Technology Conferences

For the past two summers, I have had the privilege to attend Hall County's Educational Technology Conference.  Modeled after Georgia's ETC, this conference is set up so that the attendee can attend sessions based on what specifically interests them.  I was able to attend sessions on Audacity, Storytelling with PowerPoint, Teacher Pages, Augmented Reality, and other tech tools.  My main observation was that Georgia Southern's program has thoroughly prepared me in the field of Instructional Technology.  Many of these sessions provided information with which I was already familiar.  This summer, I will not only be attending the conference, but I will also be presenting a few sessions with coworkers.  These sessions include:  Audacity (workshop), BrainPOP, and PB Works.

In Fall 2011, I was very fortunate to be a chosen representative for my school to attend Georgia's Educational Technology Conference.  This was a wonderful experience.  I tried to select varying sessions to attend, and even left some sessions early in order to catch the tail end of other sessions.  The session that stands out as being the most valuable was "Exemplary and Exceptional Library Media Programs."  I took extensive notes on the ideas that several elementary school media specialists presented.  This session encouraged me to always seek ideas from other media specialists and never settle for anything less than my absolute best effort!  Other very helpful sessions were: "Nothing but NETS: Transforming Your Students' Learning Environments with Technology," "Web Tools for Collaboration," and "Examining the Web 2.0 Learner."  Through attending this conference, I came to realize I am honored to work for Hall County Schools.  The ETC Hall County develops each year is just as good as the one the state of Georgia organizes. 

My coworkers and I were able to glean information from vendors, as well.  It was great to get a taste of what kind of equipment is available (regardless of whether we can afford it or not).  A coworker of mine was awarded an entire class digital response system from Proven Learning!