Celebrating Failure in Rm 613

Over a week ago, I attended a panel at #ISTE2016 about Augmented Reality in education. Having just realized the amazingness that is Google Cardboard, I felt that this panel would be an appropriate next step and the panel included a wide-range of experts, including Brad Waid , Katrina Keene , Drew Minock , Shannon Soger , and Kolsten Keene . But one quote stood out to the me the most: "AR is already being used at consumer level so students need to be one the building these experiences" Now if your understanding of Augmented Reality was very low over a week ago, this statement would be incredibly easy to brush off as false:  Augmented Reality? Wasn't that in a really lame X-Files episode? This isn't something that students will actually do as jobs. But then Augmented Reality hit center stage when PokemonGo went live: In case you missed it, Pokémon Go mobile game developed by Niantic for iOS and Android devices. The game allows players to capture...

Its official: I'm a Google Certified Innovator! And the experience was even more amazing and life-changing than I ever imagined. Even though its been six days since Boulder Springs, my brain is still overflowing and still processing all the information. But I'm going to try to make my reflections and takeaways as coherent as possible: The awesomeness that is Google. Be Googley. Without a doubt, Google is a truly innovative company with a unique culture and one of our earliest sessions was about Google Culture. A major aspect of their culture is having fun periodically at work. They have a rock wall, Photo Booth, stage for performances, foosball table, and more. While we were there, they brought in masseuses, caricature artist, ice cream truck, and planned ahead ice breakers and games. This got me thinking about how people tell students that school is their job. So if classes are their work, shouldn't it be fun too? I try to make learning fun with student ch...

If I learned anything from ISTE, its that caffeine is an absolute necessary. With so many activities, sessions, social events, and adrenaline, I needed coffee to stay alert and focused so that I could absorb as much learning as necessary. Here are some of my final takeaways from #ISTE2016: No matter your expertise, there is always something new to learn . During Glenn Wiebe 's session about Google Tools in the Social Science, I learned about  Google Public Data , a resource that gathers public data into one place;  Google Arts and Culture , a collection of resources from around the world; and  Chronicling America , a collection of US newspapers from the Library of Congress. Wiebe even walked us through a lesson where we determined the relationship between three separate images by utilizing Google Streetview and Google Public data; this ended up being an excellent example of push and pull factors that lead to migration. What I loved about this session is that...