Thursday, October 10, 2019

2019 SDCUE Board Elections Are Coming

This year, San Diego CUE has five board positions open for election. We need your help to decide who should fill those seats. Being on the board is a volunteer position that requires time and commitment to the CUE mission to inspire innovative learners by fostering community, personalizing learning, infusing technology, developing leadership, and advocating educational opportunities for all. Board members plan the annual professional development event, our Powered Learning Fair, as well as the SDCUE Social at CUE and a variety of smaller events throughout the year.

Below are the candidates running for the SDCUE Board. Please read over their information. There are currently 5 openings on the SDCUE Board. Of the nominees running for a spot, 4 are new candidates and 3 are incumbent board members.

The voting window will be open until October 25th. All SDCUE members will receive an email with directions as to how to cast your vote. The voting window closes on October 25. The newly elected board will be announced at the SDCUE Powered Learning Fair on Saturday, November 2. An email announcing the winners will be sent to all members on Monday, November 4th.

View the Board Member Job Description and Qualifications to learn more. If you have any questions about the voting process, please contact President@sdcue.org

The Candidates

Alicia Johal is the assistant director for the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Thinking at the San Diego Jewish Academy. She has worked in public, charter and private schools for 9 years, teaching middle and high school science, biotechnology and marine biology. As a justice-driven educator, she works to create opportunities on and off campus for students to have access and achievement, and has been awarded by state and federal programs for her work creating inclusive STEM programs to support school communities. She is an Apple Foundations Trainer, EdTechTeam presenter and shares her expertise at conferences around the topics of equitable technology, language learners, student activism and mastery-based teaching and learning. As an SDCUE board member, I will collaborate with fellow board members to prioritize equity in conversations about student success and educational technology, and I will cultivate critical dialogues and initiatives to engage the diverse and inclusive SDCUE community.


Matthew Evans, M.Ed, with a focus in Educational Technology. Matthew is an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego, teaching and training prospective teachers how to integrate technology into the curriculum, including how to teach computational thinking, physical computing and coding, as well as Google applications as a Certified Google Trainer, helping teachers to implement educational technology as a teacher leader. He is an experienced K-12 educator with over 15 years in the classroom. He has served as an Educational Technology Specialist, coordinated, developed curriculum and led professional development workshops in multiple settings. He consults with various STEM companies.
Matthew offers solid business knowledge and advice that is needed for the volunteer board. Matthew has been, and would continue to be, the SDCUE Sponsorship Chair to bring in thousands of dollars to offset the costs of the SDCUE Tech and Powered Learning Fairs.



Alicia Gallegos Butters works for the San Diego County Office of Education as the Director of Educational Technology. In this role, she has the opportunity to lead, goal set, establish work plans and set the vision for the Education Technology department, as well assist schools throughout San Diego County to do the same.
In addition to her work at SDCOE, Alicia also serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Educational Leadership at SDSU, the same university where she earned her B.A., M.A. and ED.D in Educational Technology. In Alicia’s free time, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her family which includes 16 year old identical triplet daughters.
As a board member my focus will be to assist CUE in their continued support to the educators throughout San Diego County. In addition, I hope to assist in the development of a stronger relationship between SDCUE, CUE and the county offices of education throughout California.


Tiffani Brown, M.A. in Teaching and M.A. in English, is an educator with fourteen years of experience. She currently serves as the Director of Instructional Technology in the Grossmont Union High School District. Tiffani has also served as a Vice Principal in the Santee School District. Prior to that role, Ms. Brown served as a Teacher on Special Assignment in the Santee School District where she focused on the creation and implementation of innovative curriculum and launched of Santee’s first 1:1 iPad program. Additionally, Tiffani is a Google Apps for Education Certified Trainer, and the current Vice President of San Diego CUE.
As a board member, my focus will be on providing excellence in ongoing learning for our local educational community as well as communication surrounding evolving practices and changes in the Instructional Technology Industry. The SDCUE board has been involved in ongoing dialogue about how best to partner with our members to help them grow their professional connections and stay invigorated about the promise of EdTech. I am passionate about continuing this work!


Elizabeth (Liz) Loether has been on the SD CUE Board for 3 years and LOVES her time with SD CUE! As the SDCUE Secretary, Liz not only documents our meetings and keeps our files in order, but she is also responsible for running the EventBrite for our Powered Learning Fair and invoicing each school after the event concludes.
Liz is currently the Principal at Rios Elementary Computer Science Magnet School. She has also served as Director of Educational Technology and Classroom Teacher. She enjoys learning and sharing ideas with fellow educators!
As a board member, my focus is on building community and providing opportunities to San Diego Educators.


Claudja Van Orden has been a SDUSD Instructional Technology Resource teacher for the last 3 years where she collaborates with teachers, administrators and students in innovating their teaching and learning, increasing students’ engagement and agency through the integration of technology. Claudja has presented in local and national conferences always advocating for innovation in the classroom. As a young teacher, she managed the Triton and Patterns Project at her school leading the creation of webquests for education and that is where she discover her passion for technology. This exciting new technological era will change the ways students think and learn, creating digital arenas for sharing work and building on knowledge.
As a board member, my focus will be on expanding the vision of innovation and equitable education through technology to reach every single teacher and student in the San Diego County area.


