NNPS International Conference

Recently our team participated in the Newport News Public Schools International Conference here in Newport News, Virginia. As part of the planning and implementation committee, we can say that putting on one’s own learning conference, in this case for 400+ educators, is hard! Who knew? We have a newly-found admiration for organizations that manage to put on conferences for thousands of people!

We were fortunate enough to be able to interact with our district colleagues by presenting various sessions, including discussions on how to use SharePoint as a tool for highly-effective faculty and staff collaboration, what school leadership in the 21st century may, could, or should look like, and how various technological tools can be leveraged in language arts classrooms to provide students with more effective learning opportunities.

The conference also featured facilitated discussion groups around ten (or twelve, depending on how you look at it!) things that every 21st century educator should focus on – things like digital literacy, economic literacy, global awareness, and so on. What was so great about those groups? There were no PowerPoint slides, no lectures, no sit-and-get processes – just groups of educators talking to each other about what 21st century education should look like. (And forgive me for saying, but I am always humbly amused by the fact that we talk about becoming 21st century educators… nearly a decade after the century started! Too funny!)