NCED Connect Symposium 2025

Inclusive education starts by integrating the voices of diverse learners. This session explores how AI, LMS tools, and OER can transform digital learning into accessible and equitable experiences. Participants will examine assistive technologies like screen readers and speech-to-text tools, learn to implement LMS settings that address IEP accommodations, and design alternative assignments that align with student needs.
Through hands-on activities, attendees will apply AI prompting techniques, test LMS features, and explore accessible OERs. A focus on collaborative course design highlights the value of input from students, educators, and support systems to foster innovation and inclusivity.
This session provides actionable insights and practical tools to design accessible courses that empower all learners, ensuring equity and engagement in digital learning environments. Join us to transform your instructional practices and foster truly inclusive learning.

Thinking critically often requires that students have foundational content knowledge first, which can take time.  Once students have the knowledge needed, they are ready to lean into more difficult learning tasks.  By leveraging Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, we can accelerate students to higher levels of thinking quickly.  By using Backwards Design, we can ensure students have the necessary scaffolding to support their learning.  
Aligning courses to standards is essential for ensuring student success as it provides a clear framework for what students are expected to learn and achieve throughout any given grade level or course. This alignment helps teachers set clear learning objectives, design effective instructional activities, and assess student progress accurately.
In this session, educators will break down the alignment process and focus on tangible, clear-cut processes to ensure proper alignment to enhance student use of their critical thinking skills.

In this session, presenters from North Carolina Virtual Public School will share their experience leveraging AI tools to update a Middle Success Skills course aligned with future-ready skills including the NC Digital Teaching and Learning Standards. The session will introduce teachers to the Success Skills curriculum and strategies to leverage AI to support their own curriculum development needs. 

Learn how an impact dashboard serves as a powerful visual tool for administrators, educators, and students to access and utilize real-time data. Attendees will learn what an impact dashboard is, as well as the potential power of impact dashboards in promoting positive messaging in educational communities. They will learn how to utilize Google Forms and Google Sheets to collect and organize data, as well as Google Looker Studio to craft the real-time impact dashboard to showcase their data. Attendees will collaborate with one another to discuss types of data sets that could be showcased on an impact dashboard and the impact they could have on their student population. They will be guided on how to craft their own impact dashboard. Attendees will be provided templates and guides for reference when crafting future impact dashboards. At the end of the session, participants will have a working Looker Studio impact dashboard connected to a data set, ready to implement!