Only a few short weeks ago, the Google Apps for Education Colorado Summit and over 500 educators came to Monarch High School. It was an incredible weekend of learning, fun and leading by the EdTechTeam, educators from around the state and beyond! For our BVSD educators, this summit provided direct support for developing talent, a key priority of the BVSD Success Effect.
The weekend included keynote speakers James Sanders, Mark Garrison & Kasey Bell as well as a series of workshop sessions geared towards meaningful instructional practice when using Google and other internet tools with students, by students and for students.
Many BVSD educators presented, including Jeff Sanders, who shared how his students have a genius hour, or 20% time, during class each week to work on passion projects. At the end of the year, students created presentations that shared how these projects impacted their learning. Some of the projects included
Creating a 3X3 Basketball Tournament to raise money for Boulder Homeless Youth
- Becoming a Certified Yoga Instructor and conducted Yoga Classes for students
- Creating a Blog reviewing movies, books and more that the entire school community could use to get ideas for reading
His session, among the many others, helped educators think differently about what students could do in their classes to increase meaningful learning!
Educators left the conference feeling empowered by their learning and looking forward to going back to their classrooms and buildings to utilize their new expertise to empower and engage students at a new level. Even more exciting, many attendees were first-timers!
During the conference, participants shared their enthusiasm and learning through Twitter, utilizing the hashtag #gafesummit to connect.
Using a script called TwitterBot, one attendee collected all tweets from the summit as a way to capture the experience of the learning through this archive of tweets! 
By connecting online, the learning continues well beyond the conference. Check out how first-time tweeter, BVSD teacher librarian JoLynn Scott, connected with fellow BVSD librarians at this summit! They later decided to make plans to share their learning to their schools and staffs.
The learning from this summit is captured not only through twitter, but in all of the presentation materials available online, too! Check these out and join us for more professional development throughout the year on the BVSD Ed Tech website.
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