TIES was full of rich learning opportunities. You can see snippets at #TIES2016. Monday morning’s keynote by Dean Shareski focused on “Whatever Happened to Joy?” View his TED talk: http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Whatever-Happened-to-Joy-in-Edu
In addition on Monday, I attended several breakout sessions. One session was on coding taught by Mrs. Kalthoff from St. Cloud. She has both plugged and unplugged coding activities sequenced from kindergarten through grade 6. She provided strong research and anecdotal support for embedding coding into all elementary curriculum.
I also attended a breakout session on Smart AMP, a very fabulous tool that costs quite a bit of money so I will learn more about it if it ever becomes available to me. Interested in learning more? Sign up for a free 60 day trial.
Tammi Wilkins in “Free and Simple Formative Assessment Tools https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RJHDxNdYkFOYMzYCwdHtDjUJpJa5ww48Zngxv3aLrLM
presented quite a few tools that can be used to gauge students learning. I have used Todays Meet and Google Forms for this purpose in the past and intend to try padlet based on the demonstration that I saw. 
White Bear Lake’s Director of Technology, Mark Garrison, is always a dynamic presenter. His Google 45 did not disappoint. He offered at least 45 tips for greater G Suite proficiency. Check them out at http://www.marksgarrison.com/googlefaves. One of my favorites is using <ctrl> z to cross file one Google doc into multiple locations.
Tuesday’s keynote was presented by Carl Hooker. While I did not appreciate the abundance of inappropriate jokes, I agreed with his emphasis that when we get kids physically moving, their brain is more ready for learning. Carl has developed a theory represented in a diagram of what it is to be ready for mobile learning. This diagram is easily found by searing his name in Google images.
Tuesday also had many break out sessions. The first I attended was entitled “Take Your Google Classroom to the Next Level” by Jo Jacobson and Terah Robinson. They had wonderful suggestions for more efficient work flow. Their district “East Carver” is committed to personalized learning with an initiative they call “Learning Pathway or Learning Playlist.” Two tips that I think many would appreciate is using a web tool “ViewPure” to share Youtube videos with kids with additional viewing suggestions offered at the end.
Long-time library hero Doug Johnson’s session on the “Librarians Role in 1:1” challenged me to consider how I will stay relevant in an environment where the kids have more information than the library in their device. He recommended posting a sign on the library circulation desk “YOU are not an interruption.” to remind all patrons that their visit is our most important work.
Before implementing a 1:1 program, Doug Johnson purports asking ten reflection questions:
What are the teaching/learning goals?
What PD/training is in place?
Is there a digital citizenship curriculum?
How do you handle damage and loss?
How will the devices be managed? (Chrome books are easy to inventory and manage)
What e-resources accompany the hardware?
Is the necessary infrastructure in place? (Adding 25% more devices doubled the bandwidth needs)
How do you get all teachers onboard?
Is there a replacement plan?
Are other programs being cut to pay for 1:1?

Thank you SAMMIE for making this powerful learning experience possible for me.