National Kindergarten Conference
July 20, 2011
I attended the National Kindergarten Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 10 - 14, 2011. This was my second year attending, so I was really looking forward to learning new things from two of my favorite presenters from last year. I spent a whole day gathering new ideas from Lori Elliott's technology sessions. She is a former technology coordinator for her school district in Missouri and has recently accepted the position of a full-time SDE presenter. This will allow her to continue sharing her technology ideas with educators nationwide through year-round conferences. I would encourage anyone who receives an SDE flier concerning a conference Lori is hosting to sign up! She is a very knowledgeable and practical presenter! She can be followed on Twitter at DrLoriElliott and also through her blog at www.lorislatestlinks.com I learned many wonderful websites and ideas for using Smart Notebook and Smart Exchange in my classroom. Lori challenged each of us to set a goal of organizing and scaffolding our instruction in such a way that we use our Smartboards for at least 75% of our daily content teaching/reviewing/student-assessing.
I also really enjoyed a full day of learning from Shari Sloane. She is a Kindergartner teacher from the Minneapolis area who shared lots of neat ideas. She has a very useful website as well (www.kidscount1234.com). Since returning from my trip, I have created several activities from this conference that I'm planning to incorporate into my curriculum this year. I really appreciate the opportunity to have attended this great conference again!
