CAID 2009: Day One

Last night, my mom and I arrived in Washington D.C. to attend the Council of American Instructors of the Deaf's bi-annual conference. Shortly after graduation, I found out about the CAID 2009 conference from their website. Not only did the proposed presentations look exciting, the conference was also the perfect excuse to visit Gallaudet for first time.

Presentations start tomorrow and continue through Friday, but CAID also offered pre-conference workshops on Monday and Tuesday. I chose to attend a one-day workshop, "Going with the Resistance," focusing on a paradoxical approach to descalate and avoid power struggles with adolescents. The conference lasted all day, so we had a lot of opportunities to discuss and work with what we learned. The presenters from the Laurent Clerc Center provided us with print outs of their presentation as well as a resource workbook.

Immediately following the workshop was the conference's first keynote address delivered by Mindy Hopper. She discussed the necessity of connectedness in exposing Deaf/HH students to the information-rich informal curriculum that surrounds them. Before concluding her address, she invited individuals from the audience to come up front and dream about the future potential of Deaf education.

During this dream session, the audience expressed varying levels of optimism about the role technology may play in the future. In her address, Hopper mentioned the trend of mainstreaming Deaf/HH students in separate public schools. As educators, we may have little control over decisions like these that the district or state makes. Whether we like the situation or not, the students still need our services and support, maybe now more than ever. I think today's technologies are great resources educators can use to combat the isolation that threatens the connectedness Deaf/HH student need to succeed.

Digital literacy is becoming more of a common ground that Deaf/HH students share with their hearing peers. Even if hearing students know no sign language and a Deaf/HH student has limited oral skills, shared technologies like texting/IM or twitter or myspace/facebook, make effective communication possible and informal curriculum accessible. Technology can also be used to support collaboration between the Deaf educator and parents, mainstream teachers, interpreters, or other support staff and thus strengthen the connections among the students' caregiving community.

I returned to my room for the first time in 12 hours after some post-keynote mingling. It was a long day, but a good one. I met some awesome teachers from KDES and MSSD as well as two other recent graduates from Kent University. Tomorrow will be just a jam-packed with learning and networking opportunities, and I can't wait. :)