icecold

Fall Mini-Conference Has Been Cancelled

ICE Cold is sad to announce that due to significantly low participation, the Oct. 22 ICE Cold Fall Mini Conference been cancelled. The ICE Cold Executive Board and Presenters hope to bring this great event back to the Western Suburbs in April 8, 2017. Mark your 2017 calendar now!

Fall 2016 Steam Themed Mini-Conference Registration - CANCELLED

Our fall conference will be held at Clarendon Hills Middle School Saturday October 22nd from 8:30-noon. We've officially opened registration this week. For information on our event and a link to the registration form click here. Presentations will cover a variety of steam themed topics. New to our fall event is a middle session devoted to exploration. Everyone will be able to spend the middle session to explore activities that will meet your standards and engage your students through creative, playful, and thought provoking challenges. What a fun opportunity for this fall's attendees. Our morning event includes breakfast and a raffle at the conclusion of the morning. What a marvelous way to spend a fun morning for just $5.00. See you there.

Fall Mini-Conference Updates

Updates, updates. We’ve extended submitting proposals for our fall STEAM themed October 22nd mini-conference until September 30th. If you are implementing a STEAM lesson/project in your classroom or library and wish to share it with other educators, we’d love to hear from you. Submit your proposal here - ICE COLD Fall 2016 Mini-Conference Presenter Proposals. We will notify those accepted the following week.

We encourage everyone to mark their calendars for October 22nd. For just $5.00 our fall mini-conference at Clarendon Hills Middle School, 301 Chicago Avenue, Clarendon Hills, IL, offers a wide variety of sessions and exploration time, PDC’s, breakfast and concluding activities. Bookmark our blog and stay tune for registration information coming early October. All members of the educational community are cordially invited.

We now have a Remind account - @icecold16. You can receive our messages via text, email, push notifications or any combination. To join via text, text @icecold16 to 81010. To join online, visit remind.com/join and enter the class code along with your mobile phone number. To join via email, visit remind.com/join and enter the class code and your email address. Download the Remind app, available for iOS and Android, create an account and join our class @icecold16.

Announcing our Fall STEAM Themed Mini-Conference

We hope everyone had a wonderful relaxing summer. As summer comes to a close it’s a time to reflect on goals you’ve set for yourself and your students for the new school year. Each year there always seems to be new initiatives, new terminology, new technology and more. Yet as we head into the long Labor Day weekend, the weather is promising beautiful days ahead. It’s time to take a refreshing break from the beginning of the year activities which are often both exciting and hectic as you put those goals into play.

We are currently inviting educators who would like to present at this fall’s STEAM themed October 22nd mini-conference to submit a proposal here - ICE COLD Fall 2016 Mini-Conference Presenter Proposals. Proposals will be accepted through Friday September 16th. All presentations must be at least one hour in length. ICE COLD’s board will review proposals at our September 17th meeting and notify those accepted the following week. We hope you will take this opportunity to consider sharing your exciting STEAM based activities and give all a chance to Learn Do Iterate.

We encourage all educators to mark their calendars for October 22nd. For just $5.00 our fall mini-conference, to be held at Clarendon Hills Middle School, 301 Chicago Avenue, Clarendon Hills, IL, offers a variety of sessions presented by fellow professionals, PDC’s, breakfast, and a concluding activities. Bookmark our blog and stay tune for registration information coming early October. All members of the educational community are cordially invited; you do not need to be a member of ICE. So set the date and see you there!

Happy Independence Day

As we head into the long holiday weekend I hope everyone has been enjoying their summer break. Maybe you’ve just been relaxing with family and/or friends, fortunate to have attended ISTE and/or ALA’s annual conferences, attending classes or traveling. Whatever activity you’ve started your summer with, guaranteed it’s a well-earned break. We wish everyone  a safe, fun and rewarding celebration of the birth of our nation.

