• 2010 Minneapolis
• 2013 Houston
• 2014 Pitttsburg
• 2015 Orlando
• 2016 San Diego
• 2017 St. Louis

The conventions always prove to be a wonderful opportunity to grow as a Catholic, teacher, and friend. Each year has special memories. It’s so hard to blog about all of them so I’m sticking to a format I used last year of 5 quick (sort of) takes.

1.    The Daily Liturgies – where else can you attend Mass with 8,000 people? Well, maybe a Papal Mass…and St. Louis did borrow an idea from a Papal Mass…they had umbrellas! The music was lovely. I especially enjoyed Thursday’s teacher choir. I also used Audioboom to record each homily and you can find them on the blog.

NCEA17 Opening Mass

NCEA17 Mass Day 2

NCEA17 Closing Mass

Umbrella to show you where you can receive the Eucharist

2. Presenting, with Debbie Fucoloro, a standing room only session on BreakoutEDU. Debbie and I were overwhelmed with the popularity of our session. Could it be because the Breakout idea is awesome? Click HERE to learn more about Breakout. We only brought 4 boxes for our session which made our presentation not as interactive as we had hoped. At the very least we were able to share our love and passion for Breakout!

BreakoutEDU session with Debbie

BreakoutEDU

BreakoutEDU

Hasp and Locks

3. The Keynote with Jonathan Doyle. Jonathan’s Keynote really touched my heart! I knew he would have a wonderful message as he built up the anticipation through Twitter in the weeks before the convention. He inspired, encouraged, and centered me in remembering the primary and secondary vocation that God has given me. I was able to meet with him and his beautiful wife in the Expo hall. Of course I bought his book and gave him a big hug. A few tears were shed too…that’s when a speaker realizes that God is working through him…tears of the Spirit were shed!

Jonathan Doyle and I

4. The Expo Hall – I know you are wondering why an Expo Hall, at a convention, would be a highlight. The NCEA Expo Hall is like no other I have attended. The people at the booths are so nice. You will not find pushy sales people. The hall is filled with ‘Cut Out People’ so you can take a photo. The hall is filled with wonderful books. I bought so many books for myself and my classroom that I had a problem zipping my suitcase! I also bought many Tiny Saints keychains and other medals. In a word the Expo Hall, rocked!

NCEA Expo Hall

5. The people! Yup. The people. Attending a NCEA convention is all about being with my peeps, my tribe, my buds. This year had a unique twist. I was featured on the Fall 2016 cover of the magazine Today’s Catholic Teacher. When I think back to joining Twitter on May 1, 2007, I used a photo of me when I was 5. I wanted to be anonymous because I thought I didn’t have much to offer the world. I was ‘just’ a Catholic school teacher working with my 3rd grade students. I now feel differently about that. We all have valuable ideas and opinions to share and meeting IRL after #CatholicEdChat twitter chats is the best! Connecting with my peeps, my tribe, my buds and getting and giving a hug gives me energy and encouragement to continue in my secondary vocation as a Catholic school teacher.

This year also had a fun game that the St. Louis teachers played. I was a box in the #NCEA17 Bingo card. I never knew that being a space on a Bingo card was a #lifegoal but it certainly should be on everyone’s list!

NCEA17 some of my peeps

#NCEA17 Pics

…The Surprise…Aaron Heintz is tall!

This past fall, Nancy and I, had the honor of presenting a webinar on Connecting for Professional Learning with PLNs and Growth Mindset for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia Technology Department. The whole team was so professional and very nice. Aaron was online during the webinar as part of the AOP tech team and you just don’t get a sense of height from a computer screen.

Aaron and I

and finally…with the convention being in St. Louis, I was able to see my son and daughter in law. We had dinner together right before I flew home. Because my son was in class and my daughter in law was at work, I ubered over to St. Louis University and spend 90 minutes at St. Francis Xavier church. It was the perfect ending to my NCEA adventure.

St. Francis Xavier church SLU

But first, a photo. Here are the amazing educators who spent a morning working on professional development that fits their needs. Aren’t they an awesome group?!

There are many reasons I love EdCamps and here is one reason to organize one in your area…the new batch of teachers. Our EdCamp is located at Creighton University and they have a unique program called the Magis Catholic Teacher Corps. You can read more about this program here and here. What better way to pass on your learning but through an unconference. And is there anything more satisfying, as a seasoned teacher, to see a group of young people excited and ready to teach in our Catholic schools? I am so grateful for the many seasoned teachers that came today too to lead the way!

Another big plus, in an EdCamp, are the sponsors. Companies reached out to us and donated some great items. I was overwhelmed at the generosity of these companies. They know how to build good will and get their products into the hands of teachers who will use them and share their product on Social Media. I personally know that this strategy works, I have bought several items myself from our sponsors. 

Click here to see the Sponsor page from this year’s EdCamp. Look at all these freebies!

Our EdCamp has a few unique touches. This Magis teacher won a handmade twine Rosary because he traveled the farthest. He’s from the great state of Rhode Island!
Another unique touch added to #NECathEdCamp are fresh flowers picked from my garden! 

And what’s an EdCamp without great people! I want to personally thank this year’s team. Mike, Jim, Terri, Sara, and Deb We did it! Another EdCamp in the books…ready for next year?!

