MACUL 2009    March 18-20, 2009

Be sure to join us next year in Detroit for the MACUL conference.  Save the dates now.

A note from the Director of SIG-EE (yea--me)

 SIG-EE is one of about ten special interest groups that is part of the MACUL organization.  Each group has a focus area with SIG-EE having a focus for Elementary Education.  At the 2007 MACUL conference, I was elected as the Director of SIG-EE.  I've spent the past year networking with some great technology folks and learning more and more about what it really takes to plan the MACUL conference.  In addition to the conference, we offer events around the state throughout the year.  This past year we were asked to help Forest Northern Schools (by Grand Rapids) deliver two days of professional development with the theme of Differentiated Instruciton.  What an opportunity to showcase some great technology integration and meet the needs of children!  The first day I helped deliver break-out sessions throughout the day on subjects we had proposed and discussed ahead of time.  The second day I was asked to be available for an elementary building during their day of professional development.  They had their own areas of interest and several of the MACUL leadership were assigned to them.  What an exciting day!  We were able to deliver some one-on-one sessions, some small group sessions, and some larger group sessions.  Everybody in the room left with new knowledge.

This year, for the 2008 MACUL conference, SIG-EE was the proud sponsor of Dr. Jason Ohler.  He provided several sessions throughout the conference and a full day of Pre-Conference training at Jenison High School.  Dr. Ohler is truly a life-long learner and expert storyteller.  He has numerous resources on his website that I highly recommend educators of all areas and ages to visit.  The good news is that Dr. Ohler will be returning to the MACUL 2009 conference!  Stay tuned for more information.

Join our group on MACUL Space to keep up on the latest resource sharing and elementary edtech discussions.  It's a very active forum!  It's also a good way to learn and experience social networking from a professional standpoint.  You'll quickly learn the attraction that teens have to Facebook and MySpace.

MACUL 2008       March 5-7

This year the Conference was held in beautiful downtown Grand Rapids, MI.  What a great conference!  Everything is connected by an indoor walkway to make the chilling March Michigan mornings tolerable.  Speakers were fabulous and reached an all-time record number of attendees.