OTEN 2010 - Yodio and Reflection

At OTEN, I attended three sessions: the keynote speaker, a presentation on WoW as social constructivism, and a presentation on SmartBoards. The keynote speaker walked us through a history of classroom technology, which was pretty fun and interesting. Made me realize what a long way we've come! The World of Warcraft presentation was a hoot: it was given by a woman who is getting her Ph.D. at University of Washington and who is a closet online gamer. My reflection on that particular presentation can be listened to above, and here, at the Yodio website itself. The last presentation I saw was on SmartBoard - what they can do, how they can be utilized. Although the presenter was a kindergarten and elementary teacher, I had a lot of ideas about how the SmartBoard could be used in a language classroom, and I'm hoping that I will have the opportunity to use one in the near future. Because they are so neat!!
All in all, the OTEN conference was pretty successful. I saw some great things, and it really made me think about being creative in using technology in my classroom. Although I felt as though there was an underrepresentation of presentations about using technology in Language Arts or Arts classes, I am hopeful that this will change in the future.