Laura Lemos has been an educator for 15 years, 12 years as a classroom teacher and 3 years as an assistant principal.
Laura is currently an assistant principal in Chula Vista and holds her doctorate in education. She is an advocate for culturally and linguistically diverse students and communities.
As a board member, my focus will be on providing STEAM education in order to enrich every students’ educational experience. My husband and I have 5 children and 3 dogs.




Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Empowering Students: Establishing a Student Technology Leadership Team - Elementary Style


Our Eagle Tech Leadership Squad began in the 2016-2017 school year. I’d been running an after school extracurricular tech program for several years, but students and teachers were needing support.

I’m the Tech Lead Teacher on my site and it’s impossible to to support 40-45 teachers, answer all the tech questions, and plan and teach my class no matter how much I think I can. I realized we had huge potential right here with our students.

The year before, my AP came to me and asked me to show him how to do a screencast. It would have been easy to take a few minutes and show him but I had another idea. My after school tech class students were using screencasting regularly and it would be so much more powerful for one of them to teach an admin this cool tech tool. So I told him to ask Marlo, a third grader in my after school class. The next day he pulled her out of class and she taught him Screencastify. He shared the screencast with teachers, and at the end he acknowledged the student, who was supervising his recording, and asked “How did I do Marlo?” She replied, “You did great!” I realized then how much these kids could do and how helpful it would be.

Since then, our program has grown each year. We started with 24 students, then 35, last year was the first year I had to turn some kids down as I had 55 apply. This year I opened it only to 4th and 5th graders for Fall and will have a second session in the spring open to 3rd graders also. Link to our recruiting website.

2018-19 Team

I have the kids apply by filling out a google form and submit a resume. The resume helps me know that they are serious about being a part of this program. And there is something awesome about an elementary student’s resume. One of my first applicants, a third grade student, wrote under Special Accomplishments that he had intercepted a pass from a 4th grader at recess!

So once the team is set, we meet once a week to learn about tech tools, create tutorials, and brainstorm how we can help our school. We have special shirts and badges so our teachers know who they can ask for help and we support our younger buddy classes too.

The first year, we opened my classroom before school during Hour of Code week to help students who wanted to learn more. Tech Squad students were there to support. It was so well received that our principal asked if we could keep doing it. So now we have Open Tech Time twice a week before school in my classroom. Tech Squad students sign up to volunteer twice a month for these tutoring sessions.

We are constantly finding opportunities to help in our school and beyond. Last year we had a huge AV upgrade at our site. A group of Tech Squad students explored the technology in my classroom, then went to the other classes and showed the teachers some of the features one on one. They found features I didn’t even know existed. It would have taken us teachers a lot longer to figure these things out on our own by going through the manual.


Showing the Tech Director how to use MicroBits 

Our Tech Squad students have presented at SDCUE twice, given a school board presentation about technology integration, lead demonstrations at the CSUSM Super STEM Saturday each year, and last year led a Family Code night attended by over 185 parents and students.

Family Code Night 

Why do we have a student Tech Leadership Team?

  • to empower students
  • to increase technology integration
  • to solve problems
  • to represent our school

Do you need a Tech Squad at your school? You just might.

* SMUSD has a group of Lead Tech Teachers, one at each site, who support tech integration and meet to plan and share district wide.
-----


Laurie Anastasio is a 3rd grade teacher at San Elijo Elementary School in San Marcos Unified. She has taught 2nd through 5th grades since 1997. Laurie enjoys learning and sharing as a GSuite for Education Trainer, CoSpaces Ambassador, Code.org Facilitator, and is a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator.


Twitter @LaurieAnastasio





Email: AnastasioEdTech@gmail.com

Sunday, August 11, 2019

#CUEhoot Where Lead Learners Gather

By Jen Roberts, SDCUE Member

What do you get when you combine thirty educators, Monterey Bay, and barbecue? A great day of learning and connecting we call the CUE Hoot.

Most CUE members probably don’t know that CUE has a group called Lead Learners. These are folks who present a lot at CUE events and often get asked to present for CUE to districts and schools. Keeping with the philosophy that learners need to stay connected to each other, CUE hosts a free event once a year called the Hootenanny just for lead learners. This year they held their third annual #CUEhoot and I got to go.

The location alternates and changes. Last year it was in San Diego at the Maritime Museum and this year it was at the Seymour Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz. I love that they always place it somewhere educational and senic.

We always end up tweeting a lot from the #CUEhoot and people who aren’t lead learners often ask me what it is all about. It’s pretty simple really. We spend a day together connecting with people we haven’t met yet, getting some updates about what’s new and coming soon from CUE, attend sessions about presenting better, or learn more about a technical tool. In the afternoon we share out wacky ideas, share what we are most passionate about in short #CUEbooms

The morning session I went to was called IRL Time with Pam. Pam Hernandez is the new executive director of CUE, so this session was about getting to hear from her, but mostly about her listening to us. Lead learners are not shy about sharing, and that includes their thoughts and ideas about what would make CUE even better. Our conversation mostly focused on how to spread the word that CUE exists to support teachers and also ways we can give that support to teachers K-12 and in higher education.

