New Educators are invited to the annual Reform Symposium Online Conference, which will take place from Friday, July 29th to Sunday 31st, 2011. You can attend this online conference from the comfort of your home or anywhere you have Internet access. We have some of the best speakers that present in major educational conferences worldwide. This amazing conference provides you the opportunity to connect with educators and professionals in the field of education worldwide. Over 4100 educators attended our last conference from 80 different countries.

This year focuses on interactive presentations that help teachers create engaging and motivating lessons, build relationships with students, engage parents, integrate technology effectively, and much more. We feature a teacher mentorship program and an open lab for hands-on support in helping you continue your professional development on online educator communities. We promise you have never attended a conference quite like this! Join us for one session or as many as you like! We look forward to seeing you!

Over 50,000 educators worldwide participate in daily professional development online. Many are veterans and experts in their fields and would like to support educators. Please register on the Reform Symposium site, join the group, The Mentorship Program, and contact Lisa Dabbs, the main project coordinator. Throughout the conference we will have one room open throughout the entire conference to help you with any concerns, issues, or technical difficulties you may have throughout the day. We welcome you to drop by this room if you have questions about any of the sessions or need help creating accounts on social networks.

Throughout the day we will also have online professional development workshops dedicated to showing you how to connect with other educators through social bookmarking, joining educator groups on Facebook, and on Twitter. Please feel free to drop in at any time. Kyle Pace and other volunteers will be there to help you!

Web Link: http://reformsymposium.com/

CONFIRMED KEYNOTES

Salome Thomas-EL is a national education expert and consultant. He was a teacher and principal with the Philadelphia School District and received national acclaim as a teacher and chess coach at Vaux Middle School, where his students have gone on to win world recognition as Eight-Time National Chess Champions. Principal EL is a regular contributor on “The Dr. Oz Show” and the author of the best-selling books, I Choose to Stay and The Immortality of Influence. He speaks to groups across the country and frequently appears on C-SPAN, CNN, and NPR Radio. Principal EL was honored as a Reader's Digest Magazine, "Inspiring American Icon" and recently appeared on The Oprah Radio Network.

Kirsten Olson is Chief Listening Officer at Old Sow Consulting, which works with schools, school districts, and emerging organizations on educational equity, learner disengagement, and educational transformation. She serves as the president of board of the Institute for Democratic Education in America, a national grassroots organization designed to support the transformation of American schools, and is the author of Wounded By School: Recapturing The Joy In Learning and Standing Up to Old School Culture (Teachers College Press 2009); Schools As Colonizers (Verlag 2008), and many articles about education. She received a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an undergraduate degree from Vassar College.

Chuck Sandy is an internationally-renowned author, teacher trainer and educational activist who believes that positive change in education happens one student, one classroom, one school at a time. He co-authored the Passages and Connect Series, and the Active Skills for Communication Series. He presents at conferences around the world, and is actively involved in building online learning communities. He is actively engaged in spreading the Design for Change Movement around the world. He currently works in the Graduate School for Global Humanities at Chubu University, in central Japan.

Angela Maiers is an award-winning educator, speaker, consultant and professional trainer known for her work in literacy, leadership and global communications. As owner and lead consultant at Maiers Educational Services, she uses her passion for literacy and technology to discover creative ways to assist schools and organizations in meeting their learning and productivity goals. She has spent 22 years working in Elementary, Middle and University settings as a classroom teacher, reading specialist, coach, special programs facilitator, and University Professor. She is the co-author of The Passion-Driven Classroom: A Framework for Teaching and Learning.

Dr. Alec Couros, is an Associate Professor of educational technology and media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. He has given hundreds of workshops and presentations, nationally and internationally, on topics such as openness in education, networked learning, social media in education, digital citizenship, and critical media literacy. His graduate and undergraduate courses help current and future educators understand how to use and take advantage of the educational potential offered by the tools of connectivity.

George Couros is the Division Principal of Innovative Teaching and Learning for Parkland School Division. He resides at the Centre for Education working closely with the Future Team, Lead Team, Learning Services Department and Information Technology Department where he pushes the leading edge in implementing Alberta Education’s new Goal Two - Educational Transformation. In August 2009, George was appointed the Principal of Forest Green School / Connections for Learning. He additionally co-facilitates Great Leaders, Great Teams, Great Results leadership training, is a leader on the effective use of social media to improve student learning. He is a sought after speaker on the topic of advancing student learning and engagement. George also created the Connected Principals group and blog website.

Dr. Pamela Burnard's career has been woven from a combination of experiences as a musician, performer, educator, academic and researcher in Australia, USA and England from where she holds degrees in Music Performance, Music Education, and Education. She is internationally known for her work in the areas of creative learning and teaching, musical creativity/ies, assessing creativity and the sociology of music education. She acts as mentor for the Welsh Educational Research Network (WERN). Pamela is co-convenor of the BERA Creativity SIG, co-editor of the British Journal of Music Education, Associate Editor of Psychology of Music and serves on 9 other editorial boards. Pamela manages an extensive research seminar programme which supplements the Masters in Arts, Culture and Education, a course she initiated and has built extensive networks which link university, school and community arts organizations. She’s currently based at Cambridge University.

John Davitt is a writer, broadcaster and a digital toolmaker. He has worked in the education sector for the last 25 years as an English teacher, senior manager and regional adviser with the EU Flexible Learning Project. As a journalist he wrote for the UK Guardian, The Times and The Observer, with a regular feature in the Education Guardian. John has worked extensively with teachers in schools in UK, USA, China and Africa and he is committed to leveling the playing field regarding access to new learning opportunities. He is the author of the book “New Tools for Learning” (2006) a practical guide as to how to make the technology fit the learning need, and the WordRoot CD an interactive guide to words and their etymology.