CUE 2017 Review and Next Steps

The National CUE conference in Palm Springs is my all time favorite technology conference. Each year that I've attended, I leave with great ideas and am ready to make big changes in the classroom. This year was no different. During my three days at the conference, I attended sessions and keynotes that were inspirational and motivating.
One difference this year, however, was that I was experiencing all the awesomeness through a slightly different filter. My EdTech TOSA position will be different next year. I won't be teaching any classes of students, but rather coaching and supporting teachers everyday. With this in mind, I definitely came away from CUE with some ideas to innovate and empower teachers. Here are a few of the great sessions that I attended:

• Katie Martin, "Developing Confidence and Competence Through Personalized Professional Learning." My big take away from this presentation was "If we want to change how students learn, we have to change how teachers learn!" Since I will be providing more professional learning next year, this struck a chord with me. I also really like that she talked about creating a school culture  where everyone moves forward and advances, not just the teachers that volunteer to do so.
• Kami Thordarson & Alyssa Gallagher, "Problem Solving or Problem Finding." In this presentation (bit.ly/problemfinding) my big ideas were how to frame questions in the right way, and using the question starter, "How might we..." as a way to show action, possibility, and togetherness.
• George Couros - Keynote. The book "The Innovator's Mindset" has definitely been an inspiration to my teaching and TOSA work. George Couros delivered an incredible message during his keynote that followed the themes in his book and inspired (I'm pretty sure) the whole room to make education better! I loved when he said, "Make the positives so loud that the negatives are almost impossible to hear." This was a great message, not only for education, but for life.

​So, next steps for me, after processing all of the CUE greatness:

• Setting up a #hashtag for teachers at my site to connect with on Twitter ... oh yeah, and also teaching the teachers at my site how to use Twitter :)
• Collaborating with other TOSAs and admin about badging for teachers in OUSD.
• Asking teachers "What they need/want" in professional learning before planning it out. Also, meeting teachers where they are with technology and innovation.​

---