While ICE is working on bringing their new website into its final state, ICE COLD wanted to share their 2016-2017 Board with you as well as our tentative calendar for the new school year. Some of our dates need finalizing so bookmark our blog and watch for important upcoming information.

If you happen on to the ICE COLD blog, here’s a bit of information about our chapter. ICE COLD is the original chapter of Illinois Computing Educators and provides support to computer-using professionals involved in education throughout the western suburbs of the Chicago area. ICE COLD encourages the development, growth and use of technology in all facets of the educational process. We extend an invitation to educators in the area to work together to further this process.

The members of ICE COLD's board meet throughout the school year. The main focus of our meetings is on our two big events of the school year - our fall and spring mini-conference. We warmly welcome any interested member to join our meetings and all educators are welcome to attend our conferences. If you are interested in being part of the ICE COLD board, just come on over to Downers Grove Public Library and join us for our monthly meetings. We will be thrilled to see you.

Now here are our specifics.

2016-2017 ICE COLD Officers

President: Matt Granger
President-elect: Stephanie Stieglitz
Past President: Catherine Neumann
Treasurer: Lorie Jessup
Secretary: Maria Matariyeh
Public Relations (Blog/Website): Linda Houle
Facilities Chair: Stephanie Stieglitz
Contributing Members: Erin Preder, Sheila Ruh, Bri Savic, Sherry Sejnost, Deborah Thompson

2016-2017 Calendar

August 1-3 – Taste of Technology
Old Quarry Middle School 16100 West 127th Street, Lemont, IL 60439
Registration is open: http://bit.ly/ICE_Taste_of_Tech

August 20 - Board Meeting 9:00 AM
Downers Grove Public Library 1050 Curtiss St. Downers Grove, IL 60515

September 17 - Board Meeting 9:00 AM
Downers Grove Public Library 1050 Curtiss St. Downers Grove, IL 60515

October 22- Fall Mini-Conference 8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
CANCELED

November 12 Board Meeting 9:00 AM
Downers Grove Public Library 1050 Curtiss St. Downers Grove, IL 60515

January 20 ICE COLD Social Event – Tentative Date
Stay tune for more information

February 11 Board Meeting 9:00 AM
Downers Grove Public Library 1050 Curtiss St. Downer Grove, IL 60515

March 11 Board Meeting 9:00 AM          
Downers Grove Public Library 1050 Curtiss St. Downer Grove, IL 60515

April 8 - Spring Mini-Conference 8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Clarendon Hills Middle School 301 Chicago Ave, Clarendon Hills, IL 60514

April 29 Board Meeting 9:00 AM            
Downers Grove Public Library 1050 Curtiss St. Downer Grove, IL 60515

 

Wrapping Up the 2015-2016 Year

Our spring mini-conference was a great success with 70 in attendance. ICE-COLD thanks our 12 presenters for sharing their expertise. Below you’ll find a list of our presenters and links to those who offer their presentations for further review. The mini-conference was also our general meeting and the following were elected to our 2016-2017 executive board. Our new officers are President – Matt Granger, President Elect – Stephanie Stieglitz, Past President – Catherine Neumann, Secretary - Maria Matariyeh, and Treasurer – Lorie Jessup.

Our final meeting of the 2016-2017 school year will be held at the Downers Grove Public Library Saturday May 14 at 9am. We will meet to debrief on our spring conference and set our 2016-17 budget, meeting dates, events, and more. Please consider becoming involved and join us at our upcoming meeting.

As the end of the school year draws near, we wish everyone a successful conclusion to 2015-2016. Looking ahead to your summer plans, besides a much needed and well deserved break, we hope you plan some technology time to explore new ideas for use with your students for the upcoming year.

