Pete&C 2008

Pete & C was one of the best experiences I have had yet! It really blew me away... The Discovery Education Pre-Session rocked! What an awesome way to begin my 3 days in Hershey. I attended Jennifer Dorman's session and left with some amazing ideas and new Web 2.0 tools to use in the classroom. Julia Tebbets presented a great session on Google Earth, which I definitely wanted to become more familiar with. This is a great tool that really gets students excited about learning and seeing new places. It can be used for creating tours, showing habitats, landmarks, historical events, the solar system, and much more. Steve Dembo presented "50 Ways to Use DE Streaming", which was a great eye-opener for me. He also did a keynote entitled: "Learning to Speak Native". Steve spoke of Digital Natives, who are people that grew up with technology. He shared his views of how education and classrooms need to change to accommodate this group. I agree with him 100%. Teachers need to be willing to change the way they teach to prepare students for the future. They need to realize that it is no longer just pencil/paper. There is a world of technology out there... and educational applications are nearly limitless.
The Pete&C Poster Sessions were done by Keystones. My good friend Brandon presented a session on Morpheus Fortuna. Morpheus visited Clarion Area in December. Morpheus allows students to showcase abilities through technology.
My friend Jan ran a session called "Classroom Websites as a Teaching Tool". What a great turnout, and informative session! Jan's CyberChickens and B-7 have been collaborating all year using Skype. She really does some cool projects with her kids! Check out Project S.C.A.T and help the CyberChickens stop contamination in their community.
I attended many great sessions, and brought back with me a load of ideas and resources for use in the classroom. However, something that really caught my attention was said during David Pogue's keynote about technology tools our students will be using in the future. His presentation was very entertaining~! He said:

There is a lot that educators must teach along with the tools & along with the equipment. What happens on the Internet happens on a world stage. We need to teach students what is real and reliable. Digital content is FOREVER!

That last line would scare a lot of teachers in my district...but hey, it is reality. And... we need to learn to embrace it, not try to RUN from it!
This blog doesn't even begin to sum up my experience at Hershey. I will definitely revisit this event next year... and am looking forward to reconnecting with all of the Keystones and fellow 'techies' that I have met this year!