Month: February 2019

February 22, 2019

Does your company work in the ed-tech or education industry? If so, then you most likely have heard of the top educational technology conferences all over the United States. As an employee of an ed-tech startup, I know how important these conferences are to ed-tech companies, especially startups. However, these conferences are just as important for educators too.

It may not seem like educational technology conferences are all that important, but they truly are for educators. Ed-tech companies from all over the world attend some of these conferences as vendors/exhibitors, especially the bigger ones such as ISTE or TCEA. By attending these conferences, educators get these opportunities:

• Networking–The conferences usually allow a specific time slot for attendees to walk around and stop by the vendor’s booths. This allows educators to network and meet new people from all over the country. 
• Upcoming Products– A lot of the ed-tech companies will be promoting their newer features or products. They usually have them showcased for attendees to try out and see. This gives educators a good insight on the new technology that could potentially be coming to their school. 
• Specific Products– A lot of educators attend a conference with a few specific companies in mind that they already want to learn more about. Maybe they learned about them on a social media site or received an email about them. The conferences allow them to go right up to the member from that company and get all of the information they need right then and there. 

On top of all of these benefits, educational technology conferences are always a fun time! Attendees receive so many freebies, new insights into things, and great ideas to take back to their schools. If you haven’t gotten the opportunity to attend an ed-tech conference yet, I highly recommend finding one that sounds interesting to you and going to it this year. 

If you need some suggestions, My School Dance will be an exhibitor at UCET, CADA, ISTE, Brainstorm-WI, NCSC, and ICE-IL in the next couple of months. Any of these shows would be great for all educators.

If you are planning on attending any of the shows listed above, stop by My School Dance’s booth to learn more about how we can make your school’s dance planning a whole lot easier!

Contact:

Stephanie Hamilton

833-336-8656

February 15, 2019

Have you ever planned and managed something as big as a high school Prom or a Daddy Daughter Dance? With something as big as that comes a lot of challenges that many dance planners have to take on. But, do you know the number 1 challenge that comes along with dance planning and managing?

“Never have enough time.” 

With being involved in the dance planning/managing market, this is the excuse we hear all the time. I totally get it! With everything a dance entails, sometimes you really don’t have enough time. Plus, if you’re the only one in charge of organizing everything, then you REALLY don’t have time.

Unless you’re a professional event planner, a lot of people don’t know the correct way to go about planning a dance. Many teachers volunteer to be in charge of a specific dance on top of all of their other duties. This means they have to define goals, create a schedule, create a budget, choose a venue, speakers, music, food, decor, photographer, manage all data and metrics, sell tickets, collect permission slips, create flyers, advertise, check students in and out, and the list goes on and on.

This is why I’m here to tell you that by managing with My School Dance, we give you countless hours back to focus on the areas that take longer to plan. I’ll give you some examples:

• Selling tickets– Instead of creating tickets and sitting at lunch selling them, use our online ticket sales feature. This gives you an hour a day back to focus on what decor or musician you want.
• Collecting permission slips– Instead of creating permission slips, handing them out, collecting them, and keeping them organized, just have students fill out our online permission slips and email them back to you. This way you won’t accidentally lose any of them with all of the paper stacks you already have.
• Checking students in– Why sit at a table at the entrance of the venue flipping through names to find the student, when you can just scan them with our QR code feature on your phone?
• Data– No need to constantly create new spreadsheets to organize all the data for the bookkeeper when My School Dance’s reporting will do it for you.
• Publicity– Don’t even bother creating a flyer and hanging them up around your school when you can just share your school’s dance landing page on all your social media sites.
• Checklist– My School Dance also has a dance planning checklist so you can use it to make sure you’re on the right timeline for your event.

These are just a few features that will save you endless hours on specific tasks for planning a dance. Now instead of saying, “I never have enough time” you’ll be saying “I have so much time!” 

