TCEA Highlights

After four solid days of sessions, keynotes and talks with vendors I am preparing to say farewell to my first TCEA conference.  I have expanded my PLN both in Google+ and on Twitter by finding new people to follow and have also picked up a few new followers along the way.

For the next few weeks I will go over many of the ideas that I gathered at the conference and begin sharing them here, in district workshops, and on Twitter.  I thought for this post I would include the highlights from today.

If you missed the keynote with Chef Jeff, you really missed out.  Many of you teach in schools that have the same socioeconomic makeup that mine does, more than 75% on free/reduced lunches.  You know the struggles that students have in a school of high poverty.  Make sure you remember some of his key points.

• Know your students-what motivates them, what they are good at.
• Let them know you care
• Above all, show them how what you are doing in class can get them to their dream.

The other major session I attended this morning was led by Dr. Howie DiBlasi (@hdiblasi).  He shared in 1.5 hours what could have easily been a half day workshop.  He also gave a great handout that it would be worth your time to check out.   Look over the Top Google Tools That Educators Must Have handout he shared with us.  There is so much information in this handout that you could pick a few items to look through each week and still not have them explored before the end of the school year.