2015-2016 Spring Mini-Conference Presenters

Lissa Blake -- GO GREEN With Exciting Green Projects!: Do you want to learn how to use a fantastic, easy Green Screen app to integrate into your ELA lessons? Students will be able to create fantastic, collaborative projects in many different ways using this wonderful app! The #1 Green Screen app for the iPad in Education, now available for the iPhone too! Classroom-tested by kids and teachers, this app emphasizes ease-of-use and simplicity while still enabling fantastic results. With Green Screen by Do Ink, you can tell a story, explain an idea, and express yourself in truly creative and unique ways. Intended Audience: Elementary & Middle School Educators. Platform: iOS (iPad, iPhone).

Lissa Blake & D. (Bri) Savic – Using Seesaw to Capture Student Success: Seesaw, the learning journal, crosses language barriers and empowers students & teachers to capture learning with photos, videos, drawings, audio, and digital creations. Students can self-reflect, comment, and share their work with each other as well as parents to create a collaborative learning experience. Intended Audience: Elementary & Middle School Educators. Platform: iOS (iPad, iPhone), Mac, Windows, Chrome, Cross-Platform.

Michael de Leon – Upping Your Classroom Cred: This presentation will highlight different approaches teachers can use Google Classroom. Think of it as Google classroom intermediate/advanced. We will also explore how we can use Google Classroom more effectively in a flipped/blended environment as well as explore ways you can use Classroom to guide student learning in efficient ways. Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Cross.

Michael de Leon -- You Too Can "YouTube"! (Learning To Be a Digital Content Creator and Publisher.): In this session we'll learn how to use YouTube (and other multimedia publishing sites) to publish content that we have created and edited ourselves! We'll explore aspects of screencasting, video editing using free/ freemium tools, and the final publishing of our content. Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Cross.

Scott Dillard -- Mystery Hangouts:  Moving Beyond the Classroom Walls: Google Hangouts is an engaging (GAFE) tool that can break down the walls of your classroom.  Mystery Hangouts is a standard-based and engaging way for classrooms to connect with each other throughout the world. Participants will learn to help their students use geography skills to discover the location of the other classroom by collaborating and communicating with each other and by using critical thinking, problem solving, and cooperation learning skills.  Participants will learn how to set up a Mystery Hangout, have a working knowledge of the process of hosting a Google Hangout, how to avoid technology pitfalls, and how to take the next step after a Mystery Hangout. Intended Audience: Elementary & Middle School Educators. Platform: Mac, Windows, Chrome.

Kate Fahey – Google Forms for Everyone: Google Forms allow you to plan events, make surveys, give student quizzes or collect any information in an easy, streamlined way.  We will create a basic Google form and discuss several ways to use them.  We will also introduce Flubaroo, a nifty add-on that allows you to auto-grade student assessments.  This will be a hands-on session, attendees will benefit the most if they already have a GAFE account OR a personal gmail account and a device.  (Instructions are based on desktop version). Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Mac, Windows, Chrome, Cross-Platform.

Linda Houle -- No Registration Web 2.0 Spring 2016: Come explore 20+ No Registration browser based Web 2.0 tools added to my growing list of over 250 free creativity, collaboration, conversion, multimedia, photo imaging, presentation and productivity tools that can support students producing and publishing in a digital world. Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School, & High School Educators. Platform: Cross

Kellie Lane – Google Classroom for Beginners: Have you been wanting to try Google Classroom, but just haven’t had time to explore it? Now is the time! In this beginner session, we will set-up your Google classroom while exploring the basic functionality of this amazing product! Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Cross.

Kellie Lane – Google Tour Builder – Put Your Story on the Map: Using Google Tour Builder, capture location-based moments to create tours of events. Perfect for mapping places from a novel, labelling key locations in history, identifying where events occur or even showcasing your vacation around Europe. This easy tool takes the best parts of Google Earth and simplifies them in a clean, web-based interface. Pin your locations on a map, add text, photos and video and share your story! Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School, & High School Educators. Platform: Cross

Krissy Pierce -- Using Tech in Daily 5: Daily 5 is a literacy structure organized to allow choice for students during independent work time. This presentation will provide teachers with immediately applicable free resources using both GAFE and the websites. Resources are usable on all devices for any grade level but primarily focused on K-6. Intended Audience: Elementary & Middle School Educators. Platform: iOS (iPad, iPhone), Mac, Windows, Chrome

Erin Preder – 15 Minutes of Fame: During this session you will learn how I use Social Media with students in the library. Topics that will be discussed are Green Screen Videos, YouTube, Facebook, Periscope, Touchcast and Twitter. Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: iOS (iPad, iPhone), Mac, Windows, Chrome.

