To start off with, Taylor Mali was
the best part of the KATE Conference. Well, in my opinion that is. Having the
opportunity to listen to him read his poems was an experience I will never
forget and made me wish all that more that I could write poetry like he does.
Anyways, he did a fantastic job! To be expected, he has inspired me to read
poetry to my students the way he reads his. Made the poetry sound more alive
and less intimidating. Also, finding out that he is rather funny made it all
that better!
This was only one keynote session;
the other one that I found interesting was the first one that happened Thursday
morning by Dr. Howard Pitler. He talked about editing and papers, how we as
English teachers should not be editors, but in fact teachers. Getting students
to edit on their own type of thing. English teachers are sometimes guilty of
editing too much, so we must balance this out. He also went into how we can
incorporate more technology into our classroom. Where as I am rather lucky to
have an iPad cart and use some of the apps already, having others see and learn
that they can be awesome was great too. I got the chance to tell the other
pre-student teachers that I just used this app and show them. That was rather
neat.
This goes into a breakout session
that I attended, by accident actually. I’m glad that I walked into the wrong
room and the lovely lady I was with convinced me to stay. Turns out, this was
one of my favorite sessions. This one was about how we can use blogs to
incorporate more writing into the classroom. Change of audience is an easy
switch and the students do not have to feel intimidated by the paper and
pencil. We were also introduced into ways that the students could go to a
website and type things and they would immediately appear to everyone, so if a
student has a question and does not necessarily want to speak up, they can type
it and other students can answer or the teacher can. Gives them something to
focus on with their work. This session reminded me of what I am doing currently,
writing this blog to be exact. I would love to be able to utilize them in my
classroom someday and see how that goes.
I would like to note that my fellow
classmate, Mrs. Springs, did a fantastic job on her breakout session! Hers was
another favorite and I learned new things. She had us make a poem or story
using emoticons that turned out rather interesting and funny. This was really
engaging and I was in awe that she was able to do that on the spot like she
did. Listening to the more experienced teachers share their ideas was great as
well. Over all it was a very engaging session!
I had a great time at the
conference, some of the content was intended for the experienced teachers who
may have needed a reminder or learn things, but not so much for us. This is
perfectly fine since there were more of them anyways. Kind of nice knowing that
what I have learned and am learning is what they are teaching or suggesting teachers
to try out. I will definitely not forget this experience!
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