great spotlight speakers. For the past two decades Diana has been a secondary social studies teacher in Wisconsin, Kansas, Arizona and Pennsylvania. She most recently taught at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, an inquiry-driven, project-based high school focused on modern learning. Her practice has deep roots in experiential education, taking students from the classroom to the real world and back again. Prior to her work in Philadelphia, she was an active member of the teaching community in Flagstaff, AZ where she was named Technology Teacher of the Year for Arizona and a member of the Governor's Master Teacher Corps. Diana was featured on TED.com for her "How to Learn? From Mistakes" and recognized for earning National Board Certification. Her publications include a featured piece on the New York Times Learning blog, co-authoring a chapter in an educational leadership book, and an article in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. In 2013, Diana Laufenberg partnered with Chris Lehmann to start Inquiry Schools, a new non-profit working to create and support learning environments that are inquiry driven, project based and utilizing modern technology. She currently serves as the Executive Director and Lead Teacher for Inquiry Schools.

Learn more about Diana's sessions on Sched

Learning Visually

Visuals work as a possible equalizer in the classroom because they grab students and allow an entry point to learning — and because they sum up pages and pages, even chapters, of information that would take a reader hours to process. Interactive infographics make kids want to immediately start clicking around to see what's what, questions start forming organically as they explore and process. Infographics and Data visualization are not just for consumption though, teachers and students can also challenge the learning process by creating original graphics for themselves.

Inquiry Based Teaching/Learning (offered twice)

Student participation in their learning starts with instilling a sense of wonder and curiosity for their own learning. This does not come easily. Privileging the student voice in the process of their own learning is critical. Join me in a discussion of the overall strategy and a specific conversation about how to employ this strategy in the classroom. Rich classroom examples and resources will be provided.

Creating Access for All: Shifting Systems and Structures (offered twice)

In the age of standards, we have spent much time discussing the "what" of classrooms and learning, but in this workshop we will look at the "how". Join Diana Laufenberg in a session about building systems and structures for our classrooms, schools and organizations that allow us to adapt in an ever changing learning landscape. To move the learning beyond simply asking what students should know to asking what they can create, innovate and imagine, we will explore the following: 

• How do we create enough structure to be effective without becoming so rigid that we can't innovate? 

• How do we honor the human experience and not just the efficient outcome? 

• How do we ensure that it's technology that serves the learning and not the other way around? 

Join us for a conversation that may influence the way you think about every decision you make from daily learning objectives to the mission and vision of your school or district.

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Learn from Carolyn Foote at #WEMTA17

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#WEMTA17 is pleased to have Carolyn Foote as a spotlight presenter at this year's event. Carolyn is a Technolibrarian interested in the intersection of technology, students and libraries. Recognized as a White House Champion of Change she focuses of the impact of mobile technologies on libraries and learning spaces. Her blog can be found at www.futura.edublogs.org.

Learn more about Carolyn's sessions on Sched

Monday Breakout Sessions

Five Years Out

In this participant driven session, join a collaborative conversation about technology and the classroom and technology and libraries as we look five and ten years out and attempt to forecast future needs.

Strategies for Making Thinking Visible

Explore strategies that help make student's inner dialogues visible to you as a teacher or librarian. Learn about several Visible Thinking strategies as well as activities like write-arounds that help students articulate their thoughts more clearly and that improve their visual literacy.

Designing Learning Spaces for Mobile Learning

How do we design learning spaces in classrooms that reflect our increasingly mobile technology uses? Explore how goal setting, student and teacher input, hands on data gathering and professional development can contribute to a well planned design of any learning space.

Tuesday Breakout Sessions

Designing Learning Spaces for Mobile Learning (repeat session)

Strategies for Making Thinking Visible (repeat session)

Trendsetting for Librarians

What consumer, technology, and education trends can librarians tap into to make libraries more "beta" ready? Find out what's "trending" and how to incorporate it into your library program.

Wiselearn Digital Content Creation Workshop at #WEMTA17

Join the growing number of Wisconsin educators contributing their expertise to the WISELearn Educator Portal - Classroom Resources Repository!

Attendance at this session requires a WISELearn curator account (obtained through this free registration separate from WEMTA Conference registration) as well as completion of flipped, online training and contribution of one Practice Item. Once registered, curators will receive an instructional email to complete training and Practice Item PRIOR to conference curation.  

During this session, attendees will vet and curate high quality digital content and become active contributors to the Wisconsin Educator Portal, which aligns to Professionalism educator standards in both Danielson and Stronge models of EE.  

Come learn how to curate high quality instructional content for students and become part of the educator-drive WISELearn Educator Portal.  A $75.00 curator stipend is available for your contributions on this Sunday afternoon session.

Questions?
Contact Kaye Henrickson, WISELearn Educator Curation Project Coordinator at khenrickson @ cesa4.org.

Meet our #wemta17 Authors

Over 20 different Wisconsin authors will be at this year's conference! Check out the events below for opportunities to interact with these book creators. 

Sunday, March 19

Meet the Authors

11:30 AM - 3:00 PM in Ballroom 5

Learn about the authors' latest books, the writing process and school visits and more. Authors will be available for signings and conversation when they are not participating on a panel presentation.

Barnes & Noble will be providing book sales during this event.

Author Panel Presentations

Please note the timing of the different sessions as these have changed.

Mangrove Room

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Wisconsin Young Adult Authors

Valerie Biel, Angie Stanton, E.M. Kokie, Kelly Jensen, Liz Czukas, Barbara Britton and Bridget Birdsall will present.

