TCEA - Galveston Elementary Technology Conference 2019

Wow, what a fantastic two days of learning! I loved that the focus was on elementary age learners and teachers. There was so many sessions to attend and not enough time. I highly recommend this conference to any educator PreK-5th grade who wants to enhance their technology integration in the classroom. I focused my sessions on Coding/Robotics, the new ELA standards, and HyperDocs & Choice Menus.

The New ELA TEKS - Vertical Alignment

• @LitSoulSisters #LITLearning, Thank you for your informative session on the new ELA standards.
• The standards have 7 strands - Foundational Skills, Comprehension, Response, Multi Genre, Author's Purpose + Craft, Composition, and Inquiry + Research.  
• Integration is key to success!
• I took three big ideas away from LitSoulSisters.
• 1 - Using wordless books to integrate listening, speaking, reading, writing and thinking. Great for author's purpose, composition, foundational skills, response, genre
• 2 - Digital Resources to support the 7 Strands - CommonLit, Novel Effect, edPuzzle, FlipGrid, Kami, Text Project, Google resources and extensions, SeeSaw - these are just a few the list goes on and on.
• 3 - HyperQuad - Hyperlink Doc that is like a choice menu that gives students digital resources to complete ELA tasks utilizing - Speaking, Listening, Writing, Reading, and Thinking equally throughout the lesson. Here is the one I made - Goldilocks and the Three Bears - it was my first attempt, but it will give you the main idea behind the process.

Coding / Robotics

• PreK and Kindergarten can learn to code - Thank you @MissNelsonFound - great ideas about how to get littles started. Start with non-digital devices first - using cards to help students create patterns. Example - arrows and body movement picture cards, two students - one is the computer, one is the coder. The coder creates the code the computer will follow with their body. Then move into using BeeBots and programming to solve problems.
• Robots - Beebots, Dash and Dot, Sphero, Ozobots
• All kinds of great curriculum integration for these robots
• math - area/perimeter/measurement/angles
• ELA - story retell
• STEM
• Science - cycles
• Check out pintrest, teacherpayteachers, twitter, etc. for endless ideas.
• Apps/Websites
• Tynker and Tynker Jr.
• Codespark
• Hour of Code
• Common Sense Media Coding Tools

HyperDocs and Choice Menus

• HyperDocs are a tool used for totally flipping instruction. Giving control over to the students. It is not a list of hyper links to resources only. 
• Choice Menus - Teacher has more control. Students have choices.
• Great for choice and differentiation of concepts. Allows the teacher to spice up instruction to get kids excited about learning.
• Check out - HyperDocs and ShakeUpLearning