Mr. Pahl Goes To Portland

Each year, over 1,000 people from schools all over the Northwest gather in either Portland or Seattle to learn more about using technology in education. The organization that sponsors the gathering is NCCE which stands for Northwest Council for Computer Education.

This year, the conference was in Portland!

No, I didn't see Prue, Curtis, or Wildwood, but I saw the Railroad Bridge and the Industrial Wastelands!

 And I sure learned a lot more about ways we can improve technology use in our classroom.

The Convention Center had a lot of wonderful art inside and out. 
This was a  beautiful sculpture honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Here are a few more examples of the art at the Convention Center. The building is massive. These tremendous works of art are enormous in size. I'm not sure you can tell from the pictures.

This is an authentic dragon boat hanging above a gathering area.

I think this is a glass sculpture of poppies, I think. 

Not sure what this is. Grape? Olive? Fig?

First, we all gathered in a giant ballroom.

A smart, talented man named George Couros talked to us about how we can make schools better for you. This isn't exactly what he said, but it will give you an idea of what he wanted us to think about.

He also showed us a couple of thoughtful images (click on them to make them larger):

Later, I attended a photo workshop. Many people take pictures everyday. They have what they call 365 projects where they commit to taking at least one picture a day for the whole year.

Some classrooms do it. Mrs. Yollis has one. Our historians do something like this for us.

Sometimes people go out in search of things to photograph, and they look for certain themes. After a brief introduction, the workshop leader took us out on a photo walk of Portland. She told us to pick a theme and start taking pictures. I also learned how to use a site called Flickr. Here is my Flickr "Photostream." My theme was Angles, Shapes, Lines...Function or Design. I hope you like it.

When we returned from the walk, there was a drawing, and...

I won us a new camera!

I learned so many other things during my time in Portland, all of which I hope to share with you during the remainder of our journey through 4th grade together. 

Be good humans.

Mr. Pahl