Recap #GSTA17

How awesome was it? The Georgia Science Teachers Conference has become something that I look forward to each year. Lots of fun...lots of information...lots to share! Here's a recap of some of the AMAZING ideas and resources that we received from GSTA 2017. The Rocket Book Wave I ordered one before I left the presentation where the idea was being shared. First, you simply record information (take notes, draw a diagram, etc.) in the notebook. Next, you scan it with the app. Whatever was on the page, gets enhanced, cropped, and stored into the cloud. And get this...it erases after you put it in the microwave. I'm so excited about the ideas I'm having for using the notebook. More to come once I receive mine in the mail and get to try it out. Knowledge Hook If you like Kahoot, you are sure to like Knowledge Hook. It is very similar. It can be used as a quick formative assessment tool. Gives you great data to analyze! Spiral This is something I'm super excited about using to create presentations more interactive. We are not a 1:1 ratio school, but I think we can make it work in pairs. Think about this...when you create a presentation to share with your students (like a powerpoint), you ask questions to your students during that presentation, right? The result to asking that question is that one student typically gets to answer out loud. How do you know what the 29 other students are thinking? Spiral allows you to upload your presentation (or you can create a presentation in Spiral) and embed your questions. Now, when you get to a point in your presentation where you would ask a question, every student with a device answers your question on the device. It makes the presentation more interactive! All of the students answer instead of that one student that raises their hand or that one student that you call on. Check it out! Snowball Fights We went to a presentation about vocabulary in the science classroom and learned about this activity that the teacher used. It's such a great idea! We've used something very similar for swapping papers, but never thought about using it for vocabulary. It's simple. Start by having half of your students write vocabulary words on a sheet of paper (or pre-print them). The other half of the students write the definitions (or pre-print them as well). Each student then balls up their piece of paper. When the teacher says "snowball fight", the students throw the paper balls. Each students finds a "snowball", then finds their match. Once all matches are found, the students ball up the paper again and have another "snowball fight". I see this as being a great activity for practicing with vocabulary. EDinformatics Do you struggle with creating higher DOK questions for your test or other assessments. Lots of released test here. It a great place to start! HASPI I'm always in search for phenomena to teach concepts or problems-based learning lessons. I'm excited about the resources that haspi.org has to offer for biology, physcial science, chemistry, anatomy and physiology and so much more! These are just a few highlights. What was your favorite from the conference?