If you need any help putting together an EdCamp in your area, the EdCamp Foundation offers all you need to get started. Click here for more information and to see when an EdCamp will be near you.

5. Mass with 4,400 Catholic educators who are fully participating in the Mass with lovely music and atmosphere.

Tuesday’s Mass

Wednesday’s Mass

Thursday’s Mass

4. The Expo Hall

Stocked up on some great books and even got a picture with Joe Paprocki from Loyola Press. 

3. The Food and the company at dinner.

2. Presenting 2 Sessions:

Bring the EdCamp (Unconference) Model to your School or Diocese with Marcie and me.

Creating a Personal Learning Network (PLN): Using Social Media to Proclaim Mission and Professionally Grow – Nancy, Ken, Me, Marcie, and Abbie (Leaning in to Support one another).

1.  The TweetUp!

It’s the people, always, and the relationships that make the NCEA convention the best! Hope to see you in St. Louis – April 18-20, 2017.

One bonus take away, how can you resist seeing a cute nun zoom around the convention in a cart?!

#8 Working with a great group of people. I’d like to thank Jim Homan, Sara Hood, Mike Mansour, Terri Preston, and Linda Sweeting You are all true professionals and always have what is best for our students at heart!

#7 Having the support of the EdCamp Foundation. Our edcamp qualified for the “Edcamp-in-a-Box” and we were grateful for the contents of the box and I was personally thankful for a phone call from Kristen Swanson who helped answer my questions and calmed my nerves. Plus a ‘high five’ to the new EdCamp Foundation Executive Director, Hadley Ferguson, for her support!

#6 The Support of the CatholicEdChat-ish and EdCampShare Voxer groups. You may know I love Twitter, but having a friendly voice of a Catholic school teacher  and an Edcamp veteran, over Voxer, has been priceless. Being able to ask a quick question and get several answers makes Voxer tops in my book.

#5 Sponsors! What can I say? They are awesome! When you are planning an edcamp, which is free for teachers and organized by teachers who don’t do this for a living, having someone contact you, to give you free SWAG, a product to raffle off, or donuts is amazing! You can see our sponsors here. http://edcamparchomaha.weebly.com/sponsors.html Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

#4 Google! Yes, I am a Google Fan Girl and I don’t believe our Edcamp would not have been as successful as it was without it. From making a survey with Google Forms, to hosting all the notes from the sessions, it really made our day run smoothly.

#3 People travel from far away to learn at #edcampArchOmaha. Who would have thought that 2 teachers from the Salt Lake City diocese would travel to learn with us?! They wanted to see an edcamp in action to bring it back to their teachers. This made me so happy!

#2 Prayer! Our Edcamp had an added feature. We began with a prayer and ended with prayer.

#1 You! The people who came today! I am so grateful for the great conversations that took place today. A special shout out to Josh Allen, one of the founders of EdCampOmaha, for coming today. It was so nice to see his friendly face!

After reading some of the answers from our survey, I believe the day was a huge success! I look forward to seeing you at a future edcamp, online, or in person. Thank you again for taking part of this new type of Professional Development.

Using MapAList I was able to plot the locations of all those who voted. They will have a Rosary color picked by friends from around the globe!

Here is a close up of the voters from the US.

Now it’s my turn. I need to make the Rosary!

The Wedding Lasso Rosary is an Hispanic tradition. The Rosary will have 2 loops of 5 Decades so the couple can pray the Rosary together. It also will be used in the Wedding Ceremony as Mary ‘places’ her arms around the groom and bride with one loop going on the groom’s shoulders and the other on the bride’s shoulders.

Here is the link to the Google Form. 

Please place your 1 vote by July 10th so I have plenty of time to make the Rosary.

I will be using the site MapAList.com to show where people voted from.

Thanks for helping!

This year our school purchased a cart filled with 32 iPads. I’m always on the look out for new ways to add tech to our classroom. This year I wanted to add tech to our hallways. Last year, during a #CatholicEdChat where we were sharing ideas for Lent, Kay Basailon, shared her principal’s idea. Here is her principal, Patricia’s blog.  So here is how I made our version of the QR Code Stations of the Cross.

Our 4th graders, every year, use Craft Foil to make these beautiful Stations of the Cross. One classroom uses the copper side and the other the silver side. They take their piece of foil and tape one simple scene, from the stations of the cross, to their work. They take a ball point pen and trace the outline. The tracing is embedded into the foil. Once they are done, they use a brown marker for the cross and a yellow highlighter for the halo. 

Our 3rd graders used the Stations of the Cross reflection from Loyola Press. I used my iPhone to record their voice using the app AudioBoo. Once I had a URL from AudioBoo, I used the Chrome extension goo.gl to make the QR code. Voila!

I think this activity made the Stations of the Cross more personal to my students. I know I have become more involved in this Catholic Lenten practice this year with listening to my students record the reflections and viewing the images made by the 4th graders.

I also know that this idea has spread onto at least 2 friends in my Twitter PLN. Tracy Edmisten did something similar with her 4th graders. Click HERE to see her student’s work.

This idea also went to a Michigan classroom where Mrs. Sack teaches 6th, 7th and 8th graders. They took it to whole other level! Besides QR Codes they used Augmented Reality. Click HERE and HERE to see the beginnings of their work.