Since their inception in 2012 the Mercy iWizards have held an all day workshop. This year's occurred on February 8 with seventeen iWizards attending. It was a great day. This is what they worked on and accomplished:
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1) The day began with a video conference with Apple Inc., getting suggestions and encouragement for the day's projects.

2) The students planned a new structure for the new student iPad orientation for 2018-19 school year. They selected topics and for project teams in order to develop the materials for the orientation.

3) The iWizards who will be presenting at the MACUL Conference in Grand Rapids on March 8, worked very hard on the conference presentation. While others went to the computer lab and began brainstorming on a new iWizard designed app called Splash.

4) The day ended with video conferences with and Pinch Elementary School in West Virginia and Baker High School in upstate New York.
 
​Enjoy photos of the day taken by iWizard, Katie Bulloch.

As a newly minted Apple Distinguished School 2017-19, It will be exciting to host Mercy K-12 Tech Talk for Educators on November 3. Like the application process for ADS, this event is a huge team effort. The coordinators for the event are Ann Lusch and Lisa Robinet. And of course Tech Innovation Team and Maintenance crew go all out for the conference.  In addition we have twenty-five iWizards and staff assisting.
Once again we will be hosting attending educators and presenters throughout the region. And once again the event will consist of a keynote address, four hours of workshops, presentations, and panels as selected by attendees; as well as 2 meals a raffle and possible continuing ed credit. We offer this for the subsidized cost of $50 due to our many Tech Talk sponsors.
But new to Tech Talk this year are the following:

• We are flying in keynote speaker Brent Coley from California.
• We are offering a "design your own lunch" period with planned and ad hoc chats.
• We have approached our sponsors with a special scholarship program which has taken off.  Over twenty pre-service university students will be attending the conference for free.
• Instead of a conventional paper survey at the end of the conference, we are going to try Flipgrid video chats instead. This fun feature comes courtesy of Filpgrid expert, Angela Harris-Schultheis
• Two iWizards have been assigned to photograph and tweet throughout the conference.

You can still register for Tech Talk here: http://www.techtalkmercy.com/
If you can't attend follow the action on Twitter with this hashtag: #mhtt17

This school year Mercy will be hosting its fifth annual Tech Talk for K-12 Educators. We have moved the conference to November for the first time, so planning began over the summer. I have not minded a bit. The collaborations involved are rewarding and fun-- I have the opportunity to scheme, plan, and share with so many fine people. Check out this incomplete list:
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• When we moved the date I wanted to be sure that our past rock stars could make the shift with us-- mainstays like Jeremy Badiner of Gull Lake,  Megan Black of Grosse Pointe Academy,  Stacy Cushman, from Marian, Dr. Alison Kline-Kator, Lauren Marquard, and Angela Harris-Schultheis from MHS, Dr. Jason Siko for Madonna, and Lori Wetzel from Fraser. All are returning.
  
  
• I recruited workshop leaders Steve Dickie, from Divine Child,  Marnie Diem of  Hillel Day School, John Sowash, Google Education Trainer, Jason Gribble from Riverview. 
  
  
• I have had many conversations with our keynote speaker,  Brent Coley. We are flying Brent in from California for the event.  I have introduced him by video-conference to Chris Janusch and we planned together Brent's topic, now titled #eduinfluence. I learn something everytime I communicate with Brent
  
  
• I met twice this summer to plan a session with Charli Migoski which we are calling, "Let’s Get Everyone Involved in Our English Class". It will be so fun to present with her and if you want to learn Charli's incredible digital techniques for involving all students in class discussions, you should attend.
  
  
• I recruited four presenters who will be streaming into N-13 form remote locatioons: Katie Morrow from Nebraska, Derek Rhodenizer from Ottawa, Aaron Hogan from Texas, and our crazy Aussies stationed in Dubai, the amazing Steve Bambury and Luke Rees.
  
  
• I set up two panels of five luminaries each. Our new principal Pat Sattler will moderate one about supporting teachers with tech adoption The social media panel will be moderated by our communications director Julie Earle.
• Julie does the marketing for Tech Talk. She, Ann Lusch, Lisa Robinet and I meet regularly to coordinate the event. Ann and Lisa do all the heavy lifting with speaker/sponsor communications, logistics and registration.
  
  
• I have even enjoyed soliciting sponsors. I was blown away when Performance Environmental offered to sponsor our lunch  and Aquatic Source doubled what I asked for to sponsor the ever-popular snack table. Other sponsors like Plante Moran, One Earth Writing, F.A. LaFontaine, and TMP Architecture are helping us underwrite free vouchers for teacher interns by sponsoring workshops and individual speakers.
  
  
• And of course it is fun to collaborate by offering free admission to universities. This has already given me the wonderful opportunity to be in touch with two wonderful long-time school of ed collaborators -- Dr. Liz Kolb of the University of Michigan and Dr. Karen Obsniuk of Madonna University. (We will once again offer SCECH credit trough Madonna thanks to Theresa King.
  
  

So many more incredible collaborations to come! Check out the marvelous web site that Ann Lusch has built  http://www.techtalkmercy.com/ .  And follow news about the conference @TechTalk_mhs   #mhtt17

 We have just submitted a brand new multi-touch book to Apple, Inc. which captures Mercy educational technology. We are anxious to publish it to iBooks but will not do so until Apple finishes a review.
Composing and pulling together together this book has been a huge collaborative project and has actually yielded some new conversations and products, including  

•  Some powerful insights about learning from Ana Warner' testimony about her experience robotic's experience.
  
  
• A complete documentation of the faculty's '2017 #appleteacher professional development experience.
  
  
• A concise expression of the school's educational technology vision as aligned directly with the MHS strategic plan.
• The formation and branding of the five-member Mercy Tech Innovation Team.
• A broader, deeper data collection of our educational technology department yielding many interesting outcomes and next steps such as 
  • a new understanding of the students' enthusiasm for and dependence on the iPad Notability App '=
  • a discernible gap between teacher expectations of student multimedia products and student's actual ability with multimedia tools
  • the engagement of a university professor in conversation/collaboration in possibly researching deeper by setting up focus groups or establishing a longitudinal studies.
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I can hardly wait for the book to be published. A sample page is exhibited below.