In the afternoon I joined the photo-walk lead by Jason Seliskar and John Miller. The crashing waves, wildflowers, and open ocean of Monterey Bay gave us a scenic place to wander and practice our photo skills. A lot of us prefer to use our own photos in presentations, so this kind of ties into being a lead learner right?

We closed with CUE Booms and some slides karaoke, which is as ridiculous as it sounds, but fun to present without warning. Presenters have to know how to roll with whatever happens in the moment.

The real magic of the #CUEhoot is putting faces to the people I’ve only met online, discovering the genius of some I had never met, and reconnecting with friends I only get to see a few times a year. Along the way we learn, share, eat well and laugh a lot.

If you regularly present at SDCUE, or other CUE events you might be interested in becoming a lead learner too. Find out more at https://cue.org/leadlearners/


Member Spotlight: Jen Roberts

Jen’s Story

In 2007 her principal recommended Jen as a teacher for a 1:1 laptop pilot program. “The funny thing though, is she didn’t check with me first. So, I just got this email asking me to participate and listing all of these requirements. I didn’t want to do it. I had a seven-month old baby and a five-year-old at home. I wrote back, telling them all the things that were wrong with their requirements and saying no.” Then the organizer called her and said they had changed their plans because of her feedback and talked her into participating.

It took six months to get the laptops into her classroom and when they arrived they were running a version of Linux without any of the Microsoft or Mac software she knew how to use. “When I found out they didn’t have Word I was frustrated. I teach English. What were my students supposed to use to write? Then Mary Lange told me, ‘There’s this thing called Google Docs,’ and invited me to a training.” She went, taking her student teacher along with her.

Jen and her students embraced Google tools. First just Docs, and then the Docs list morphed into Drive. She learned to use Sheets and Sheets included Forms. (Jen’s very first SDCUE session was about Google Forms in 2009.) “Very quickly my students and I found that Docs and Forms made our classroom more efficient. We figured out a way to use one Google Doc and keep adding the small assignments to the top. We drastically reduced the amount of paper we used. We experimented with things like having a group analyze a text together using just the chat window on the doc. The room was silent, but I could watch all their thinking in the comments.”

At the time Jen taught American Lit to juniors. “It was not AP. It was not even honors. This was regular American Lit and some of my students were not on track to graduate. When the laptops came in tough, something changed. We were the only classroom with laptops. My students felt really special and proud about it. Without knowing it, our first lessons were about digital citizenship when I had them set up gmail accounts with their real names. The laptops gave us access to write blogs, and post book reviews online. Research became a thing we did everyday, and not a special trip to the library.”

Thanks to a tweet she saw and her enthusiasm for using Google tools with her students, Jen applied to the Google Teacher Academy in 2011. “I didn’t know it was competitive. When one of the organizers told me how many people applied my jaw dropped and my imposter syndrome set in. The people in that room were brilliant.” At the time CUE organized the GTA in partnership with Google. “From there I was hooked. I went to spring CUE and met up with people I had met in Seattle. I started presenting more and blogging more. I couldn’t not share the things that were working in my classroom.”

Eventually, Jen and her co-author Diana Neebe wrote a book about teaching with 1:1. Power Up: Making the Shift to 1:1 Teaching and Learning is available from Stenhouse Publishers. “It’s a labor of love to support other teachers who are just getting started with their own 1:1 classrooms. I’ll never forget that I tried to say no, and had to get talked into letting laptops in my classroom. I know lots of other teachers are still hesitant, and I don’t blame them for being apprehensive. The book was our way to try to share what we learned and make the process easier for our colleagues.”

Saturday, April 20, 2019

ISTE TEN Video Awards

SDCUE members, here is an opportunity for you to win a registration for ISTE!

Hello Members of the Teacher Education Network! 
Are you an outstanding technology-using PreK-12 teacher? Or, do you know one?

The Teacher Education Network (TEN) is looking for videos of best practices for integrating technology in teaching and learning for our Technology in Action Video Awards! We’re searching for examples across a wide variety of grades, subject areas, and technologies (see the winning videos from 2018, 2017, and 2016).

Now accepting submissions. For more information, visit: iste-ten.weebly.com
Timeline
Monday, April 8, 2019 - Award competition is open for submissions *Submissions from individual teachers only. No group submissions.
Monday, May 20, 2019 - Final day for Video Submission
Monday, May 27, 2019 - Award winners will be notified. Names published to ISTE TEN PLN! 
Promotions and Awards for Top 5 Videos
The top videos (as selected by ISTE TEN) will receive the following awards:
First Place: Free ISTE conference registration
Second Place: $100 Amazon gift card
Top 5 Winners Receive: Certificates & Free ISTE book 
All winners will be honored at the ISTE TEN playground at ISTE 2019 on Wednesday, June 26 at 9:00 a.m.