Promising Practice Conference

  At first I wasn't at all excited about this conference. I didn't really know what to expect. All I knew was that I had to get up extremely early on a Saturday morning. I was not at all thrilled about this. I went into Donavon and received my folder I noticed that for both the workshops I had received my first choice. I kind of forgot about which workshops I chose. When I was reading the information on the I became pretty excited. I really enjoyed the workshops.
  My first workshop was Horton: Digitally Organizing your thoughts. I was unsure what this workshop was going to be like when I signed up for it. But I knew the teacher Connie Horton, from the semester before she was my technology teacher. I really enjoyed her class she is very upbeat and teaches really well, I learned a lot from her. Her workshop was just as informative as I had hoped. She taught us how to create webs on the computer. She had us try organizing one on our own we had to organize our Sunday. She showed us the different tools you can use in Inspiration 8.This program creates different kinds of wed designs. I found this to be very useful. It's something I think I can use in my future classroom. It is very important to organize your thoughts before you sit down and write a paper. I really enjoyed this workshop. Here is the Slideshow she showed us in the workshop.
  I found my second workshop, Horwitz et al: Photovoice as a self-study research tool, to be very informative. In this workshop I learned that Photovoice is very important its an easy way for kids to express themselves. In Johnsons article he talks about how we must say the words.I think Photovoice is a way for people to show others tghe different issues going on because it's not easy to just talk about it. Kids often have a difficult time saying what they want to say and have a difficult time expressing who they are. Photovoice gives them this opurtunity to say what they need to say through a picture. I really liked this workshop because I love taking pictures and I love photography.This workshop did get a little dull at times she gave us some bachround information about photovoice. Then there were 4 students that got up and talked to us about their photovoice project. They had to go out around Rhode Island and take pictures about literacy. This is when the workshop bacame a little confusing. It was almost like they talked more about literacy and their projects then they did about photovoice. Besides that part I enjoyed learning about photovoice and how it is a very useful tool for students.
Here are two articles that explain more about photovoice and its impotance:
http://i08.cgpublisher.com/proposals/368/index_html
http://www.ivmproject.ca/photo_voice.php

  I found this conference to be an overall sucess. I really enjoyed the workshops that I attended even if it was extremely early on a Saturday morning. These workshops were very informative and I think they will be very useful in my future classroom.