Unconference

In an unconference you get everything you can get from a conference and much, much more. Whether you attend one to get to know others in your field to build your community  or simply have a question and need it to be answered; an unconference is place to be. Here you learn, share and exchange ideas dynamically. Asynchronously complex problems are explored for deeper understanding along with networking and collaborating. 

I recently attended an unconference that Emerging Tech hosted. They are a community of professional educators who explore all the ways to integrate technology and 21st century learning into their classrooms.  I attended their latest unconference, "There's an app for that!" This unconference was great. Successful educators from around the U.S. came together to share out resources and tools that they have found to work great in their classroom. The apps that these educators recommended are not only apps that have proved to work well in the classroom but are apps that you can mash up, which is paring apps to other apps, to create rich experiences with projects or whatever it is you are using them for. 

In 60 minutes I added some amazing resources to my toolbox. Some apps that are worth mentioning are: Notability, Koma Koma, Lightbot, Nearpod, Join.me, iStop Motion, CrowdFlik, Chromville, PaperPort Notes, My Brainpop, Aurasma, Paper (FiftyThree), Poems by Heart, Poetry, Remind, Read Wrtie Think, Scan, ScreenChomp, Strip Designer, SnapSeed, Socrative, Subtext, Symphonizer, Thinglink, TouchCast, VideoScribe, VoiceDream, WordLense, WhatWasThere. All of the mentioned apps are solid and worth looking into. Discovering unconferences has changed the way I will now acquire knowledge for professional development.