UCET Day 1

Hi!

I had a day away from the classroom today and attended the UCET conference.  I was in technology heaven!!!  The keynote speaker was great, he is one fast speaker and his presentation was wonderful.  I spent most of the day with my friend and fellow first grade teacher, Christine.  I was so glad to have someone to pal around with.

The first session we went to was led by none other than Rachelle Smith from What the Teacher Wants.  Natalie was there, too, but since I'm a first grade teacher, I went to the lower grade presentation and wasn't able to get to Natalie's.  I took a picture of the two of them as Rachelle was presenting (okay, really, I just wanted the words to the cool song but then I decided I needed at least one picture for this post.  I sure hope Rachelle and Natalie don't mind...) so here it is:

The pace was completely crazy between sessions, so I didn't stop to talk or get a picture with them.  I did catch them in line for lunch later and acted like a silly gushing fan.

I grabbed my boxed lunch and searched for my next session.  The first one was completely full.  The second one I wanted to attend was also completely full.  The big session in the tech atrium was completely full.  I finally ended up in a presentation tools one where I tried to eat and learn keynote at the same time.  I think once I learn keynote and get a better way to connect my ipad to my projector I'll be using it a whole lot.

After that, I met back up with Christine and we went to a presentation which was about nearpod and explain everything.  I loved both apps and hope to use them in my classroom.

After the crazy pace of the morning we had about an hour between sessions.  We wandered through the vendor area and chit chatted.  Then went to our last presentation which was the only disappointment of the day.  I'll spare you the details.

I'll be going back tomorrow to hopefully learn a lot about Evernote.

Other Miscellaneous Stuff

As I was finding the picture for this post, I ran across a few others I figured I'd share.  For our Read Across America day, our students and teachers were encouraged to dress up as their favorite book characters.  Here are a few pictures of the adults.  (No kid pics here, sorry.)

Our librarian:  Amelia Bedelia, complete with purse.

I was the Cat in the Hat, but the whole class made Lorax mustaches and wore them, so this is me as the Cat in the Hat Lorax.  

One of our 3rd Grade teachers is the Wimpy Kid, he even brought his diary. :)