Future teachers attend education conference

Sr. Pat McCann and nine early childhood, elementary and special education majors attended a conference titled “Keeping Pennsylvania’s Promise to Children and Families: The Difference We Can Make” at Penn State University in October.

Students experimented with technology that can they will able to use to enhance teaching strategies in the classroom.

“I enjoyed playing and learning with the new Promethean Board, which is the new type of Smart Board,” said junior Shannon McCann.

Leandra Yast was particularly impressed the technology’s role-keeping feature.

“On the Smart Board there is a section where the kids names are listed and as they come in they can move their names to the ‘here’ category,” said Yast.

Other students agreed that the vendors who showcased new products provided a lot of practical information for future teachers.

“There were a lot of different vendors and just talking with them gave us a lot of good ideas,” said Teart.

Alicia Decker and Darcy Lewis took part in a sign language seminar, and they agreed that they took away tips that could be useful in everyday classroom situations.

Students even took part in a seminar that provided strategies for teaching about appropriate sexual development.

“Everything was very informative,” said Courtney Novajosky. “I went to a class called ‘Frogs, Frogs, Frogs,’ where the lady was very enthusiastic and treated us like we were children. The second class was sex education and [it] was a very informative lecture. I found the venders very helpful and it was nice to have the opportunity to go and have the experience,” she said.

The students who attended were Shannon McCann, Darcy Lewis, Arielle Orsulak, Kerriann Prinz, Ashley McDonnell, Leandra Yast, Alicia Decker, Courtney Novajosky, and