Welcome to the Bridges to Learning Conference Home Page!
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I am thrilled to be leading the charge at Bridges for the 2012 Conference, which will be held at the University of Toronto (Mississauga) from May 10-12, 2012. Old-timers will notice a few small changes, but in general, why mess with the most successful and largest Assistive Technology conference in Canada? For 2012, we have focused the conference on our passions - raising the bar for students with disabilities and bringing the incredible benefits of Assistive Technology to a new audience - English Language Learners.
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At Bridges, we believe that we have to look beyond access to improve educational outcomes. Research is showing strong support for increasing academic expectations for students with disabilities to ensure that progress occurs. To that end, we are bringing in Ann Meyer, the principal investigator and author of Equals, the amazing math curriculum from AbleNet. Ann will be giving a day-long preconference workshop on Equals. What an incredible opportunity to understand the how and the why behind the product, as well as the scope and sequence - and why that's important! - from the author herself. In addition, Ann is heading up our strand on Curricular Connections as the Featured Speaker.
Our Featured Speaker for the second strand is John Draper on Inclusion and Students with Significant Disabilities. John is an AAC user and well-known speaker and author on the subject of inclusion, and we are very excited to bring John to our conference with insights and experiences that can benefit and excite every professional in the field.
Last, but certainly not least, we are reaching out to a new audience with this Bridges to Learning Conference - teachers of English Language Learners. Over the last several months, we have been working with a few different districts to train their teachers of English Language Learners about the benefits of text to speech, symbolized text and other types of Assistive Technology for this population, and the response has been very gratifying. To that end, we have asked Saskia Stille, who is finishing her doctorate at the University of Toronto under Dr. Jim Cummins, to headline this strand. Saskia's research on ESL teachers and digital media to increase literacy skills is fascinating, with tremendous ramifications for everyone in the field to consider as they seek to better engage their students.
Saturday, the final day of the conference, is where the changes are most apparent. Barb Welsford is flying in from Nova Scotia to run an iStuff lab, complete with iPod Touches and iPads from Apple. Barb was named an Apple Distinguished Educator this year because of the superb work she is doing at the Assistive Technology Resource Center in the South Shore Regional School Board. For beginners to get their bearings, there will be an "orientation session" on Friday, but the real fun begins Saturday morning. We are also happy to welcome our friend, John Palbom from Advanced Presentations, as he conducts a lab on using Smart Boards in the classroom. It will be a snapshot of their lauded certification program, so consider joining John to learn more about the technology that is truly changing the face of education.
To stay up-to-date on the conference, join us on Facebook or Twitter, where we'll be posting the latest updates.
We look forward to seeing you at the University of Toronto, Mississauga in May!
Joan
Joan H. Cunningham
Manager, Professional Development
Bridges Canada
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| What is Bridges to Learning? |
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Bridges to Learning is Canada’s national conference on teaching and learning with technology. Guided by Universal Design for Learning principles, our goal is to align research and best practice with innovative development and implementation of assistive and educational technology.
Learn about the latest research on educational and assistive technology (AT) and literacy, numeracy, knowledge building, augmentative communication, alternative access - everything you expect from Bridges, the Canadian authority on Universal Design for Learning and best practices in education for students with diverse learning needs.
- Presentations by Canadian and international educators
- Hands-on computer labs
- The latest in assistive and educational technology
- Network with other professional educators from across Canada
- Learn about the latest research around implementation and best practices
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