On Friday my fellow teaching interns and myself attended the MACUL(Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning) conference in Grand Rapids. At the conference we got the opportunity to attend 3 different session and to explore the vendor area. While I was initially not looking forward to the drive to Grand Rapids I found that it was a GREAT use of my time. I loved learning from the presenters not only more about their chosen topic, but also more about presentations in general.
One of the presentations that I was really looking forward to was the presentation about Pinterest in education because Pinterest is a site that I already use on an everyday basis. Unfortunately I ended up being disappointed by this presentation because it focused too much on the how-to of Pinterest and not enough on the application in education. Also while knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the website, I thought that the technical difficulties that the presenter often ran into with Prezi and with the site itself detracted from the presentation. Also because the presenter was a Kindergarten teacher the presentation was geared toward Kindergarten examples.
On the whole, the Pinterest presentation only solidified my understanding for how to use the website, but it did not further my understanding to new ideas about how to use Pinterest in the classroom.
My favorite presentation was the Lightning Talks that I attended last in the day. Not only was it inspiring as a teacher to hear stories about connecting to colleagues and inspiring our youth, but it inspired me to have my students use a variety of different presentation styles. I could challenge them to explain a concept in 30 seconds or less, they would have to script it out to ensure that they did not go over time. Not only would it be a good way to change things up for my students but it would make presentations more engaging and increase the likelihood that my students are actually listening to each others presentations.
The most surprising aspect of the conference for me was the vendor area. It was really informative to go around and see what the upcoming trends are related to education and technology. Not only was I able to see what the vendors were trying to sell, but I was also able to get the contact information for companies that hire teachers to teach online.
All in all this conference was well worth my time and driving and I would love to attend more conference like this one. This was a field trip that should be kept in the 504 calendar for MAC’ers to come.
