Tech update for educators at ETC!2017 on Feb. 25

Pick any teacher task, and there likely exist multiple online apps for it, YouTube videos on it, and a dozen vendors selling software to make it easy and uniform.

Pick any classroom topic, and there will be hundreds of websites devoted to it, videos exploring it and lesson plans to teach it – some excellent, but some skewed, and many that offer only a bare-basics view as a teaser to buy a product or service.

An annual conference started by the Stanislaus County Office of Education aims to help educators navigate the tangled web of sites and devices.

When SCOE first offered its Educational Technology Conference 18 years ago, only a relative few tech-savvy teachers attended. Most districts had volunteers who embraced their inner geek, standouts in a world of lined paper and No. 2 pencils.

But over the last decade, interest has exploded alongside tech innovations and internet speed.

Teachers use computers for daily record keeping, and nearly all have tablets that link to class whiteboards, this generation’s answer to chalk and blackboards. Most districts have, or are moving to, putting a device in the hands of every student. Each has adopted instructional goals calling for kids to learn how to make electronic presentations and essays with links to online documents.

Using teaching tech effectively takes some practice. Helping kids become competent electronic creators and savvy information consumers takes training. But after nearly two decades of teachers working on this, conference organizers point out, no one needs to reinvent the wheel.

The conference includes sessions for administrators, support staff, IT professionals, technology coordinators and future teachers, said SCOE’s Technology Learning Resource Division Director Sally Savona.

Anyone who has tackled new tech has tales to tell of glitches, hiccups and the frustrations of sure-fire fixes that didn’t work. Now, imagine running a school with 500 curious youngsters checking out their first computer. Bandwidth challenges, device breakage, forgotten passwords, crashing programs, security issues, privacy concerns, content shielding – all these problems happen at commercial scale on campuses.

A chance at networking, as well as presenters with experience in the field, has packed each conference in recent years.

Last year’s conference, ETC!2016, drew 1,100 attendees in a county with roughly 4,500 classroom teachers. To accommodate the crowd, SCOE moved the event to California State University, Stanislaus, in Turlock.

The conference focus has also evolved, moving from an introduction to technology in the classroom, to managing classrooms technology, to integrating lessons with tech tools.

This school year, attendees can get continuing education credit for attending the conference through Stanislaus State. A vendor showcase during the conference gives participants an up-close look at the latest in education technology.

ETC!2017 will be Feb. 25 at Stan State. The $80 cost includes lunch, materials and a choice of more than 100 sessions demonstrating how different devices and applications can support student achievement. Some examples are trainings on Google apps, web tools, coding and robotics. Other sessions will look at help for special education students and English learners.

This year’s conference expands with three workshops the evening before the main event, 4-7 p.m. on Feb. 24. Topics will be robotics, podcasting, maker spaces, administration and Google Certification Level 1, according to the conference website.

This story was originally published December 26, 2016 at 4:51 PM with the headline "Tech update for educators at ETC!2017 on Feb. 25."