Every year, educators flock to the Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo and Conference for a three-day event packed with quality workshops, student showcases and inspirational speakers designed to provide educators with innovative ways to bring the latest technology to the classroom.

This year, Whitehall-Coplay School District sent a group including Principal Cora Snyder, third-grade teacher Bethany Koenig and learning support teacher Janet Baker, all from Steckel Elementary School, to the PETEC.

Twelve Whitehall-Coplay staff members traveled to Hershey to attend the conference Feb. 10-13.

“The team that we took was very diverse. It ranged from third grade and learning support up to high school administration, and it was nice that we could all share our different experiences and our backgrounds, and we could come together and collaborate at the end of the day,” Baker said during a presentation to school board members.

Some of the workshops they found most helpful included Google Suite for Education, Being a Mindful Tech Educator, Tech for Struggling Readers and Writers, Social Media Smarts for Educators, Purposeful Coding and Robotics in Elementary, Creating a Makerspace, Flipped Classroom and Growing Global Citizens.

The team was especially impressed with keynote speaker Weston Kieschnick, whose theme was “Go Forth and Be Bold: Educating for the Future.” Kieschnick encouraged attendees to start with the area of technology they are best at, rather than trying to incorporate everything at once.

“Sometimes, people are feeling very overwhelmed with the technology, and they can’t do this, and they can’t do that, but if they just pick one place to start, it’s an easy entryway to get technology in their students’ hands,” Koenig said.

Koenig is using technology to teach her students about communities in social studies.

“My kids are on Google Earth, and they’re actually in the communities we’re teaching about, so we’re talking about cities that these kids haven’t been to, and they’re there taking a tour of the city; they’re looking at the neighborhoods. So that was just one of the things that they really stressed at PETEC - Google Suite and all of the things that you can do with it,” she said.

Baker’s students are also benefiting from technology in the classroom.

“Bethany and I have very diverse learners. She’s an inclusion teacher on the general education side, and I’m a supplemental learning support teacher where the kids come to me, because they are working a little below grade level. So our learners are very diverse, and we found that using the technology that we learned about at PETEC and through the sessions here at Whitehall, we’re able to offer the students choice differentiation independence and just at the third-grade level. Some of my students are functioning at a first-grade level and just logging in to the Chromebook they know where to go, they know what to do, and they are making progress - and that’s exciting,” Baker said.

Workshops at the conference also emphasized the importance of teaching students about online safety and encouraging them to be mindful of what they are posting.

The district already has a system in place to ensure students are using the Chromebooks appropriately.

“Go Guardian is modern software that’s on all of our Chromebooks, so we can see what websites the kids are on and can actually block them out of some,” Superintendent Dr. Lorie Hackett said.

Koenig and Baker are planning to offer one-hour after-school sessions to other WCSD teachers, so they can share what they’ve learned.

Koenig and Baker credited David Stauffer, WCSD’s instructional technology coach, for his knowledge and support as technology becomes increasingly used in the classroom.

“He provides direct support to staff members through both one-on-one and group training sessions. He also provides in-class technology assistance to students in a co-teaching capacity,” Baker said.

“We, as a district, are definitely on the right track with technology,” Koenig said.

Both teachers agreed PETEC was worth the trip.

“It’s about growing as a person and growing as an educator. It clears your mind and takes away all the worry and the stress and brings it back home again. This is what we’re here for - the kids,” Baker said.