NCED Connect Symposium 2025

Imagine a world where students experience a story through not only reading it, but also connecting to it authentically through the use of STEM activities and Makerspaces. By mixing these areas, students experience transformative learning resulting in deeper understanding by sparking curiosity and innovative thinking to solve problems.

Join this roundtable discussion featuring leaders from three diverse school systems who have embarked on the journey of creating and implementing AI guidelines. This session will provide insight into their approaches, successes, and lessons learned in navigating AI's complex landscape within education. Panelists will share their perspectives on the ethical considerations, equity, and educational goals shaping their AI policies. Attendees will gain practical strategies for crafting AI guidelines that empower students, support teachers, and reflect community values. This session is ideal for educators and administrators aiming to responsibly integrate AI in their schools.

We will hear from Allyson Medlin in Davidson County Schools, Randy Seldomridge in Caldwell County Schools, and Brooke Johnson in Stokes County about their journey in creating AI policies and procedures for their PSUs.

This session is an interactive session where participants will learn how STEM can help teachers integrate the science and engineering practices into their classroom. Analyze existing STEM challenges and lessons for SEP integration and take ideas and resources with you for your district.

Come hear how Moore County School teachers use data to improve student outcomes.  We will share our data dive protocol for Learners, AKA The L Protocol.  The goal is to use various data points to identify students with the most potential of movement.  Teachers can easily idenify the students who are struggling the most, but it's easy for the kids in the middle to fall through the cracks.  Our L Protocol identifies areas of focus for individual students using EOG, mClas, iReady, Check-In, and more in a quick protocol.

Many students often struggle with connecting with literacy in an authentic way.  Design Thinking, a human centered problem solving process, can be a powerful integration tool to help students connect with literacy in authentic ways.  The experience of integrating Design Thinking with literacy can be transformative for learners when students use empathy maps and create solutions for characters from the stories that they are reading.  Additionally, students will cultivate and grow their own creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration.  

Are you new to Schoolnet or are you a pro? This session will hone your skills, help to troubleshoot issues, and support using Schoolnet in your school. We will cover tips and tricks for teachers when using Schoolnet to assess student learning. We will also include tech issues and fixes to keep your staff and students up and running in Schoolnet.Presenters: Amanda Phillips, Rebecca Stokes, and Catherine Simone

Join us for a District’s perspective on Common Formative Assessments and District Benchmarks in Schoolnet. This presentation will provide a brief Schoolnet overview followed by Harnett County sharing why they use Schoolnet, what assessments they create in Schoolnet, and how they use the test data for student learning. Presenters: Amy Calder-Church, Rebecca Stokes, and Catherine Simone

What does it take for a district to successfully implement AI in schools? Join us for an interactive and collaborative session exploring our district's journey in integrating AI, from the district level to individual schools and all the steps in between. We will discuss the challenges and successes we've encountered along the way, share best practices, and highlight key strategies for effectively incorporating AI into our educational framework. Whether you're new to AI or looking to enhance your current initiatives, this session will provide valuable insights and practical guidance for moving forward.

In this session, school and district leaders will explore key guidelines and best practices for integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) in educational settings. Participants will learn about ethical considerations, data privacy, and how to align AI tools with district policies and educational goals. The session will also cover practical frameworks for setting expectations around AI use in classrooms, fostering collaboration with educators, and ensuring that AI is leveraged to enhance student learning outcomes while maintaining transparency and accountability.

Join me for an interactive EdTech escape room designed to explore the NC Portrait of a Graduate’s durable skills: Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, Adaptability, and Creativity. Participants will engage in AI-powered challenges at each skill station, experiencing firsthand how AI tools can enhance real-world problem-solving and innovation in the classroom.This session will leave you with practical ideas and tools to bring AI-supported skill-building into your teaching practice. Get ready for a fast-paced, hands-on experience that will inspire new ways to foster essential skills for today’s learners!

Are you new to Schoolnet or are you a pro? This session will hone your skills, help to troubleshoot issues, and support using Schoolnet in your school. We will cover tips and tricks for teachers when using Schoolnet to assess student learning. We will also include tech issues and fixes to keep your staff and students up and running in Schoolnet.Presenters: Amanda Phillips, Rebecca Stokes, and Catherine Simone

Ready to take your district’s professional learning on AI from small beginnings to transformative impact? In this session, we’ll explore practical strategies to scale AI-focused training and support across schools. Learn how to create sustainable programs, foster educator buy-in, and ensure equity in access to AI learning opportunities. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to expand your reach, this session will provide actionable ideas to help your district take big leaps toward empowering teachers and students with AI tools and knowledge.

Setoff on an adventure into the Kingdom of Boyd. King Boyd will share with you the way to gamify your classroom for a learning experience like no other. Attendees will be introduced to a classroom setting that allows students to grow and thrive in a way that encourages them to use their strengths to apply their learning. Gamification begins with the terminology, theming your classroom and decorating. I will share how my class takes on a medieval theme as the students enter the castle of a king and work their way up the social hierarchy of the Middle Ages. We will also look at ways that you could theme your classroom in other subjects. Adventurers who join will go on Quests, complete Challenges, & Boss Battles all while leveling up as if they were playing a Role Playing Game. Quests consist of choices to create and apply their learning in a variety of ways such as decorating phone cases and Stanley cups, creating Newspapers, Magazine Covers, Social Media Pages and many more activities to choose from. They do these activities with things relevant to the content they are learning in a digital format. Participants will walk through a week in the classroom and be active participants in the session. They will have an opportunity to explore digital tools like ChatGPT and Brisk teaching to help enhance any lesson and create products that they can take back to their classroom to use. Participants will walk away with a packet of resources to implement in their own learning spaces.

Come hear how Moore County School teachers use data to improve student outcomes.  We will share our data dive protocol for Learners, AKA The L Protocol.  The goal is to use various data points to identify students with the most potential of movement.  Teachers can easily idenify the students who are struggling the most, but it's easy for the kids in the middle to fall through the cracks.  Our L Protocol identifies areas of focus for individual students using EOG, mClas, iReady, Check-In, and more in a quick protocol.

In this session, we will discuss how scaffolding the use of a digital tool like Canva can benefit students in terms of products created and enhance learning experiences in the classroom. We would all agree that the more we use a tool, the more comfortable we are with it, and the better the products we produce. Do we approach student products the same way?This session will provide practical strategies and examples to effectively integrate Canva into your teaching practice and easy ways to connect activities, building on the understanding of Canva as a tool leading to a higher level of creativity, more in-depth projects, and ultimately better products, refocusing on the learning and not the challenge of learning a new tool all the time.Participants will discuss how we scaffold learning content and how we apply this concept to tools in the classroom or if we even do. Then, we will walk through a sample yearly curriculum showcasing ways Canva could be tactfully applied and how the scaffolding concept would work. Lastly, participants will get a chance to share ways they have used Canva in the classroom and if they used the scaffolding concept or if scaffolding the use of the tool would have changed student outcomes.