Favorites from #FallCUE 2015

Saturday I attended my very first Fall CUE in Napa and was feeling pumped, energized, and inspired all day! (Only the one day, unfortunately, since I still had to work on Friday...sad.) And in the spirit of #connectedtl month and a #bettertogether attitude, I wanted to make sure to share out my finds since sharing is caring, after all.

So here, in no particular order, are my biggest take-aways from this year's #FallCUE at American Canyon High School in Napa:

1. Want to add a little dramatic effect to your next presentation? 
• Throw a blank slide into the slideshow and watch everyone in the room pause to look at you! 
• Love this tip from @RooseveltBSD and can't wait to see all the looks of confusion in a room full of faces when I try this one!
2. Recognize the shared wisdom in the room...
• @Kfairchild6 and @msjlura reminded us that when presenting to or training adult learners, don't forget that most will come in with some kind of knowing more about something than you do
• Utilize the shared wisdom... how can everyone in the room contribute something to the learning?
3. Badging. That is all.



Badge my colleague made for
me on Sat. after I figured out the
Table of Contents feature in GDocs!

• I might have known before last Saturday, but now it's confirmed... badging is THE thing right now!
• I earned badges as a Girl Scout years and years ago... pretty sure they still do that, so really I guess it just never went away and now we're expanding the idea into different industries as a motivator. Works on me! I started earning my CUE badges as soon as I arrived at the event!
• I didn't attend any sessions myself, but I learned a great strategy for using badging in PD from my CampbellUSD TOSA PIC who dropped into a session-- have teachers earn badges for completing trainings, level up, and earn compensation for earning certain numbers of badges or levels... I like this idea! And the idea that some teachers might also be able to "test out" of trainings and earn badges for topics that they are already proficient in. 
4. @ArcherEdTech is way better than me at playing "Remember When..."
• Turns out I need to work on my creative story-telling skills...
• AND I love this as another way of "funning up" my PDs! ...Been focused a lot on making PD fun since our #TOSAchat on the topic last month , so I'm adding this to the bag o' tricks!
5. @TheWeirdTeacher is just as cool in person as he seems online. 
• Thanks for the selfie :)

This guy!

Click to view our notes from Fall CUE 2015