Contact:

Stephanie Hamilton

833-336-8656

February 8, 2019

Happy early Valentine’s Day everyone! It’s about that time to start thinking about the fun activities you have in place for your students to do next week. Haven’t thought about it yet? No worries. I’ve come up with a few cute, yet educational activities for all sorts of classes!

• Poems– Instead of having students read poetry, have them create their own Valentine’s Day poem. Have them choose between a haiku or acrostic poem. 
• Bulletin Board– Most teachers have some type of bulletin board hanging up around the classroom. Have students cut out hearts and decorate them however they want. Then, have them write something that they love about the school on it. Tell them to focus it around the people that make up the school like their teachers, faculty, and staff. This will be a sweet and caring gesture for all to see!
• Valentine’s Day Escape Room– This is for the upper grade levels. Plan an “escape room” in your classroom based around Valentine’s Day facts/history. Pair the students up in groups of 6-8 and have them go in for a certain amount of time to try to figure out the clues and escape. Pinterest has some awesome ideas when it comes to escape rooms in the classroom too! 
• Valentine’s Day Coding STEM Binary Alphabet– Have your students learn about the binary alphabet while creating beaded hearts. They can write words in code while creating hearts that you can hang up in your classroom after. 
• Candy Structures (STEM)– Split your students in groups of 3-4 and give them a bag of gummy heart candies and toothpicks. Set a timer and have the groups work together to build a structure with the materials that were given to them. Whichever group has the tallest standing structure when the timer goes off wins. 
• Valentine’s Day Dance– Host a casual Valentine’s Day dance for students. Make all of your decorations yourself or have your art students assist. This dance can be held in your gym or cafeteria too. My School Dance can assist with managing the dance for free too. This is a great way for students to interact and get out of the classroom environment. 

These are just a few different activities that you can throw into your plan for next week. They are fun ways for students to work together and have fun celebrating Valentine’s Day while still learning. My School Dance wants all schools to have more activities that help students to interact with each other more. This is the perfect time to do one of these activities.

Start thinking about how you will incorporate the Valentine’s Day holiday into your lesson plans now! 

Contact:

Stephanie Hamilton

833-336-8656

February 1, 2019

“Why do you care so much about school dances?”

“It’s just a school dance, who cares?”

Many people ask why we care so much about high school or middle school dances. A lot of people look at dances in a general view rather than looking at them with a deeper meaning. My School Dance strongly believes that school dances or events like this have a huge impact on our student’s lives.

In today’s world, it seems that teenagers are more disconnected than ever. With the rise of technology and more ways to communicate over the internet, teens are forgetting the importance of face-to-face interaction. On average, high schoolers spend up to 9 hours connected to digital media ranging from social apps like Facebook and Snapchat, to computers and television. 55% of teenagers say that their phones are almost always out when they’re spending time with friends and family. When in school, students spend time learning and studying, sometimes also behind a screen. At home, between extracurricular activities and homework, they’re checking Instagram stories and watching the latest episode of Riverdale. Most of the time, once kids get to high school, they are not having playdates with a variety of friends.

More than 15 million Americans are suffering from social anxiety. This usually begins at the adolescent age. 13% of teens have had at least one major depressive episode. 32% have a diagnosed anxiety disorder. In order to get teenagers to socialize more with kids in positive manners you need to provide opportunities to build social skills, cultivate positive emotions, and practice face-to-face communication skills.

School dances, like Prom or Homecoming, serve as a place for social interaction. Some of the benefits of school dances are:

• Incredible fundraising opportunities for student activities
• Create a greater sense of community within the school and boost morale
• They provide a supervised safe space for students
• Create memories that can last beyond school
• They force students to spend time interacting with others & better their social skills

Our students have so much going on in their lives nowadays between school, extra-curricular activities, college applications, etc. It’s important to have events like school dances for them to get out of the classroom environment and have fun.

Now that you know the importance behind school dances, let’s start planning and managing your school’s next dance with My School Dance today! It’s free for schools to use. Sign your school up now! 

Contact:

Stephanie Hamilton

833-336-8656