Tanessha A. Thomas -- G-WTTW Google Writing Tools That Work: Learn about several Google tools that improve students’ writing:  Voice to Text, Research Tools within their Google Doc, Google Keep note taking, and Highlighting Tools Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Chrome.

Joseph Tita – Don’t Forget Ped-Tech: Gadgets, gizmos, and devices are only half of the equation in education technology. Come learn why "pedagogical technology" is just as important as digital technology for enhancing classroom practice in these fast-changing times. Participants will come away with  food for thought on current trends in education technology and links to learn more about student-driven learning. Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Cross-Platform.

Mark White – Showbie in the Elementary Classroom: We will explore the ways Showbie can be used in an elementary classroom. From flipped lessons, cloned teacher, grading and providing powerful feedback Showbie is a simple and effective tool for even primary age students. Intended Audience: Elementary School Educators. Platform: iOS (iPad, iPhone), Cross-Platform

It's Spring Conference Day

Welcome to all of our attendees. We are delighted to see you. If you will click here ICE COLD Spring Mini Conference you will find links to presentations, our morning schedule, the school’s floor plan, and evaluation forms (to be available after 11am). Here also is a QR code to our Google doc.

While the document with all today's information will remain available, later this week the blog will be updated to include links to all the morning presentations for ongoing access. Thank you for coming. Enjoy your morning then go out and enjoy this glorious spring day.

 

ICE COLD Mini-Conference Update!

Ah changes. With the new look to the ICE website having you been looking for information on our April 16th mini-conference? Our blog will now be our link to all things Spring 2016 ICE COLD mini-conference, be sure to bookmark our blog for future events. All our old information you usually found on our website will be available in a mini-conference Google doc. To make it's URL easy to remember tinyurl has facilitated an easy to remember address: http://tinyurl.com/icecoldsp16. Our doc will be your source for presenters, presentation links, QR code for our schedule, and QR codes to CPDU’s and evaluations (to be added). But please if you have not yet registered for our event, signup today. We have a fantastic group of presenters and such a variety of topics. Click here to register https://goo.gl/jnJhDb and see you Saturday April 16th.

Spring 2016 Mini-conference Registration Is Open

What an exciting start to 2016 for Illinois Computing Educators. We hope many of you were able to attend the annual conference held at Pheasant Run the end of February. Kudos goes to this year’s Conference Committee for an outstanding job. The vast number of breakout sessions, poster sessions, and workshops was a marvelous opportunity for attendees to expand their technology skills/understanding. The close of the annual event saw the passing of the job of ICE Executive Director from our leader of 5 years Margaret Johnson to our new director Amber Heffner as well as voting in our new Executive Board. Now ICE chapters take on their spring activities and hope to see many educators attending their events.

With spring fast approaching ICE COLD is excited to share the list of their Spring 2016 Mini-Conference presenters. We believe you will be quite delighted to see the variety of topics available for our April 16th event. Topics covered include: social media, screencasting, You Tube, Showbie, Seesaw, Green Screen, No Registration Web 2.0 tools, Daily 5 and a variety of Google topics. For the Googlers we include: Google writing tools, Google Classroom, Google/Mystery Hangouts, and Google Tour Builder. We will also be offering an exciting raffle at the conclusion of our morning event that will include an iPad, Chromebook, portable charger and portable hard drive. Hope you’ve already seen something that tickles your fancy and you will quickly click on this link https://goo.gl/jnJhDb to pre-register for our spring conference. To view the morning’s schedule click here https://goo.gl/ZZD6gF. See you there!

