IETA 2023

Have you thought about the many ways you can use teams for effective collaboration district wide? Let us show you the many ways we as a small district have used Microsoft Teams throughout K-12. This includes Class Teams, Parent Teams, Teams for collaboration among teachers, Teams for curriculum storage and resources, Teams for collaboration among office staff, Teams with information regarding Human Resources, and Personal Learning Community (PLC) Teams. Join us to learn the amazing potential of Microsoft Teams.

Access to technology provides students with a multitude of ways to use their creativity to demonstrate what they think, what they want to know, and what they can do. This session will provide participants an opportunity to work through a student lesson from IDLA’s Everyone Can Create with iPads course, to learn how technology can be incorporated to support creativity in the learning process. Participants are encouraged to bring an iPad to the session if they have access to one. A limited number of iPads will be provided for those who do not already have access to one.

Learn about what’s new with E-rate this year, and share your feedback about the program with the Idaho Program Coordinator. Daniel Vogt will host a discussion with attendees about their experience with the program, what challenges they’re currently facing, and what kind of support they would like to see from the E-rate in the near-future.

Designing School security measures can be a daunting task. Every month there is another incident to make us rethink our existing and future security provisions. This session will review the notable security incidents during the past few years and explore how we could do better. What areas provide the best protection for project dollars spent and how schools around the country are improving security. Time will be given at the end of the session for a group discussion on the topic.

This session will discuss why (from the research perspective) and how (from the practice perspective) technology can support STEM learning with first-hand knowledge from both STEM educational researchers and practitioners/teachers. It will begin with an overview of the advantages of technology-supported STEM learning drawing from educational technology and STEM educational research, which includes enhanced student motivation in learning as well as enhanced student learning of STEM subject content (Yang & Baldwin, 2020). The presenters will then discuss some practical approaches towards the use of technology to support STEM teaching and learning, such as using technology to provide an authentic learning environment and to create content (Yang & Baldwin, 2020). Additionally, the presenters will discuss teacher professional development on using technology to support STEM learning. Finally, the presenters will demonstrate the use of some most popular technologies such as robotics, drones and microchips that are employed in assisting students in learning STEM. Conference attendees will walk away with not only theoretical but also practical knowledge of technology-supported STEM learning.

Are you looking to teach more computer science courses at your school? In this session I will discuss how our school district has been using CodeHS to expand our computer science offerings and provide more robust curriculum in our current computer science courses. CodeHS can help you teach Cybersecurity, AP/DC Computer Science, Java, Python, Mobile Apps, Game Design, and much more. Even if you have never taught a computer science class before, CodeHS can help you make it happen.

The SDE provides Imagine Math for all Idaho school districts at no cost to the district. This session will review what is available for Idaho School Districts as well as discuss best practices for implementation. We will share success stories from Idaho schools. Topics covered will include using Imagine Math as a part of providing a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) for all levels, blended learning models and credit recovery.

So many teachers and students know the ever-popular BrainPOP movies and quizzes featuring Tim and Moby, but did you know that BrainPOP also supports literacy-building for your K-8 students across the content areas?

Join the BrainPOP team in a strategy-filled workshop focused on impactful routines that build students’ literacy skills whether they are learning about punctuation, presidential elections, or potential energy. Using BrainPOP’s learning activities as the model for the strategies discussed, we will grapple with vocabulary, summarizing, identifying and using evidence, and even using the movie’s or text’s structure to find the main idea.

Participants are assured to leave this professional learning opportunity with instructional strategies to place in their teaching toolkits while also discovering how to use BrainPOP in ways they have never considered previously to deepen instruction and students’ literacy confidence.

CSTA: Benefits, Networking & Resources, Oh My!
An introduction to CSTA membership and its benefits

We will go over the basics of CSTA membership... how to enroll; the 2 different types of memberships; their differences; what each offers; and how to get your account up and running.
We'll take a look at some of the items that you can look into and find useful for your particular position, and see how being a part of CSTA makes you a member of the world's largest CS department!
We'll provide time to join (why not?) and tweak your profile/settings. Then, we'll tour the site, and see what all this organization has to offer. Well, as much as we can in 45 minutes.

Ednetics has partnered with CI Security to bring strategies to protect and defend against cyberattacks targeting the public sector.

This session will interactively review the student driven learning practices that empower teachers to design and provide optimal learning experiences for their students, ultimately creating a environment where students own their learning and strive for mastery, rather than point gathering and compliance. Resources for digging deeper into the practices will be shared.

Join Ednetics and Singlewire to hear how districts are leveraging panic buttons to enhance student and staff safety.

Discover how districts across the northwest have taken their STEM and CTE programs and labs both in-person and virtual through creative approaches that include augmented and virtual reality. Discover how students are exploring career pathways and preparing for STEM careers and industry credentials in Health Science, Advanced Manufacturing, Agri-Science, and Transportation pathways through various models of blended learning.

Learning Objectives:
- Understand the AR/VR landscape and which are aligned to STEM curriculum and CTE certifications.
- Discover clinical evidence supporting learning gains through learning with AR/VR.
- Identify funding sources for new technology.

We know that technology can empower our instruction and operations. Most importantly though, when used correctly, it empowers our mission! Unfortunately, the work to properly implement technology often keeps us from measuring its impact. However, knowing how to measure the value and impact of technology projects can help focus us toward our desired outcome. School board members are often interested in seeing the impact of large scale purchases. Many times, those board members come from a corporate background and don’t understand that the impact on a student can’t be measured the same way we measure the manufacture and sale of a widget.

In this session, we will explore how to build processes and instruments to measure the impact of technology projects from both a financial and values based approach. Participants will receive access to examples and we will build one during our session. As a result, participants will leave the session with the tools and know-how to measure future initiatives in ways that satisfy boards and senior leadership as well as improve focus on the outcomes.

This session is for school and technology leaders at the district or whole school level. It is applicable to schools and districts of all grade levels, K-12. It would be helpful if participants have led the implementation of a large technology initiative but not required as this session is for new and experienced technology leaders.

Welcome to Camp You've Got Game! Your camp counselors have been awaiting your arrival. Join us as we explore gamification to increase engagement and promote student-centered learning in your classroom. In this session we will model and discuss the benefits of gamification, provide templates, strategies, and best practices when creating these types of units for students. You will then have a chance to build your own gamified experience for student-centered learning. You will leave this session feeling like one happy camper!

This session will identify and provide examples of STEM research options for students grades 6-12. Attendees will take away standards-based materials and specific contact/support information. Attendees will have the opportunity to develop a plan for implementing meaningful student research in the school and/or classroom. In addition, attendees will receive materials demonstrating the benefits of student and teacher participation in independent STEM research, including building a culture of excellence and enhancing STEM college and career opportunities.