The Jackson School District hosted its sixth annual IgnitED Educational Conference on Thursday, July 18, at Jackson High School. The conference provides Missouri educators with an affordable opportunity for professional development.

The 236 educators in attendance represented more than 30 school districts throughout Southeast Missouri and the St. Louis area. While other educational conferences can be costly, IgnitED costs each attendee $25.

"I would say an average conference costs around $250 for a participant to attend. Our conference is $25," Brandon Brazel, an instructional technology specialist at Jackson schools, said. "... For some of these smaller, rural schools, it's the only professional development opportunity they have. As the largest school district in the area, we're thrilled to be able to provide that and share with those districts around us."

Kristie Brownsberger, a Jackson High School math teacher who attended the event, said IgnitED is the most professional development she gets all year.

"It probably takes me a couple of days just to unpack everything I've got. A lot of the presenters present us with all this material, and then I go home with my brain wanting to do it all. It takes me a couple of days to sort through," Brownsberger said. "Because they always share their presentation links as well, I can go back through and see all of the cool information."

Attendees could select from more than 50 breakout sessions, 10 per hour, focusing on the "latest instructional strategies and technology integration". Session topics included using Google in the classroom, trauma-informed teaching, and how to use the online graphic design tool Canva. According to Danna Bruns, another instructional technology specialist in the district, the conference sessions regarding artificial intelligence were especially popular with attendees.

"(AI) was a huge topic today that definitely wasn't even something that was on our radar when we started this," Bruns said. "... I know there's more technology and instructional strategies that have changed, too, but AI is just the one — after reading everybody's comments from (Thursday) — that was the big thing for them."

Brownsberger didn't attend any sessions covering AI but learned about it during a presentation about Google.

"I attended a Google session, and she incorporated AI into it because she said nowadays, Google is turning to AI as well. I didn't even know Google had an AI platform, but they do," Brownsberger said. "Half of her session was AI entailed, and I didn't think that that would really help me as a math teacher. But after seeing her, I'm kind of interested now, and I'm going to have to do more research."

Bruns and Brazel said they modeled IgnitED six years ago after the South Central Learning Summit in Rolla, hosted by retired teacher Brenda Spurgeon. Spurgeon also presents each year at IgnitED, and is a “fan favorite”, according to Brazel.

"We've known Brenda Spurgeon from Rolla for many years. I was a librarian when I met her," Bruns said. "She would invite us to present at her conference, and after we had done that for two years, we were like, 'We could do this.' We modeled a lot of it after the SCLS conference up in Rolla, and it's just taken off from there."

Brownsberger said she has attended each IgnitED conference, including the first one when she was a teacher at Leopold High School. One of her favorite things about IgnitED over other professional development conferences is being able to choose to attend sessions that apply to her specifically.

"They have so many different choices to choose from that you're basically getting five conferences in one," Brownsberger said. "They even split it up to where they give us a suggested audience, because nothing is more frustrating than listening to someone tell me how to teach elementary kids because I don't do that. They suggest the audiences so you can pick the one that applies to you. ...

"I would definitely recommend it to anybody."