Now here’s a list of our presenters. Stay tuned and check back after our event for links to all the presentations.

PRESENTERS

Lissa Blake -- GO GREEN With Exciting Green Projects!: Do you want to learn how to use a fantastic, easy Green Screen app to integrate into your ELA lessons? Students will be able to create fantastic, collaborative projects in many different ways using this wonderful app! The #1 Green Screen app for the iPad in Education, now available for the iPhone too! Classroom-tested by kids and teachers, this app emphasizes ease-of-use and simplicity while still enabling fantastic results. With Green Screen by Do Ink, you can tell a story, explain an idea, and express yourself in truly creative and unique ways. Intended Audience: Elementary & Middle School Educators. Platform: iOS (iPad, iPhone).

Lissa Blake & D. (Bri) Savic – Using Seesaw to Capture Student Success: Seesaw, the learning journal, crosses language barriers and empowers students & teachers to capture learning with photos, videos, drawings, audio, and digital creations. Students can self-reflect, comment, and share their work with each other as well as parents to create a collaborative learning experience. Intended Audience: Elementary & Middle School Educators. Platform: iOS (iPad, iPhone), Mac, Windows, Chrome, Cross-Platform.

 Michael de Leon – Upping Your Classroom Cred: This presentation will highlight different approaches teachers can use Google Classroom. Think of it as Google classroom intermediate/advanced. We will also explore how we can use Google Classroom more effectively in a flipped/blended environment as well as explore ways you can use Classroom to guide student learning in efficient ways. Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Cross.

Michael de Leon -- You Too Can "YouTube"! (Learning To Be a Digital Content Creator and Publisher.): In this session we'll learn how to use YouTube (and other multimedia publishing sites) to publish content that we have created and edited ourselves! We'll explore aspects of screencasting, video editing using free/ freemium tools, and the final publishing of our content. Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Cross.

Scott Dillard -- Mystery Hangouts: Moving Beyond the Classroom Walls: Google Hangouts is an engaging Google Apps for Education (GAFE) tool that can break down the walls of your classroom. Mystery Hangouts is a standard-based and engaging way for classrooms to connect with each other throughout the world. Participants will learn to help their students use geography skills to discover the location of the other classroom by collaborating and communicating with each other and by using critical thinking, problem solving, and cooperation learning skills. Participants will learn how to set up a Mystery Hangout, have a working knowledge of the process of hosting a Google Hangout, how to avoid technology pitfalls, and how to take the next step after a Mystery Hangout. Intended Audience: Elementary & Middle School Educators. Platform: Mac, Windows, Chrome.

Kate Fahey – Google Forms for Everyone: Google Forms allow you to plan events, make surveys, give student quizzes or collect any information in an easy, streamlined way. In this presentation, we will create a basic Google form and discuss several ways to use them. We will also introduce Flubaroo, a nifty add-on that allows you to auto-grade student assessments. This will be a hands-on session where the attendees will benefit the most if they already have a Google Apps for Education account OR a personal gmail account and a device. (Instructions are based on desktop version, not mobile). Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Mac, Windows, Chrome, Cross-Platform.

Linda Houle -- No Registration Web 2.0 Spring 2016: Come explore my Livebinder of 20+ No Registration browser based Web 2.0 tools tested and added to my growing list of over 250 free creativity, collaboration, conversion, multimedia, photo imaging, presentation and productivity tools that can support students producing and publishing in a digital world. For those of you with BYOD and 1:1 programs wanting easy transition between browser based Web 2.0 and devices there will also be a binder of tools with apps and extensions. Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School, & High School Educators. Platform: Cross

Kellie Lane – Google Classroom for Beginners: Have you been wanting to try Google Classroom, but just haven’t had time to explore it? Now is the time! In this beginner session, we will set-up your Google classroom while exploring the basic functionality of this amazing product! Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Cross.

