ICE Conference 2015

Another way I broadened my professional development and expanded my personal learning network was by going to the ICE Conference in St. Charles, IL.

The Illinois Conference for Educators, or ICE conference as many know, is a conference where many different technology presenters go to help educators receive professional development and also helps teachers use different software and programs to reach their students in their classrooms. When I was there, I received many opportunities to bring diverse teaching to my students in my own classroom. Many of the different programs were offered as conference workshops included: Google Classroom, Google Add-Ons, Digital Citizenship, Digital Footprints, literature in technology and bringing the community together with technology.

The goal of going to this conference was to see how I could incorporate different ways to reach students. Not all students learn the same way. Some can grasp certain concepts and struggle in others. My goal was to find ways to reach them all. During this conference I was able to see many speakers that helped me reach my goal. Certain speakers were better than others and had presentations that spoke to me. Others were a bit of a challenge because I found different speakers repeating themselves. This conference helped me identify approaches that may be more beneficial in the classroom. Bringing in different stories of people who have the same objective as me to help students learn to their potential will help in all areas of technology in the curriculum. If I see other people unpack their stories, I can learn how to unpack my own and make a difference in the lives of my students. There are many reasons why this conference was a good one to go to. One of the reasons was to decrease the amount of students who don’t “like” school.

Another cool part was in the middle of the entire thing there were different tables where you could go up and talk to the people about what they have. I learned different software and devices that can help the transition of the digital world come into play with our world we live in today. Society is a funny thing entirely. We talk about how much we want things to change, and when they do, we want what we had before. My goal of this conference was to see how I could bring diversity into my classroom. I learned many different resources and tools that I can bring into my classroom to help students enjoy learning again and help the drop out rate. When using these tools correctly students can find education convenient in their lives and hopefully be able to learn to their full potential. Every student deserves to receive an education where they can use lifelong learning later in their life. I will be just a pebble in the stepping-stone of the technology world that they will be partaking in.