VIDEO: Arkansas educators explore ideas for learning with technology at Springdale's Har-Ber High

SPRINGDALE -- Easton Baker, who recently finished second grade, stood in a hall at Har-Ber High School showing Sally Newton, a fourth-grade teacher, how to control a robot.

"You can move this forward and backward," he said. "You can make this light up," referring to the top of the Dash robot.

Newton attended a classroom technology session with Baker and his second-grade teacher Jamie Smithpeters to learn more about the Dash and Dot robots second-graders are using at Shaw Elementary School. The little blue robots, controlled with an app on an iPad, zoomed down a hall. One was programmed to play a small, colorful xylophone.

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Dozens of sessions are being offered during the two-day Innovation Institute that started Wednesday. Registration for the event closes at 10 a.m. today, but by Wednesday afternoon, organizers counted 690 presenters and educators who were expected to participate in the third annual event.

Effective use of technology isn't only about computers, this year educators are dreaming up ideas encouraging creativity, problem-solving, communication and collaboration among their pupils, said Brooke Higgins, an instructional specialist for a national organization at the University of Missouri who has worked with Springdale educators. Many teachers have received training from the eMints National Center on the use of technology for learning. The eMints stands for "enhancing Missouri's Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies."

A session on Google Slides focused on how to go beyond creating a slide show and use the program so students work together and share ideas, Higgins said. Other sessions focused on using Google Hangouts to connect educators on different campuses, virtual reality technology and integrating tinkering in classrooms.

Newton hoped to find one idea she could implement in her classroom at George Elementary School that students would enjoy and find useful. She said she strives to find ideas furthering her pupils' education, rather than just using technology for the sake of using technology.

"There's so many interesting and new technologies," she said.

Curtis Gladden, assistant principal at Springdale High School, said he uses online programs from Google for organization and communication.

"There's always some new tools to use in helping teachers in the classroom," he said.

Gladden sat among hundreds of educators for a Wednesday morning session with Kasey Bell and Matt Miller, who co-host the Google Teacher Tribe podcast that began in January.

Bell is a digital learning consultant and author with Shake Up Learning website and blog. Miller is a former teacher who wrote the book Ditch That Textbook: Free Your Teaching and Revolutionize Your Classroom and has a website and blog of the same name.

Miller remembers being in the classroom and gradually adopting strategies for using technology. He began to connect with other educators who shared similar interests. When he started learning to use technology to help his students, he remembers feeling like he was alone on an island, he told the crowd of educators Wednesday.

He urged teachers and principals to connect with a tribe, and if they couldn't find a tribe, to be leaders and build a tribe. Teachers like himself sometimes need a little push, he said.

"Technology can be pretty intimidating for a lot of teachers, especially when you're using it in front of students and anything could go wrong," he said. "It takes a lot of guts to do that. Sometimes we don't feel like we have good ideas."

When teachers are connected with other teachers, in person or through social media networks, they can go to those groups to find ideas and inspiration, he said.

"Some leaders are pulled into it, and they don't expect to be," he said.

During a session on tinkering with representatives from the Amazeum in Bentonville, Lynsey Moats, a library media specialist at Sonora Middle School, made a circuit that turned on a multi-colored light and powered a fan at the same time. The activity involves a trial and error process that promotes problem-solving and provides a feeling of success once something works, she said.

The concepts fit with a maker space that has been added to the library at Sonora Middle School, she said. Students last school year created objects with duct tape and selected words from written pieces to create poems, she said.

"We're always searching for new ideas and new tools," Moats said.

NW News on 06/08/2017