I attended four sessions at MACUL, two full and interesting, two partial and less so (for my own purposes). My primary takeaway was this: using technology in the classroom is fantastic... if you have the resources.
In my opinion, one of the most promising uses of technology in the classroom is formative assessment. I love apps like Socrative and InfuseLearning to get fast snapshots of student understanding and hear from every student in the room, not just the chatterboxes. So when I saw a session for this type of app listing apps both familiar and unknown to me, choosing to go was a no brainer. Even better, the description promised to help with implementation of these strategies without a 1:1 classroom. Happily, I did learn more about particular apps - I had never heard about TodaysMeet, which is basically a chatroom a teacher can create on the spot, and I got more information about PollEverywhere and Socrative. However, when it came to implementation in a tech-deprived environment, I was more disappointed about the insight provided. The presenter said that such assessments don't have to happen simultaneously, and that you could have a couple devices in the back of the classroom for students to take turns on. The problems I can see with this approach in my context are legion; the class period is only 55 minutes, and I generally can't afford to have two or three students not paying attention at all times. Additionally, one of the huge upsides of this technology is its instant nature, and such an approach abolishes that benefit.
I actually did make my first foray into Socrative last week and had a chance to try out one solution to the problem - I brought students to a computer lab for a project, and before they began, I had them take a diagnostic quiz to take their temperature before I began test review the next day. This worked very well, and I got a lot of valuable data - but it worked because I momentarily transformed my classroom into a 1:1 environment. This is not a solution for the question of how to work such formative assessments into my classroom on a daily basis. One possibility is to have students share their smartphones; Socrative allows you to pass the device to another person to answer the same question. I have yet to try this method but I want to soon.
The other full session I attended was called "Create a Student-Centered Learning Environment," and it was very fun and engaging. The two presenters gave us a fast rundown of many interesting tools for use in the classroom, several of which I had not heard of. Fellow MACers, you can see the full list in the MACUL Google drive folder created by Eliza. I particularly enjoyed Kahoot, a tool that allows teachers to create and run a game show-like quiz. However, it once again requires a 1:1 classroom. The presenters were both from a very nice high school that seems to have fully incorporated technology into its methods. So I say once again... that's great, but how, practically, can I use it?
MACUL was a fun experience, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to hang out with some MACers I don't see nearly often enough. I also got some solid information, but it will take quite a lot of thought and strategizing to figure out how to make use of it in my own teaching.
