Presenting at TCEA

I absolutely love presenting at conferences and when my boss last year encouraged his staff to present at TCEA, I excitedly put in 3 proposals. I did this in May before I went out on maternity leave. Guess what? All three were accepted. 

Then, I got a new job as the elementary science and STEAM Coordinator. I was worried I wouldn't even be able to attend, let alone present at 3 sessions. However, I have been able to and I am so thankful. 

Yesterday I got to present on my favorite topic, "Recruiting and Retaining Girls in STEM." I have tons of videos and love talking about this. I love sharing stories about my own 4 year old and the things I observe as her mom and as an educator who is aware of how girls can be treated in STEM fields. 

Today, I got to present with my good friend and we talked about, "Bringing the World into your classroom." We did not use Google Cardboard, but we left our participants with activities that they could use to create their own Virtual Field Trips. We had tested our activities out, and were ready to share. I had made 30 copies of the elementary activities and 30 copies of the middle school activities. With 15 minutes to go, we had about 100 people in our room. By the time the presentation started, there were over 200 people. Needless to say, I was embarrassed that I only made 30 copies--but everyone seemed to be happy...and they laughed at our jokes--even when the internet didn't work properly. 

Standing room only for my presentation with @CalebHudgens. 

It is always nice to be able to reflect on what you would do again after you present. I know that next time we will explain just a few more of the tools and we will definitely make more copies! 

It has been a great two days. Tomorrow is my last day at TCEA and I am so excited for more learning. I hope to catch a session by Leslie Fisher as she was one of my favorites when I attended the year prior. 

If you have been to TCEA and presented--or even just attended--what kind of advice do you have? Feel free to leave me a comment! I would love to hear from you! 

My absolute favorite tech tool this year

There are 14 days of school left.

I have learned so much as a digital learning coach. I have come across some great tools. I have learned about some amazing apps, and I have become a believer in Google Apps for Education. 

However, one of my absolute favorite tools that I have learned this year is Canva. 

If you haven't tried Canva--you have to! I seriously would die without Canva. (Maybe a little dramatic...but it is awesome!) 

I use it for everything (even my resume). 

You can share your creations with your colleagues, so they can edit them. You can download them and insert them into a blog, you can make advertisements and easily tweet them out, you can import custom images, pictures or even screenshots. 

You have the option to purchase some of the icons if you would like, but I can usually find what I need for FREE. 

Your students could use it to create different products, like posters, business cards and graphic responses. If you would like some more ideas, here is a link to a blog post that I found: Five Great Uses for Canva in the Classroom. 

Here are some examples of things I made in Canva: 

I used this as a cover for an iBook. 

I made this to advertise a new award our department came up with to recognize "Genius Educators" who use and integrate technology. 

This is an example of a digital badge that I made in Canva. 

What do you think? How could you use Canva in your classroom/school? Have you tried it yet? Let me know in the comments.