800 Middle and High School Students on Orono Campus

Photo by David Patterson
On Friday students and teachers from all over Maine converged on the UMaine campus to attend a variety of workshops. It was amazing and exciting to see all those laptops and enthusiastic kids.
As we entered the performing arts center in the AM the 20 photographs by Maine students were rotating through on the giant screen. It was great to see them so large.
My colleague, Carol Waldron, and I presented a new session called Photocharades. It was all about communication and what it involves in the 21st century. Students jumped right in engaged and having fun.
After 2 morning sessions that students chose from and lunch we headed back to the performing arts center for a Google session. Commissioner Gendron and a rocket scientist joined us electronically. Everyone was engaged as questions were asked and the answers appeared instantly on the big screen. Instead of Google being used only to ask questions to we participated in answering questions and thinking about going a step further to enhance our learning.
I highly recommend attending with students next year if you haven’t participated this year or in the past. If you were there, please comment about your student opportunities. Please click here for the article that appeared in the Bangor paper on the day.

