THE Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) has made arrangements for its members to purchase flash drives at a reduced cost during its 11th annual education conference scheduled for Wednesday, at the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort in Rosehall, St James.

The 512 megabyte drives are expected to relieve participants from the cumbersome load of presentations, which the conference entitled ‘Teaching for success, reaching every learner’, is expected to generate.

“This feature of the conference will allow us to move away from the whole business of photocopying. Instead of the usual stack of paper, and the time- consuming photocopying of presentations, members will be able to take all the information away with them on this compact device,” said Garfield Higgins, the JTA’s public relations officer.

“This will facilitate a more efficient means of sharing the information with others via electronic means. It will also encourage teachers to embrace computer technology more fully,” he added.

In addition to several local educators, the conference, which will run from April 11 to 13, will see two senior educators from Bermuda – Donna Swainson-Robnson and Steve Lawrence – sharing some of that country’s latest innovations in effective teaching strategies.

Swainson-Robinson, a certified IT 3 Microsoft specialist, is a senior instructor at the Cedarbridge Academy, Bermuda’s largest senior secondary school. The holder of a Master of Science degree in Education Technology, she is also an adjunct lecturer at the Endacott College in Bermuda.

Lawrence, who is currently working on a doctorate in education, also serves Cedarbridge as an instructor in Information Technology (IT) and used to have technical oversight of the Heart Trust NTA’s distance education programme. Before that, he served for several years as the IT manager for Jamaica’s Social Development Commission.

Other presentations from local educators – among them Dr Annette Henriques-Piper; Christopher Clarke, a senior lecturer at the Shortwood Teachers’ College; Jean Beaumont of E-Learning Jamaica Limited and Sadie Harris-Mortley of Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College in Montego Bay – will cover the latest updates and innovations in several other areas, including strategies for gifted learners, performance-based learning; multiple intelligence assessment strategies.

Education Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the conference.