Reflection of the Pro-D events

This is the first time I joined a Pro-D day event as a student-teacher. I was excited and curious about everything including the process. First, I realize to I have to make good plan and do my research before I could make a decision on which conference I could go to.  And there is a fee which teachers have to pay instead of supported by the school board or minister of Education.  And most of the conferences are organized by the BCTF, the union of the teachers which one teacher paid their membership fee to. Second, there are so many different conferences at the same time which offers the opportunity for teachers to follow their interests and needs. However, I am thinking if the BCTF could make everything to be available to every member might be even cool. I mean they could put all the material or slides on the website as resources. Third, the CUEBC offered lots of new ideas on using technology in teaching. I joined three conferences; two of them talking about the new ideas on using either game or apps. Both of them using the tools which are still developing. Teachers can help them to test and enrich them.
The day of Oct 25 is raining, but 400 people gathered for the conference of  CUEBC. I met a guy on the bus who fought from the northern part of BC for the event. I was touched. Our note-taking event in the morning was "Social media Wellness: Helping Teens and Tweens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital World".  The speaker Ana Homayoun suggested to form a supportive team to facilitate teen's effective regulation and safety on social media instead of trying to control them. I like her on revealing the issue by two expressions " me to my child ' why are you so entertained watching other kids play video games on YouTube? also me 'turn on HGTV watch other adults buying houses. " Audiences were laughing. Yes, we might not realize that distraction and procrastination have similar syndrome both for adults and teens. We should show our empathy and support to young people.
After the keynote, I joined a session about Computational Thinking and Visual programming. The session was held by a teacher Kelly Nichols from Crofton House School in Vancouver. The session introduced a software of c3d.io, which allows students to build their own VR and learn to code. The software is easy to handle by grade 8 or above students, and students have the opportunity to create their own 3D animation and play on the web. Therefore, it might be a good one to blend the programming concept with creativity.  Nichols also offered a practical sample of the worksheets. Another session I joined was held by Adam Sheer, a team from UBC. There showed an application for collaborative learning notes. The app can help teachers to embed other sources in their classes, create acquisition active and assess students on their own level, also the app can integrate with other platforms, such as Canvas, Blackboard or Google Classroom. However, two software are still in developing, but open to Beta test for the teacher to use and offering suggestions. 
Another session I joined was for IT infrastructure. I expected to learn about the situation in public school, however, the speaker showed research instead of detail of the school setting. I learned but didn't reach my goal.
The Pro-D day conference opened my mind and I am looking forward to the next one, a better one. I will plan better and make a better choice next time.