Learning+at+Schools+2012

4 staff members attended the Learning @ School conference in January of 2012. You can find out more about the conference here.

Below are our reflections on our time at the conference.
__Attendee 1:__ I really valued the time at the Learning @ Schools conference this year. It was both affirming with what I am doing in the classroom at the moment and has given me inspiration and motivation to keep this up as well as add to the things that I am currently doing. One of the workshops I did rekindled my use of twitter and although this has fallen off since (twitter, as much as I try, just isn't my thing) I can see the importance of getting teachers signed up and involved in having an online presence to gather, share and improve on ideas out there. The internet is such a myriad of teaching and learning tools and ideas and having these come to you via social networking applications rather than having to go and use them has incredible importance in the changing world. Another workshop that has had a sticking impression on me was about mobile devices in school. I have been keen for a while to use these types of technologies in a teaching environment but had always wondered how the logistics of having students use them for learning as well as bring their own personal devices in for the same purpose. In the workshop I attended the delegate talked about how they had integrated iPod touches into their curriculum and it was interesting to see what problems they came up against and the tips she had for overcoming these problems. Kevin Honeycutt, the second keynote, was incredibly inspiring. He talked about how motivating ICTs were to children and how if we're missing these in our programmes it is at the loss of our student's interest. The conference provided me with lots of things I already knew but was good to have a refresher and new motivation for as well as one or two brand new things that I was keen to get going in my classroom and the school.

__Attendee 2: __ I went to Learning at Schools conference for the first time and I must say I found everything valuable. I learned quite a lot. All the workshops I attended I left with something that I can take back to my classroom. The only workshop I couldn't connect with was the Library one and only because I am not a librarian and our school is in the process of making our library anyway a better learning space. As a school we attended a session at the National Library. What I would like to know is how to connect your classroom program better with a library program. Think that is what I thought it is going to be about. How to use elearning in the junior classes had a lot of value for me. It was great to see that e-learning is not always just happening on the computer but also with cameras and that there are different ways to incorporate the technology in your classroom. I got quite a bit from the CAFE 5 - Reading session. I've been applying the 5 Reading Cafe's in my classroom. Think it has quite a lot of value. I loved listening to Kevin Honeycutt. It was very inspiring and I realised the importance of modeling how to use technology correctly not just for the children in your class but also to your own children. The conference gave me lots of new ideas. I think it would also be really valuable to have more Professional Development around the usage of some of the tools. Although the session around the Wikispaces in the junior classroom is really valuable it would be great to have the 'know how' of how to create you own wiki spaces and how to upload all those valuable resources onto it. Could these e-learning conferences maybe be a place that people are getting more up skilled with the know-how than just great ideas to use? Just a thought.

__Attendee 3: __ I found the L@S 2012 conference valuable. As writing is a focus this year, I really liked loved the breakout about using digital storytelling to improve literacy. I really liked the tool Storybird. It is fantastic to get reluctant students writing. It is also great to inspire students who find it challenging to come up with an idea to write about as students use the picture to come up with a story. I also enjoyed the breakout Digital Literacy for Digital Learners. This affirmed a lot of what I knew. It showed tools I have used and introduced me to new ones. The thing that I found the most beneficial about this breakout was that we had a link where lots of the things I already use are collated together. This means it is much more accessible __[]__ I love coming away from a conference with new ideas to try in the classroom and it keeps me motivated and my keeps my teaching programme fresh.

__Attendee 4: __ <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">This was my first time attending anything of this magnitude related to teaching. I was in awe! <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Kevin Honeycutt was one of the most inspirational speakers at the conference and I found myself totally engrossed in what he had to share. A lot of it was common sense about how we work with children, but also how we can teach each child and how to incorporate the technologies of today and how they can be used to improvement student achievement. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">As literacy is our schools major focus for this year I chose to go to breakouts which had an aspect of literacy. I enjoyed going to the earlybird breakout and learning about making each child a storyteller and also a breakout called 10+ ways to raise student achievement in literacy. There was so many different things that would be great to use in a class but probably better to adopt in a class with other children. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">As I do work closely with children who have special needs I also went along to a breakout especially for understanding children on the Autistic spectrum. This would have been great if we had the whole day as what was discussed was just a tiny snippet of what I wanted to know. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">It was great to have the opportunity to go along to see all of the stalls and what is available to people in the world of education. And the free pens! Bumping into people from the past was an added bonus too.