I am looking forward to iPadpaloozaOU this fall! iPadpaloozaOU is a local conference being cohosted by the Gaylord College of Journalism and the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education at the University of Oklahoma and is being organized by my friend and colleague, Anne Beck. What sets this conference apart for me is that it seeks to engage both pre-service teachers and K12 educators from around the state. This opportunity to engage both education students and teachers in iPad edtech is part of the reason I wanted to submit a proposal. And of course, anything related to mobile device productivity invigorates my passion in edtech!
While I was brainstorming topics I wanted to submit to iPadpaloozaOU, I kept coming back to some of the professional development I have done with mobile devices and blogging. Having focused on socioeconomic accessibility of mobile devices and equipping students as creators over the last year, these subjects are close to my heart. Eventually, I decided engaging participants in these topics would be best in a workshop format and this led me to submit the following proposal:
Session Title
Student Creators: Cultivating Success & Amplifying Voices with Mobile Blogging
Session Description
Mobile blogging can be used inside the classroom to increase student engagement. This workshop seeks to both raise awareness of the variety of applications of blogging in the classroom and provide hands-on guidance demonstrating the ease of blogging from a smartphone or tablet. Working in small groups and using personal mobile devices, participants will experience how blogging can be seen as an equalizing technology in a classroom by allowing all students a voice. Both traditional writing and student engagement are transformed with the utilization of cameras, touch screens, and the streamlined app workflows of mobile devices. As we demonstrate the practicality of mobile blogging, participants will also discuss how blogging can be used to increase understanding to yield student success. Between applications in the classroom, research, and academia more broadly, this professional development workshop aims to provide a comprehensive look at what it means to blog in the context of cultivating student success. For more information about mobile blogging and scholarship and to preview this workshop’s content, visit mbs.keeganslw.net.
Workshop Technology
Assuming my proposal gets accepted, one thing I am looking forward to is introducing a blogging workflow I started using this week. It entails having individuals submit posts to a WordPress website without the need for an account. This workflow will allow me to engage participants at iPadpaloozaOU in blogging without any required setup. In other words, I am looking forward to demonstrating how a “low barrier to entry” technology can be used to engage students. If you want to see what this workflow looks like in practice, check out the Canvas course I am running this week over Mobile Blogging & Scholarship.
If you are interested in submitting a proposal to iPadpalooza, there is still time! You must submit here by June 1st.
The featured image is provided CC0 by Timothy Muza via Unsplash.