Kellie Lane – Google Tour Builder – Put Your Story on the Map: Using Google Tour Builder, capture location-based moments to create tours of events. Perfect for mapping places from a novel, labelling key locations in history, identifying where events occur or even showcasing your vacation around Europe. This easy tool takes the best parts of Google Earth and simplifies them in a clean, web-based interface. Pin your locations on a map, add text, photos and video and share your story! Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School, & High School Educators. Platform: Cross

 Krissy Pierce -- Using Tech in Daily 5: Daily 5 is a literacy structure organized to allow choice for students during independent work time. This presentation will provide teachers with immediately applicable free resources using both GAFE and the websites. Resources are usable on all devices for any grade level but primarily focused on K-6. Intended Audience: Elementary & Middle School Educators. Platform: iOS (iPad, iPhone), Mac, Windows, Chrome

Erin Preder – 15 Minutes of Fame: During this session you will learn how I use Social Media with students in the library. Topics that will be discussed are Green Screen Videos, YouTube, Facebook, Periscope, Touchcast and Twitter. Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: iOS (iPad, iPhone), Mac, Windows, Chrome.

Tanessha A. Thomas -- G-WTTW Google Writing Tools That Work: Learn about several Google tools that improve students’ writing: Voice to Text, Research Tools within their Google Doc, Google Keep note taking, and Highlighting Tools Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Chrome.

Joseph Tita – Don’t Forget Ped-Tech: Gadgets, gizmos, and devices are only half of the equation in education technology. Come learn why "pedagogical technology" is just as important as digital technology for enhancing classroom practice in these fast-changing times. Participants in this session will come away food for thought on current trends in education technology and links to learn more about student-driven learning. Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle School & High School Educators. Platform: Cross-Platform.

Mark White – Showbie in the Elementary Classroom: We will explore the ways Showbie can be used in an elementary classroom. From flipped lessons, cloned teacher, grading and providing powerful feedback Showbie is a simple and effective tool for even primary age students. Intended Audience: Elementary School Educators. Platform: iOS (iPad, iPhone), Cross-Platform

Happy New Year

A new year has begun and everyone has the opportunity to write a new chapter of their life. This year’s ICE theme is Welcome to the Future. As we start 2016 our future and that of all teacher and students is open to the wonderful realm of technology. I’ve been ‘playing’ with computers and technology since 1989 and wow the changes that the future has brought over the years. ICE has been a great part of my technology experience for almost 2 decades. From chapter events to annual conferences, website recognitions, ICE and ICE COLD conference presenting, participating on ICE COLD’s board, I can’t say enough positive things on how much the organization has given me in the way of professional development, professional connections, and personal satisfaction.

With that said now’s the opportunity for those of you who are so excited about what you are doing in your classroom, library, or school with technology to share your knowledge at the ICE COLD Spring Mini-Conference Saturday April 16th. Here’s the opportunity to pass that excitement on to others. Educators are the most sharing professionals I think anywhere. We all learn from each other and ICE conferences and chapter mini-conferences are the best bargain ever for expanding personal learning networks and professional development opportunities. Please consider submitting a proposal, we’d love for you to share. Presentations should be a minimum of one hour. Submit your proposals by Friday, February 12th. Presenters will be notified the week of February 15th.

Are you interested in becoming more involved in ICE COLD? We encourage you to join us Saturday February 13th as we decide our presenters and plan our spring mini-conference. We will meet on the 2nd floor of Downers Grove Public Library – check with the library desk for room – from 11:00am-1:00pm. Come join us. We’d love to meet you and have you share your ideas and interests, and be part of our organization. See you there!

Everyone now go mark your calendars and SAVE THE DATE – ICE COLD Spring Mini-Conference, Saturday April 16th, 8AM-Noon, Clarendon Hills Middle School, Clarendon Hills, IL.