Today was a great beginning to GaETC16! I was fortunate to see the entire Opening Keynote by Josh Stumpenhorst.  I so much appreciated his perspective on technology, i.e. that the technology is not the most important part!  While I may absolutely LOVE educational technology and technology in general, at the end of the day, it really does not matter how much technology I use if I do not know how to teach.  Pedagogy is king.

What I also loved about Josh’s presentation was his focus on making learning fun again.  So often, I think we lose sight of how amazing kids really are.  We take students who LOVE to learn at age 5, and by age 16, many are sick of school.  Sir Ken Robinson speaks to that in his TED talk on how schools may be killing students’ creativity.

Another session that I particularly loved was hearing Tony Vincent talk about “The Wonderful World of Widgets.”  Readers beware, after hearing that talk, you may be seeing WAY more widgets on this site.  Special note on this one, because of Tony, you will see no “suggested videos” following Sir Ken Robinson’s talk above.  To make this happen on your own blog, simply find a YouTube video, click Share, then Embed, then Show More.  Scroll down and uncheck “Show suggested videos when the video finishes.”

Amazing sessions today.  I learned so much, and I cannot wait for tomorrow!  When educators work together and treat each other as professionals, we all win.  I hope to see you at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 3, 2016, in Kenya 3-4 for my presentation on Multiple Tech Tools for Social Studies.  Happy teaching with tech!