Professional Learning Reflection - miGoogle Conference

On Tuesday, Tonya and I were able to attend the miGoogle Conference at Lake Fenton High School in Linden, Michigan. This conference was a collection of nearly 500 passionate Michigan educators who came together to discuss the impact of technology on our students and how we can better serve their needs. Overall, the day was a very informative one.

Anthony Buza of the Genesee ISD was the keynote speaker. He focused on many different things that impact education, but the main take away was the importance of relationships with students. He provided an example of a relationship that he had with a student, learning about some of his interests. He brought these interests to the other teachers to try and better serve the needs of the student in the schools. He reiterated that fact that we have to trust ourselves and persevere over difficulties that happen in our professional and personal lives, realizing the great impact that we can have on students everyday. Finally, he finished the keynote reminding us to always examine what is best for all students in our practice.

Next, Tonya went and learned about how to bring more computer science education to our younger students. I went and talked about how we can develop more staff training and do different things. Next, I went to a session on finding student passion and engaging students through passion projects and Ted-Ed clubs. It was fascinating as we developed ideas on how we can engage more students in their learning process.

After this, I went to a session about solving problems with a panel discussion on common issues in education revolving around technology. This was a fascinating discussion as many education professionals gathered to ask questions and have them answered. The focus of the session quickly turned into what do we need to focus on with our students for them to be successful in the future. Many ideas were thrown out, but the one that the room came to a consensus on was the idea of creativity in the classroom. Providing students with the opportunity to code, create, and express themselves was an important. Tonya was in a session on how to use the Google Add-On of autoCrat.

In the final session of the day that I was able to attend (I was presenting during the 4th session block!) was the closing demo slam. In this activity, teachers from across the state were selected to share a 3 minute lesson on something amazing that they do in their classrooms. Meredith Nickerson, from Dexter, shared how she uses Google Photos and YouTube to share pictures with parents. Jeremy Badiner showed how you can use Google Slides to create stop-motion animation. Eric Griffith shared two extensions, Read + Write for Google and Screencastify. He explained how these can help to close the feedback loop. Finally, Courtney Lauer shared how to convert images to an editable Google Doc.

Overall, walking away from the conference, there was an extreme focus on being creative and having students creating items to demonstrate their learning. The sticking point for the entire experience at the conference for me was the importance of putting our students first.