Hawaii Society for Technology in Education

HSTE BLOGS

Check in to The HSTE Blog often for news, updates, events, and information related to HSTE and ISTE! Posts are by the Board and Members alike!

Dagan Bernstein

ASCD24: A Unifying Experience for Hawaii's Educators and a Glimpse into the Future of Learning

It’s Sunday morning in DC and about 6000 educators are on their feet, pumping their fists in the air, and dancing to a mix of party hits from the 80s and 90s. This isn’t the typical scene you’d imagine at an education conference.

We’re all there to listen to speaker, author, and award-winning principal Hamish Brewer use his energetic storytelling to engage the audience and share insights from his years of experience leading schools of excellence...

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Tammy Musiowsky-Borneman

ASCD + ISTE Leadership Summit 2023: Transformative Learning, Thoughtful Leadership, and Collaboration

It was great to see a strong representation of staff from both organizations at the welcome reception, author’s reception, and in the sessions in between. At several sessions I attended, ASCD and ISTE staff were there to see presenter styles and to engage in the learning along with leadership participants, and it was a pleasure to learn alongside them. The event met my expectations for learning and connecting...

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Dagan Bernstein

Spooky October Tales: Demystifying the Fears About AI in the Classroom

October is upon us, the season of pumpkins, dressing up with friends, and maybe even some spooky things that go bump in the night. Speaking of getting spooked, let's delve into a topic that can stoke fear in the hearts of some educators: Artificial Intelligence.

AI might seem like something from a futuristic thriller, but there's something far less intimidating beneath the surface. In the spirit of HSTE’s vision and mission to leverage technology...

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Matthew Tom

Feedback Tools: Classroom Q, Mote, Screencastify

As a sixth-grade English Language Arts teacher, I provide lots of time in class for students to work on their extended writing assignments (research essays, narratives, poems, etc.), get help and feedback from classmates, visit resource stations for extra guidance, or to work privately on their work.

Although I set general landmarks and checkpoints for students so that they can track their progress through the writing process and toward the due date, I do not require students to stay lock-step, as each student....

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Leanna Ikei

3 EdTech Tools to Build Beginning of the School Year Relationships

The beginning of every school year always has its challenge of balancing building relationships with students and completing pre-assessments.  According to John Hattie’s updated list of 250+ influences on student achievement, building teacher-student relationships is ranked .48, meaning such bonds have the potential to accelerate student achievement.  As educators, since we have only a short time during the day, here are three quick EdTech Tools you can use throughout the first month of the school year to quickly build relationships with your students...

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Cecilia "CC" Chung

September Self Care

Stop scrolling for a second and look around you. What are you doing right now? Where are you? What are you thinking about? How are you feeling? For me, on a given weekday, I am often at school… with my laptop in my face, a pile of papers on my desk, and my phone in my hand, stressed and overwhelmed. 

The world of education, whether you are a classroom teacher, a coach, a counselor, or an administrative leader, can be demanding, overwhelming, and stressful. You often feel like you are juggling so many things that you don’t know where to start...

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Nicole Heinlein

Valuable EdTech Tools for In-Person Learning Post Distance Learning

Reflecting on the 20-21 school year, when teachers were thrust into distance learning and had to figure out how to deliver digital lessons in an engaging way, we learned so much and tried so many different EdTech tools. But now as we move back to mostly in-person learning, some teachers have ditched those tools for their trusty paper/pencil activities from their old filing cabinet. However, I’m here to convince you that some of these EdTech tools are still valuable.

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Kristi Oda

The Viability of Virtual School

In the spring of 2020, a time that seems so long ago, educators were thrust into global pandemic and resistance spread like wildfire. We hoped all would be ‘just fine’ when returning from spring break. What seemed to be a promise of a return to normalcy after the extended lockdown turned into after the summer, then after first-quarter…after winter break…after the delta variant… after omicron, and so on. To most,  the adjustments came nauseatingly  fast, pivoting as information and procedures changed daily. The overwhelming concern for family, colleagues, and student well-being burned in our minds while...

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Shane Asselstine

Computer Science PD: Let’s Take That Step Together

It’s a typical Sunday morning, I grab my coffee and turn on my computer. I open my Google Classroom and set up my screens to begin scoring PDE3 assignments. Each time I do this, I am reminded about why this routine exists. It has been an honor and a privilege to share the learning journey with each and every one of the teachers taking this course. Not only were they facing the struggles of the pandemic, but they also challenged themselves to take that next step in preparing our keiki for the future. It’s hard to believe that in the past two years since COVID-19 has hit, over 450 teachers across 85 different schools have...

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Dagan Bernstein

Zooming Into My Lens as a Hawaiʻi Educator

It was 3:30 am when I finally logged off Zoom. I checked the mug on my desk and it remained filled with the lukewarm coffee leftover from at least an hour ago. Still energized from the 3-4 cups I had consumed since 9:30 the previous night, the spectrum of colors scribbled on my iPad looked like a kaleidoscope.

This is what professional development looks like in the year 2021. A potentially unhealthy mix of odd time zones and way too much caffeine. But it is not all poor sleep patterns and poor beverage choices...

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Celeste Endo

Leading Learners in Computer Science

Last year, a whole lotta good people worked extra hard to pass SB242 and woot woot did y'all hear that Governor Ige signed ACT 158 into law?! Cheehoo!! This ensures that all K-12 Hawai‘i students will be given the opportunity to learn computer science. To prepare, many teachers have been taking Computer Science (CS) Fundamentals PD Courses led by Shane Asselstine and the Pearl City-Waipahu Complex Area (PWCA) team. Anyone who doesn’t think we can teach CS in all schools by 2024-2025, has got to see and understand this team’s promising vision...

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