TCEA: Sharing a Vision for the Future of Education

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 01/14/20

People often ask Principal Gerry Brooks what the most stressful part of the beginning of the school year is. His response: kindergarten lunch duty. "See, kindergartners have never been together in a big old group trying to eat lunch," he explains. "It's like trying to get a bunch of kittens to do something...." Compound that with a deadpan description of having to help kids open their "fancy" Lunchables while debating questions like "whether a pony would be a good inside pet," and you might understand why Brooks has attracted some 130,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel to get his quick take on topics such as "staff bathroom etiquette," "ridiculous things educators go through during state assessment time" and "educator stocking stuffer suggestions" (such as a packet of "excessive grading relief" that involves a small box of matches that can be used on those stacks of papers that need end-of-semester attention).

Brooks is bringing his unique brand of straight-faced humor to this year's TCEA Convention & Exposition, taking place Feb. 3-7 in Austin, TX, where he'll deliver the closing keynote.

Then there's Sekou Andrews, who will be opening the event with his own keynote. Andrews is a former teacher turned actor, musician and two-time national poetry slam champion. Most recently, he was nominated for a Grammy in the "spoken word" category (alongside Michelle Obama for Becoming and John Waters for Mr. Know-It-All, among others).

In between those two performances will be a thousand other presentations dedicated to helping people in education -- teachers, IT professionals, librarians and school and district leaders -- develop their skills, introduce innovation into the classroom, reach special populations and learn new ways to engage and teach K-12 students.

Formats include panels, presentations, workshops and poster sessions, as well as these special events:

• "Solution Circles," 50-minute opportunities for roundtable conversations on promising approaches to professional learning, serving kids with special needs, education apps worth trying, monitoring screen-time at school, working in small districts, growing robust robotics programs, evaluating learning with tech and more;

• Poster sessions dedicated to gamification, making community connections, giving students voice and choice, using online and blended learning, STEAM and makerspaces, augmented and virtual reality and leadership;

• Immersive experiences on esports, digital storytelling, STEAM, social-emotional learning, innovative classroom and school design and others; and

• Live presentations and podcast sessions with education experts, including Library Girl's Jennifer LaGarde, Tech Rabbi Michael Cohen, award-winning Principal (Baruti) Kafele, Future Ready Librarians spokeswoman Shannon Miller and ControlAltAchieve blogger Eric Curtis.

Mix-and-match conference strands at this year's event cover:

• IT and district leadership;

• Instructional design;

• Literacy and library services;

• Pedagogy;

• Special populations;

• Application immersion;

• Implementation and management;

• Online and blended learning;

• Professional development

• Technology applications and computer and technical education courses; and

• IT support and technology.

TCEA 2020 features an exhibit hall with an estimated 450 companies showcasing the latest products and services and hosting on-the-show-floor workshops to demonstrate their solutions.

Full conference registration is $389 and includes a one-year membership to TCEA, a nonprofit organization focused on providing resources and strategies for helping members integrate technology in K-16 education.

Learn more at the TCEA conference website.