Our second Summer Tech Institute for our district (with lots of guests from neighbouring districts) was held last week on Thursday at Westwind Elementary and was coordinated by teacher consultant Chris Loat. 193 educators spent a day of their summer holidays learning all about ways to integrate technology into their classrooms.

Apple “geniuses”  and “creatives” joined us for the first time and this added a new dimension to the day!

A link to the program with links to some of the presenters’ handouts and presentations can be found HERE.

I presented two sessions.

iPads in Math for the Primary Classroom

The first one was one the use of iPads for math in the primary classroom. Now, there are many not so good math apps out there, so I wanted to recommend some ones that developed conceptual understanding, provided meaningful practice of skills and concepts with visual tools and allowed for differentiation and choice.

The list of apps can be found here along with some links to blog posts Summer Tech 2015 Primary Math Apps list.

The apps I recommended are all free and all happen to be developed on the west coast. Some that will be new to teachers are the TouchCounts app developed by SFU Education researchers. It has English, French and Italian capabilities. Also, any of the apps from The Math Learning Center in Oregon correlate well with our curriculum. Their apps are available for different devices, including web-based apps. On their website find the app information under the Resources tab.

Place-Based Digital Storytelling

I shared the project I did with four Anderson teachers this spring, connecting their focus on the First Peoples Principles of Learning with their school’s innovation grant focus on iPad technology. A detailed outline of this project can be found HERE. Apps that we used included Google Earth, DoodleBuddy and 30Hands.

Congrats to Chris on another great tech institute! It was such a positive day and the synergy in the building was amazing!

~Janice