I was really lucky to have been able to attend the COABE 2025 conference in Dallas Texas, March 30th -April 2nd . COABE stands for Coalition on Adult Basic Education, and it is quite big with well over 2000 attendees. I had applied to attend around this time last year, before the current political climate, and luckily no negative experiences arose – I was a bit nervous to be honest.
ellii – One of My Favorite Digital Resources
One of the first things my coworkers and I did at the conference was head over to ellii’s booth in the exhibitor’s hall. ellii is a website many Coquitlam Continuing Ed teachers use for EAL resources. I love using the digital lessons especially as assigned extra work, or sometimes as flipped classroom previews. Not only did we get ellii shirts, but we did make it onto their Linkedin post – check it out here!
The Heart of Texas
No, I did not try the mechanical bull but I definitely wanted to! This was at a venue called Gilley’s where my coworkers and I, as well as many other attendees, enjoyed BBQ, line dancing, and for some – the mechanical bull. Just looking at it, my gut (and lower back) told me not to do it.
A Memorable Keynote
The keynote that made the strongest impression on me was Michael Ivanov. He spoke well, used humor to balance serious topics, and was very motivational. He really had me listening when, at the beginning of his talk, he told us that his parents immigrated from Ukraine. It made me think of the Ukrainian students in my classroom who are going through similar struggles, the struggles of leaving everything behind and then trying to fit into a new culture, language and country. Michael gave three pieces of advice: 1. tame your tongue, 2. live with the end in mind, and 3. you must take action. He quoted Winston Churchill, “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” Here again I think of all my newcomer students, learning not only English but also a new culture and country. They fail many times along the way and see it as a negative thing when actually, as Winston says, failure is the way to success – the key being to keep your drive to achieve. This is where I think I can make a difference in their lives. I can be the teacher to encourage and help them keep motivation to learn even when mistakes happen!
Whova
This was not the first time I have used the Whova app for a conference, but each time I use it, it seems to improve. It now has so many functions. You can of course view all the sessions, add the ones you want to attend to your agenda, and contact the speakers. But within each session you can also participate in polls, ask questions prior to the sessions, and give feedback after. Attendees can also live stream sessions if the room fills up or if you just want to attend virtually. Handouts are available in the session sections of the app and can include PDFs and slide shows. The exhibitors have digital booths on the app as well and there are several contests you can participate in. After the conference, live session recordings are also uploaded – which I haven’t yet tried, but plan to since there were so many really good sessions at this event – it was so hard to choose between them. Whova is definitely getting more and more interactive and makes the sessions more accessible to attendees.
Whova app screenshots
Though I was impressed with the social-media and open resource sharing within the Whova platform, it just made me think that it really is too bad that these conference contacts and content are not completely open to anyone and everyone – only to those who can pay to attend. I’m seeing more and more as I go along in my continuous learning journey, just how important OERs are.
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