12:45 PM - 1:45 PM Wisconsin Middle Grade Authors

Amanda Zieba, Erin Fallingant, Rebecca Williams Spindler, Tricia Classen, Julie Bowe, Gayle Rosengren, Jane Kelley, Susan Tupper and KW Penndorf will present. 

2:00-3:00 Wisconsin Picture Book Creators

JoAnn Early Macken, Miranda Paul, Anne Horjus, Marla McKenna, Eileen Lucas and Pat Hall will present.

Tuesday, March 21

12:00 PM Author Keynote in Ballroom A

Looking for Yourself in the Library by E.M. Kokie

How a kid who was a library fugitive went from reader to lawyer to author writing about teens who don't often see themselves in books. Author E. M. Kokie will talk about the books she wishes she had as a teen, and the teens for whom she writes.

Author signing to follow in Ballroom E at 1:15 PM

Resources

Teachingbooks.net provided these materials about our author fair participants and their books.

Check out the author fair Smore for more information.

BenQ Projector Special through Camcor at #WEMTA17

A limited number of the BenQ MH741 projectors will be available at a special rate at the end of our conference on March 21. These are new HD projectors that will only have been used at the conference. The cost is $750 per projector (retail price is $899). 

Stop by the Camcor booth at the conference for more information during Exhibit Hall hours. You can also contact Dan Merryman at dmerryman at camcor.com.

If you purchase one of these units, be prepared with a purchase order in hand as these units will be "cash and carry" home from the conference.

You Can Still Register for Trivia Night at #WEMTA17

Did you want to come to Trivia Night and you've already completed your conference registration? It's easy to add on this fun event. Here's how it worked for me:

Log into wemta.org

Click on the My Events tab in the top right.
Find 2017 Spring Conference Registration and click Edit
Add Trivia Night to your registration
Scroll down and select Submit Changes

Then if you go back to My Events, you'll find a payment link next to the 2017 Spring Conference Registration. You can select a different payment method for Trivia Night if that is something you need.

Thank you to Follett School Solutions for sponsoring America's Pub Quiz Trivia for hosting this event and to EBSCO for helping with refreshments. All proceeds from this event will benefit WEMTA's Permanent Endowment Trust, which funds grants and scholarships to WEMTA members to further our professions.

Learn from Ken Shelton at #WEMTA17

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We are excited to have Ken Shelton as one of our spotlight presenters for #WEMTA17. Ken currently holds an M.A. in Education with a specialization in Educational Technology as well as New Media Design and Production. He has worked as an Educator for over 14 years and most recently taught technology at the Middle School level. As a part of his active involvement within the Educational Technology community, Ken is an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Google Certified Teacher. Ken was also named to the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction's Education Technology Task Force. Ken regularly gives keynotes, presentations, and leads workshops, many of which are hands-on, covering a wide variety of Educational Technology, Technology Integration, Creative Expression, Visual Storytelling, and Instructional Design topics. Ken is currently the Global Keynote Specialist and Educational Technology Strategist, for EdTechTeam.

Learn more about Ken's sessions on Sched.

Monday Breakout Sessions

Pictures in Motion

Storytelling can serve as a useful mechanism in a myriad of pedagogical ways. Whether it be through instruction, assessment, or even knowledge representation the foundational methodologies in producing meaningful and engaging motion picture stories are the same. The purpose of this session is to provide attendees with a solid foundational background on the pedagogical uses of video production in the classroom using an iPad, iPhone, or other mobile device. We will cover and discuss everything from appropriate terminology, to production strategies, filming methods, and finally applications for learning.

Igniting Your Creativity with Adobe Spark

This session will focus on the literate use of multimedia to create compelling and engaging stories with the Adobe Spark platform. We will go through the design and creative process followed by content curation, and finally publication. Discussions will include the importance of storytelling, how does technology play a role in designing and publishing compelling/engaging stories, and how storytelling ensures access for all students.

The Power of Voice in the Digital Age

When technology is used effectively and responsibly we have the ability to share many things, including our thoughts, ideas, and learning in a variety of ways. In some cases, these thoughts can drive change from how we learn to even greater change within our social and political systems. We also need to have a strong understanding of what being a Digital Citizen truly means. The key is to leverage the use of our "voice" as a catalyst for representing and presenting our thinking. This session will take a close look at how technology can and is being used as a conduit for our voice.

Tuesday Breakout Sessions

Making Student Thinking and Learning Visible

As we begin working in more digitally rich environments, students have the opportunity to create, and in some cases are creating, phenomenal artifacts of learning. But where are these artifacts going? Where should they go? Who's seeing them and are they being used to add to the global knowledge base when appropriate? In this digitally rich age, schools everywhere are beginning to see the value of having student work housed in one location to help students to reflect and grow as learners. In this session, we will discuss the importance of student-created digital portfolios. From why they are important - to how we can use the power of Google tools to help students showcase and OWN their learning.

Visual Storytelling and Visual Literacy

This session primarily focuses on the areas of digital age literacy from a variety of perspectives. First, the session addresses the need for students to develop appropriate digital age fluency as well as represent their knowledge in a creative and innovative manner. For teachers, this session provides strategies for developing a myriad of digital age learning environments in which the focus can be anything from project-based to utilizing these methodologies for assessment. The curricular foundations addressed in this session primarily focus on elements of narrative writing, visual thinking strategies, observational literacy, applying techniques for a well sequenced story of events, and making strategic use of media.

We need your help at the WEMTA17 Conference!

We are in need of volunteers at the WEMTA17 Conference! If you are attending, please sign up to spend an hour or two helping us--there are all sorts of different tasks.

http://signup.com/go/H44FZ1

Remember, student and retired attendees are required to volunteer 3 hours to benefit from the discounted registration rate.