Professional Development

Taylor Blair
Spring 2014

Tech Conference at Samford with Trace Crossings

First thing in the morning, my peers and I set up our tables to share our technology
applications. Abbi Hope and I chose PowToon, which is an animated presentation tool. As
the teachers came in, they walked around to each of our tables, and we had the opportunity
to explain to each of them what PowToon is and how it can best be used in the classroom!
Having the handouts along with our presentation was a great resource for them to have, so
that the teachers would have the information to refer to when they wanted to used the tool.
This was great practice and a great opportunity for professional development. I enjoyed
talking with the teachers and feeling as an equal by providing them with resources and
talking together about what works best for students in the classroom.
At the beginning of the Tech Tailgate Scott Northcutt and James Davis from McWane
Science center were there to talk with us about their project to improve the mascot robot for the
museum. They explained to us all of the different types of technology they used to make the
robot, and from there they taught us about the kid friendly versions of these devices that students
can use. These devices include: Adafruit, Arduino, Canakit and Raspberrypi. We discussed
the importance of students learning at a young age how to be forward thinkers and to
problem solve while working with technology such as these. Throughout the day we had
the choice to attend different meetings. Below I have attached the schedule we had for the
day. The most beneficial meeting I attended was learning about Lego Education and the
different ways students can create their own coding sequences to form a robot using legos.
We sat down and worked with different teachers to make our own robots. I think that is the
best way to develop professionally is to do what the students will do as you communicate
with other teacher.


Key Leaders North Conference

This conference was one of the greatest experiences of my college education. Right when
we arrived we were sitting at our own table until a principal from Madison City came over and
ask if they could join us for the day. I am so glad she did, because we learned so much from
talking with the administrators from that district. There were two women who guided the
conversation throughout the day. The first exercise we did, was divide into groups by what color
marker we chose. There were large post its all around the room. There were five different zones
with 3 of the same post it questions. Through the zone each color maker group would rotate to
each post it and write on it without talking and then once everyone had written down something
we would discuss as a group. Some of the time you would have other groups writing to feed off
of. (Pictures of the Post-its are shown below). Another exercise we did was discuss strengths and
weaknesses within the Madison City district and then break off into pairs with people from other
schools and discuss what was said. We had the opportunity to have one on one conversations
with two different people, and then we came together again. I really enjoyed this conference
because the administrators from Madison City wanted to hear our input, and treated us like
professionals. I learned how important it is to constantly be reevaluating the priorities of the
school, what is working and what is not; and ultimately being honest with everyone about
making the difficult decisions to create steps toward fixing any issues. This conference allowed
us to really see what its like for the administrators as they deal with teachers and how they work
together.