Teachers learned some new tricks about new technology at a conference in Cape Girardeau on Tuesday.
Sponsored by the Southeast Regional Professional Development Center, the Southeast Educational Technology Conference was hosted on the Southeast Missouri State University campus. About 120 teachers from all over the region attended the event.
Stephanie Kuper, instructional technology specialist at the Regional Professional Development Center, said most participants were teachers, with a large amount of them being elementary teachers.
“We have a lot of schools in Southeast Missouri that are going one to one with technology and some that want to be going one to one so the conference is providing an opportunity for all of those teachers, who are wanting to add more technology to their classroom, ways to do that,” Kuper said.
She explained that schools are often given the devices but not told what to do with them, and the conference aimed at providing education professionals more ideas on how to use technology in the classroom.
Tim Regenold is the principal at Sikeston High School and said his school has been using iPads for the last year. He said this event allowed him to learn about new apps and ways to apply them. He thinks technology will play a main role in the future of education.
“I think teaching kids to create and keeping them engage is the best way to for them to learn things,” said Regenold.
Jennifer Sutton, a 3rd grade teacher at Arcadia Valley Elementary School, will use tablets in her classroom this year. She thinks books are becoming less common in the classroom and that the future of education lies on technology. During the conference she got some ideas on how to incorporate technology in her classroom, like using Skype to talk with students from all around the world.
“A mystery Skype which is finding a classroom somewhere in the world and the students give each other hints to find out where they are for social studies and geography, so I plan on using that for sure,” added Sutton.
Sutton said the conference was a good opportunity to get advice from other teachers who are already using tablets in their classrooms.