Day 147- Learning DIfferences

It's Sunday and I am blogging about Friday, but honestly, I can't remember much.  That's good and bad.  We did spend much of the day getting students set up on MArketwatch and their Virtual Stock Market.  It's always fun to give them $100,000 to invest.  Some go for it right away and some buy one share of a $34.00 stock and are afraid to spend the rest.  We are just getting started and already I can imagine who will be the obsessers/future brokers.
But SATURDAY...I spent the day at AT&T Park at a conference revolving around students with learning differences- EdRev. It was powerful, informative, moving and fun.  By 10 am, I had already learned about four very powerful tech tools.  Yes, they are presenting them as tools for resource students... but these tools are great for all my students! Rewordify.com is my favorite so far.  It changes the Lexile (reading) level of any document--the student can just paste it in.  But rather than just simplifying the document, it shows what words were changed and builds quizzes the students can take after to help them learn the words that were altered.  It also tracks student data....and it is FREE.

All the speakers and presenters were inspiring and all had a learning difference of some kind.  I wish there were more teachers there and more students of color there.  There is nothing privileged about having a learning difference, but there is privilege around who has access to the resources to turn that difference into a strength.    

There were only like 500 people there and how fun to see the beauty of the park without the hindrance of 20,000 other people bumping into you.  One of the workshops was in the visitors locker room and they had batting practice in the Giants batting practice area.  The field was open to run around on, with a climbing wall, a bounce house a live band  and green grass to lay on at lunch.

A-ha: There are so many unknown and undiscovered resources out there for all learners.  Tech is changing the game.

Reminder:  It's good to do stuff I might not normally do.