NMSA Conference

Here I am, back from NMSA last week. Two full days of conference sessions did me a world of good! I was overwhelmed with the amount of information I collected, as well as the collective
expertise of the presenters. There's a lot of good stuff going on out there! From Alyssa Smith,
a media specialist at Catonsville Middle School, I learned more about One True Media, like Powerpoint on steroids; Xtranormal, text to movie; Tagxedo, like Wordle with a bump, Bitstrips, ToonDoo, Bubbl, Ker-Poof, a book creator, and Storybird.

I also went to a session on Web 2.0 tools with Erica Roberts. One of the newest and most fascinating was Edmodo, a tool that allows the teacher to bring social networking into the classroom in a safe way. Using Edmodo, the teacher can send students their assignments, files, links and messages. Students can message the teacher, submit their assignments on-line and receive their grades. All of these activities enforce computer literacy and teach positive uses of social networking. It also has an RSS reader built into it. While she was presenting, her students in Woodridge, Illinois were talking to her through Edmodo.

I saw so many neat tools and applications that I want to try! Check out http://www.go2web20.net. It's a great directory of online tools. Tools and applications are
multiplying at a much faster rate than we can handle! For now....I'm looking through the library glass!