The 21st Century Classroom has become a conference within a conference, with wall to wall action throughout the entire conference.

Students and teachers from Clay Middle School and School 91 will have the classroom rocking with engaging teaching and learning activities from 9-4 on Thursday and Friday.  Educators could spend their entire days there, observing best practices in all aspects.  Nothing wrong with that.  But the classroom will also have two sessions per hour all morning Saturday, starting with the world languages lesson between Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township (IN) and College (Junior High School) Jacques Twinger, Strasbourg, France.

Tech Savvy Saturday Sessions in the 21st Century Classroom

—8:00AM – 8:55AM—

Beyond Our Walls
Erica King, Jimmy Angelov
During this session, students will be using technology to discover and explore the French-speaking world around them. They will be learning about cultural diversities as well as geography, history, and language. The students will understand how they can connect with others outside of their community, reaching to France and beyond!

New Tech School of IDEAS
Tom Wachnicki, Allison Gary, Keisha Merriweather
In this session, we will discuss the implementation of the New Tech Network model at School of IDEAS in Decatur Township. Topics to be discussed will include: Integrated Courses, master schedule, technology integration and the tenets of project based learning.

—9:00AM – 9:55AM—

Moodle For Middle School
Tom Jenkins
Are you looking for a way to interact with your students online? Moodle is designed to help educators create online courses with opportunities for rich interaction. It's free, open source, and can be adapted to any learning environment. Create calendars, message boards, resource pages, wikis, surveys, tests, and more. Tom has used Moodle with his 5th–8th graders for the past 3 years to teach science and technology and will share his experiences with this e-learning platform.

Eight (or more) Tech Tools to Blend into your Classroom
Todd Williamson
This session will focus on web-based tools that allow your students to collaborate, communicate, and create. Join us for a fast-paced (possibly lightning fast) look at eight (or more) tech tools that you can use to enhance your teaching and student learning. Oh, and they're free too!

—10:00AM – 10:55AM—

Creative ways to Finance Technology for Schools
Robert Heimbrock
We are in a tough economy but we still have a responsibility to teach today's students better than ever. Technology is a big part of the process but with budget cuts, how do we afford it? Leasing has been a great way to tackle the big projects and keep them in the budget. One-to-One, computer labs, wireless campuses all can be put on lease to do them now not years from now.

Using Google Groups and Docs with Students
Karolee Smiley
Need an introduction to Google Groups and Google Docs? This presentation will provide an overview of Google Groups: set-up, pages, files, discussions, chats, and using Google Docs for student collaborative products. Learn the basics to create a Google Group for your class.

—11:00AM – 11:55AM—

Polar Bears, Climate Change, and the Subarctic and How That Can Fit Into Your Classroom
Mark Weaver
Participants will be introduced into the world of the polar bear and learn some background about these animals, the area that they live in, the human interactions, and then some classroom connections. A website, film and teacher materials will also be presented. I have had the opportunity to visit Churchill Manitoba and spend quite a bit of time out on the tundra, living in the Tundra Buggies (like what are in the National Geographic) during Oct/Nov a couple of different times with support from the school corp. I was able to teach my students from there a few times, even taught in a native school there, and spent lots of time learning about these top of the food chain creatures. http://www.ccs.k12.in.us/polar/polarbear.html.

The Promethean Classroom
Margaret Hollies
All instruction for this lesson will be by the use of the Promethean whiteboard. Both the teacher and the students will use the board at different times throughout the course of the lesson. The teacher will introduce a new concept, and students will be tested at various intervals to see how they are understanding new ideas. The Promethean whiteboard allows student interaction in various ways. Students can write directly on to the board or remain at their desks and use the Active slate to write on the board. By using the Active voters, the students will answer questions about the concepts being taught and will receive immediate feedback. The Active voters will be used to poll the class of options as well. The Promethean whiteboard, Active Slate, Active Arena, and Avtive voters all promote an environment of collaboration among the teacher and students. The entire class becomes an interactive classroom. Paper and pencil are not needed because everything is recorded by the Promethean board. Students enjoy interacting with the whiteboard.