We’re excited to introduce you to the first lineup of speakers for Kami Connect 2021! Kami Connect is our free virtual conference for educators on February 18 with world-leading educators and well-being professionals. Learn about social and emotional learning, inclusive classrooms, fostering collaboration, Kami updates and so much more. You can register here for free.
Our first lineup of incredible speakers features education pioneers and industry leaders from all over the world. Ready to tackle this year’s theme of breaking digital learning barriers are Dr. Sydney Savion, Mark Sparvell, Eric Sheninger, Marcus Stein, Estee Williams, Dr. Hillary Goldthwait-Fowles, Ben Sondgeroth, Stacey Roshan, Megan Barnash, and Dodie Ainslie.
More big announcements coming soon so be sure to stay tuned! In the meantime, get to know our first set of speakers and their sessions below.
Featured Speakers
Sydney has a passion for creating and executing strategies that foster an inclusive high-impact learning culture. Her brand is synonymous with optimizing, innovating, incubating, atomizing, and commercializing learning solutions, with a focus.
He’s an expert on the role of technology and social and emotional intelligence in education contexts and leads a lively online community on Social and Emotional Learning here. Mark is an advisor to MINDUP and Patron of the Emotional Intelligence Society of Australia.
Eric Sheninger (@E_Sheninger)
Eric is an innovative leader, best-selling author, award-winning principal. His main focus is using research and evidence-based practices to empower learners, improve communications, transform learning spaces, and help educators grow professionally in the digital age. Eric was the award-winning Principal at New Milford High School. Under his leadership, his school became a globally recognized model for innovative practices.
Marcus Stein (@MrSteinOnline)
Marcus Stein is an educational technology consultant with a passion for personalizing teacher professional development by consistently embedding humor and joy into instruction. He is one of the creators of a teacher-created professional development platform and a co-host of the Digital Age Teacher Podcast.
Estee Williams (@EsteeEducates)
Estee is proud to have been named the 2020 Kami Hero of the Year! Need we say more? Along with holding the title of Kami Hero of the Year, Estee is a Google Certified Trainer and passionate educator heavily involved in Kami’s global learning community of 23 million.
Dr. Hillary Goldthwait-Fowles (@hillary_atp)
Hillary is an accessibility accomplice providing training, support, and consultation to organizations around Assistive Technology, Accessible Educational Materials, and Universal Design for Learning. Hillary has written and spoken in various spaces around AT, AEM, and UDL.
Ben Sondgeroth (@Mr_Sondgeroth)
Ben began his career as a history teacher in Morrison, Illinois where he initiated and coordinated the district’s iPad and Chromebook integration.
He now works for the Learning Technology Center of Illinois focusing on helping districts in Illinois leverage educational technology effectively. He is a regular presenter at national conferences such as FETC, ISTE, CUE, and more.
Stacey Roshan (@buddyxo)
Stacey is passionate about bringing innovative tools into the classroom to create a safe learning environment for all students to find their voice and build confidence. Her work has been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, CNN, and PBS Newshour.
Megan Barnash (@BarnashMegan)
Megan has been a Kami hero since 2018. She has taught for many years in the middle school classroom and loves sharing her integration tools and tips with her peers.
Dodie Ainslie (@djainslie)
Dodie supports teachers at a district level on how to integrate technology to enhance student learning, engagement, and accessibility. Aside from being a Kami Hero, she is also a ISTE Certified Educator and Certified Google Trainer.
Hengjie Wang (@hengjiew)
Hengjie Wang is the CEO and Co-Founder of Kami, an Auckland-based education software company that allows teachers and students to view, edit, collaborate and interact with digital documents.
Inspired by a need to reinvent the pen and paper note-taking method, Hengjie’s entrepreneurial journey began in 2012 when he signed up Kami, formerly known as Notable PDF, for The University of Auckland’s entrepreneurial competition together with Jordan Thoms and Alliv Samson. In the program, they met their mentor, now Kami Chairman and Chief Revenue Officer, Bob Drummond. Fast forward to now, Hengjie is responsible for the day-to-day company’s growth.
Bob Drummond (@BobVonDrummond)
Bob has been the Chairman of Kami since the company was founded. He began his career as a software engineer, working on early email software, and design of the first digital cellular networks. Bob holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from The University of Auckland and an MBA from London Business School.
“I was privileged to receive an extraordinary public education, and today I love having the opportunity to help teachers and students around the world to engage, collaborate, learn and prepare for a lifetime of learning in the 21st century”
More speakers to be announced soon including our 2021 keynote speaker…
Featured Sessions
Access, Engage, and Express using Kami’s Inclusive Tools
In this session, participants will learn the ways that Kami’s tools can be used to help learners access, engage, and express in ways that support challenges and enhance strengths. Participants will have practical strategies that they can immediately implement in any learning environment.
I Second that Emotion
This research and evidence fuelled session is all about social-emotional learning and why this seems to be newly important for more people right now. Mark Sparvell will explore what the benefits are for life, learning and work and the approaches which research and evidence suggests are most effective.
Introducing approaches shown to help develop emotional intelligence that can be adopted ‘Monday and not Someday’ to help make learners feel seen, heard and know that they matter in this period of uncertainty.
Real-Time Collaboration to Address All Learners Using Kami
This session will focus on using Kami to open up opportunities for collaboration in a variety of subjects. This is powerful not only for group work but also as a way for teachers to see students working in real-time and provide instant feedback. Particularly when teaching in a remote or distance learning setting, where looking over a student’s shoulder is not possible, Kami is a powerful solution in providing our learners the support they need.
Let Kami Transform Your Assessments
A good assessment goes beyond factual memorization and challenges students to express their learning in different ways. Join us as we explore how Kami allows students to do just that! In this session, we will explore the amazing features of Kami that will challenge students to express their understanding in new ways. This session is appropriate for all levels of Kami users.
Whiteboard Wizardry with Kami
Just because our classes are more virtual than ever, that does not mean we have to say goodbye to our classroom essential; the chalkboard/whiteboard. With its device-agnostic, web-based platform, Kami can serve as the digitally enhanced whiteboard that teachers and students can take anywhere. In this session, learn how to integrate Kami as a tool that teachers and students use to make magic during on-the-fly, teachable moments.
Using Kami with K-3 Students (Pre-event)
Learn how you can utilize Kami with your K-3 learners. We will show examples of how this amazing digital tool will allow your students to express their findings in the way they learn best and how you as a teacher can learn, create and collaborate together.
5 Ways to Use Kami in Middle School (Pre-event)
This session highlights 5 ways to use Kami in Middle School, including ways to present information and create interactive collaborative lessons! Find out how to use Kami as an ‘on the fly’ whiteboard, for teacher and student feedback, to create collaborative lessons and interactive journals.
Get Yourself Into Kami (Pre-event)
Building connections with high school students, particularly during times of virtual and hybrid learning, can be tough. Kami can help! Learn ways to get yourself into Kami so you can put your own instructional spin on lessons and activities. Discover how your high school students can take chances with the tools of Kami to share more about who they are as learners and show you what they know. This session features ideas and real-life, teacher-created Kami activities for high school students that highlight and demonstrate Kami tools such as split and merge, insert media, and voice, video, and screencasting comments. Get into Kami to get connected!
Register for Kami Connect today (it’s free!)
Join us and this amazing lineup of speakers and sessions on February 18, 2021 for one action-packed day of professional development, inspiration, and learning.
If that’s not enough, we’ll have live Q&A’s, interactive activities, prizes, and so much more. You won’t want to miss it!
Learn. Be inspired. Connect.
