Technology Night?

I will be continuing with National Boards next year, and believe one of the ways that I can show "Your work with families and communities of your students" is to have a technology night.

I am probably making a bigger deal out of it than I should be, but I can't even really imagine what this should look like!?! The only thing coming to me is to just show the parents my curriculum, and if the students have done any work for me at this point, to have students show off their work.

Any suggestions on what I can do? Have the students do? Have the parents do?

Thanks,

Phil

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Permalink Reply by Michael Zimmer on December 16, 2009 at 1:14pm

Good luck with National Boards. My wife did it a few years ago and passed.

Does your school/district/state have a Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP)?

You might think about doing it like a Science Fair, but instead a Tech Fair. Set up Computers or Laptops and let students showcase what they have created using technology. (Glogs, Digital Stories, Videos, Blogs, etc)

You might have your students at some stations have interactive stations where they show parents what the software/technology is and how they used it, and then give parents a chance to play around with it.....

That help?

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Permalink Reply by Phil on December 16, 2009 at 1:59pm

Very cool ideas...Thank you!

And now I get to go learn what a Glog is ;-)

I will check into the STLP for our state.

Phil

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Permalink Reply by Michael Zimmer on December 16, 2009 at 2:02pm

edu.glogster.com

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Permalink Reply by Cathy Nelson on December 16, 2009 at 6:28pm

Michael I did one (and used it for NB successfully) several years ago. I approached it through English classes. I visited, gave a big description of what I wanted to do, and invited all students to submit proposals to present--just as we do for our own professional conferences. Students (in no less than groups of 2, no more than groups of 4) had to submit a topic or idea on how Kids use tech in school. They had to storyboard a presentation that would last 20 minutes. For kids who proposed the same topic (and back then a digital camera was a new idea and popular) they had to "audition" their presentation in front of me and my library assistants. We selected the final presentations--about 16 in all. The kids had to make the guide for the conference booklet, selling attendees on attending their presentations. We then brought the kids and parents in for a short pto meeting, had the band play a song (middle school then) and then explained that parents needed to select three sessions to attend, and that we would use the bell to indicate changing sessions. Now this was way back in 1997, but it was hugely successful. Don't get me wrong it was a lot of work, but it was student directed, we had MEGA parent and community support (we invited businesses to come) and those kids absolutely took off and RAN with their topics. The whole purpose was to show parents how tech was used in our school. If you are trying come up with ideas, maybe this could work (or some variation of this idea....) I shared the concept with a high school teacher who was doing the Fenaissance, and he used teh concept to have a renaissance fair at his school. same concept--kids presenting on a topic/parents pick and attend three.