16th Annual Student Council for Exceptional Children Conference

              On Saturday, November 13, 2010, my roommate Kristin Schallmo and I attended the 16th Annual SCEC Conference in Allendale, Michigan at Grand Valley State University.  I found this conference to be very inspirational and informative on the topic of teaching.  The conference opened up with a speaker named Ruth A. Jones who is an educational consultant, a motivational/inspirational speaker, and a former elementary principal. She provided inspirational messages to us on what a teacher's duty is for her students.  Her speech explained how we teachers need to educated our students in order for them to grow up to be kindhearted, successful, contributing citizens of society. Through her stories of helping unprivileged children and providing them with the care of a teacher, she inspires me to become a compassionate, well-rounded, hard-working, special education teacher one day.

              The conference then had break sessions.  I attended three: (1) Adapted Physical Education -The Importance of Play taught by Ms. Colleen Lewis , (2)  Behavior Bags of Tricks taught by MCEC, and (3) Creating your professional Learning Network taught by Mr. Ron Houtman. All of these sessions were enlightening and education. 

             However, I learned the most from Mr. Ron Houtman.  He provided us with information regarding how to extend out professional network to other teachers and educational faculty on the web and also the importance of technology in the classroom today in the 21st century. Many key terms, such as AT and UDL, he explained, are critical acronyms to understand if one wants to become part of the educational system.  These terms are incorporated in the educational curriculum for all students and it is our job, as teachers, to understand what these terms mean and their purpose in the classroom. He navigated us college students through various educational websites and resources on how to incorporate technology in the classroom. In our day, technology will be a necessity in the classroom and we teachers need to understand and learn how to effectively incorporate it into our curriculum.  Along with teaching us about technology, he expressed the importance of creating a digital footprint through websites such as a wiki, blog, twitter, etc.  Through his session, I gained insight on how to develop my own professional network online and the uses of technology in the classroom.

           I learned a lot from this conference on how to better prepare myself as a teacher and am excited to attend another educational conference in the near future.