We all know it’s not always the case that an event, a movie, even a meal lives up to the preceding hype. The Ohio Educational Technology Conference (OETC) is one of the rare exceptions. According to its website, OETC is “the premier P-20 state educational technology conference,” and guess what? It actually is.
For three days, from Feb. 9-11, technology and education professionals from elementary all the way up to adult learners can learn from a myriad of workshops and exhibitors, connect with like-minded individuals, enjoy some fantastic speakers and come away refreshed and motivated.
Members of the Ohio Technology Consortium will be on-hand all week at booth No. 837, to either introduce you to who we are and what we offer, or to help you learn and grow through our workshops and presentations.
In fact, we have six presentations planned Wednesday and Thursday of the conference.
On Wednesday, we’ll have four presentations we encourage you to attend:
- Finding your Roots with INFOhio’s Ancestry Library Edition: From 10:30 to 11 a.m., Annette Lang of INFOhio will demonstrate how students created narratives as they discovered their ancestry using interviews and Ancestry Library Edition, which is freely available to all K-12 students and teachers through INFOhio.
- 3D Printing and Global Connection: From noon to 12:30 p.m., Marisa Manoccio of INFOhio will explain how to use SketchUP – which is available for free to all Ohio’s public schools – with a 3D printer to connect students around the world.
- Tech Tools to Support the Five-Step Writing Process for All Learners: From 12:30 to 1 p.m., INFOhio’s Michael Roush will lead a workshop that introduces the Five-Step Writing Process (Pre-write, Write, Edit, Revise, Publish) and explains how it can positively impact achievement and engagement for all students. This presentation will include free tech tools, including INFOhio’s ISearch, that allow teachers to implement the Five Step Writing Process for all students, including students with diverse needs.
- College Credit Plus Research Tools for Teachers and Faculty: The final presentation of the day for the OH-TECH booth will be from 2:15 to 3 p.m. when Erica Clay, of INFOhio, and Elizabeth Coulter, of OhioLINK, give an overview of the research tools available to students via OhioLINK and INFOhio while enrolled in the College Credit Plus program. It will also give tips to engage students in research and help them navigate the resources available.
Thursday’s schedule includes two presentations:
- ETD Center Google Scholar Integration: From 10:30 to 11 a.m., OhioLINK’s Emily Flynn, OH-TECH’s Neha Arcotparthasarthy and a representative from Google will discuss the effects of integration with OhioLINK’s Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center.
- OSC Educational Programs: From 12:45 to 1:15 p.m., Brian Guilfoos and Kelly Sitz of the Ohio Supercomputer Center will give an overview of the OSC Educational Programs: The Summer Institute and the Young Women’s Summer Institute. Also, coinciding with this presentation, the applications for the summer programs will go up on OSC’s website and from 3 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Guilfoos will take part in a Q&A TweetChat about the programs. Be sure to get involved by following @OSC and @OSC_SummerSTEM and using #oscstem16.
Another great workshop you’ll want to check out features our own Karen Boyd, eStudent Services program manager. Boyd – coordinator of the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s online tutoring program, eTutoring – and Charles See, of ODHE, will present “College Credit Plus and eTutoring Opportunities for Students” from 11 to 11:45 a.m. Thursday in C226.
We welcome you to stop by our booth for a workshop presentation or just to learn more about OH-TECH and our member organizations. Be sure to follow us all week, and in the future, for updates from the conference on our Twitter accounts: @OhTechCo, @essOhio, @OARnet, @osc, @OhioLINK and @AweSimApps, along with our Instagram account @oh_tech.
And if you’re interested in learning more about OETC, be sure to watch this video with an overview of what attendees can expect at this year’s conference.
