You can pull off a high-quality
conference with little cost if you
time it right so that the host school
and the district don’t need to spend
additional staff time or resources
to make it happen.
are doing in class. A lot of teachers
don’t get that. We can do those
two things at the same time.
The kids have positive things
to say too. A high school junior
expressed his appreciation for his
teachers’ willingness to spend time
learning ways to incorporate technology into their lessons. “Our classrooms have been a great 21st-century
learning experience,” he says. “And
the technology integration by my
teachers allows me to learn in a
more innovative way.”
Conference on the Cheap
You can pull off a high-quality conference with little cost if you time it right
so that the host school and the district
don’t need to spend additional staff
time or resources to make it happen.
Everyone knows that conferences
are an investment. But at Walled
Lake, we invest more in our time
and less in money. Whereas a typical one-day conference hosted by
a state organization costs about
$400 per person including travel
and hotel expenses—not to mention
$100 for substitute teacher coverage
if it’s held during the school year—
our costs break down to about $15–
$20 per person. That means that
holding the conference in district
for about 300 people conceivably
saves nearly $150,000 in conference
and substitute costs.
Our conference planners go to great
lengths to keep costs as low as possible. Pamela Shoemaker, the district’s
instructional technology coordinator
and conference co-chair, does most of
the planning, scheduling, and recruiting of teacher presenters. Mark Hess,
Shoemaker’s co-chair and the principal
of the middle school where the conference is held, plans and schedules
the administrative strand. Teachers
attending and presenting are compensated only with district-required
professional development hours, and
we secure the services of all keynote
speakers, presenters, and IT support
on an entirely volunteer basis.
Shoemaker has found most of our
volunteer keynote speakers via her
professional learning network (
Twitter, Plurk, Ning) and professional
organizations such as MACUL, the
One-to-One Institute, and the Discovery Educator Network. For the 2010
conference, we were able to secure
Title 2 funds to bring Kevin Honey-cutt to Walled Lake, but that was the
first time we spent any money to bring
in a keynote speaker.
Because the conference happens one
week before school begins, the building is already open, custodians and
secretaries have started their school
year, and the needed technology is
ready to go and available. We encourage participants to bring their own laptops to sessions to reduce the need for
technology support staff to organize
and provide computers for all participants, and student technology interns
help augment professional IT support.
The conference is also nearly paper-less. We print about 100 conference
brochures for those who don’t bring
a printed copy from the website, but
attendees access any session handouts
on the district’s technology integration
website. Participants appreciate the
convenience of easy access to these
electronic handouts, and we save at
least $1,000 in printing costs.
Finally, instead of catered meals,
the school’s PTSA uses the conference
as an opportunity to organize a fund-raiser to sell food and refreshments
to attendees.
Of course, our district needs more
than just a one-day conference to keep
the innovative juices flowing. Schools
must offer and encourage multiple
types of learning opportunities, such
as workshops, online courses and webinars, face-to-face collaborative work,
and participation in professional networking. We need to remember that
there is always more to do, more to
learn, and more to achieve as the technology around us constantly changes
and evolves. But we have found that
our annual gathering provides just
the inspiration we need to begin each
school year in the mindset to do this.
Resources
Barbara Ozminkowski’s Kinder Blog:
http://tiny.cc/kinderblog
Jennifer Phillips Second Grade Blog:
http://tinyurl.com/PhillipsBloggers
Spice It Up! Electronic Handouts:
www.wlcsd.org/Spice2010
Walled Lake 2010–13 Tech Plan:
www.wlcsd.org/techplan20092012
Walled Lake’s Technology Integration website:
www.wlcsd.org/techintegration
The authors are colleagues in the Walled Lake
Consolidated School District in southeast
Michigan. Barbara Ozminkowski (back, left) is
a kindergarten teacher and conference presenter.
Pamela Shoemaker (back, middle) is an instructional technology coordinator and conference
co-chair. Mark Hess (back, right) is a building
principal and conference co-chair. Jennifer Phillips (front, left) is a second grade teacher and
conference presenter. Lynn Dunn (front, right) is
a middle school computer resource teacher and
leads tech support for the conference.
