While you’re attending the show for education and inspiration from your peers, it’s important to get out and explore Daytona. With that in mind, our team put together their top five plus must-see and must-do lists in no particular order.

#1 The Beach, Boardwalk & Pier

Who doesn’t love a beach? And when you add in fun activities and yummy food, the Daytona beach area is a good time if you go solo or with a friend!

#2 Shopping

Whether you want to do a little window shopping or pick up something festive from a boutique. There are many options if you explore the shopping district, Volusia Mall, Tanger Outlets, and ONE DAYTONA. Shop till you drop!

#3 Daytona Speedway Tour

While you just missed DAYTONA 500, you should stop by and get a tour. It’s a great opportunity to go behind the scenes of the world center racing epicenter.

# 4 Golfing

The savviest golfers know that Daytona Beach area golf is truly one of Florida’s premiere destinations. There are nearly 20 golf courses to choose from. If you have time, make a special trip to LPGA International, a highly-acclaimed 36-hole facility.

#5 Galleries & Museums

While we have to visit MOAS (Museum of Arts & Sciences) any time we are in town, there is no shortage of places to stop. Explore news collections, see interesting artists, support the local community, and, most importantly, take in the culture.

Bonus Meet with TORSH

Ok, we had to add this in; after all, we are on tour! We’d love to connect with you if you plan on attending FASA and/or ALEC events this quarter.

Stop by our table, or if you want to schedule some time to talk with an EIC specialist today, sign up here.

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This conference brings together stakeholders in teacher preparation that use or are planning to implement edTPA. Last year, Torsh TALENT, our online professional development platform, became an official integrated edTPA platform provider, which is something that makes us very proud. That’s why Courtney is not just attending the conference, he’s also a featured speaker. 

Courtney’s presentation will highlight how schools can integrate TALENT with their certification programs, making the process easier and more streamlined. Courtney will use New York University as a case study and demonstrate how they use the edTPA tools in Torsh TALENT for their teacher residency program. To receive certification, teachers assemble a portfolio of materials such as lesson plans, student work, other artifacts, and videos of their classroom instruction. Teachers can create and store their portfolios right on Torsh TALENT, share their work with professors, colleagues, and mentors to receive feedback, then submit the final version directly to Pearson, the organization that scores their work. This organizes the process and allows students to receive valuable feedback on the work they are submitting. 

Courtney very much looks forward to sharing how TALENT works with edTPA; he will also certainly enjoy connecting with faculty and staff involved in teacher preparation programs. We hope that access to tools such as TALENT will make it easier to adopt edTPA and will contribute to a more universal certification that elevates the teaching profession.

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The three days of enrichment for early childhood educators is themed “Soaring to New Heights.” The conference will host more than 150 workshops focusing on an array of topics, from curriculum development to advocacy and public policy.

Representing the Torsh team will be Courtney Williams, our Co-Founder and CEO, and Sophie Parker, Coordinator of Business Development. In keeping with this year’s theme, our team will present on supporting the growth of early educators and improving program quality through the innovative use of video and classroom observation technology. Attendees will get a glimpse of how video observation tools can be used for reflection, coaching, and promoting exemplary strategies in the classroom.

The session will also offer an introduction to Torsh TALENT, our platform designed to support educators’ growth by utilizing video in assessing, sharing, and refining their practice. TALENT makes it possible for educators to illuminate their progress while maintaining focus on their students’ engagement. It allowing educators to objectively “recognize and improve their teaching,” Torsh is working to accomplish our mission of driving significant gains in student success by improving instructional effectiveness.

We are motivated by our commitment to education. Thus the CAEYC conference promises to be an uplifting summit to usher in the spring. Founded in 1953, the CAEYC “envisions a respected professional workforce providing developmentally appropriate and culturally sensitive, high-quality, early care and education for all young children achieved through research, education, professional development and advocacy.” We can’t wait to meet with the practitioners and leaders who are progressing early education across the state.

Visit the CAEYC to learn more about the organization and this year’s conference.

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Our long-standing partnership with NTC and our shared mission – to improve student outcomes by training great teachers – make this event a “must attend” on our annual conference calendar. This year’s theme was “REALIZE: Grow + Teach + Lead.” The symposium’s purpose was to bring together leaders in education to share best practices for developing a well-trained and highly-effective teaching workforce. Some of the topics or “tracks” covered this year included Mentoring and Coaching, Equity and Access and our personal favorite, Innovation in the Field.

Certainly, a highlight for Courtney and James was sitting in the audience while our friends at NTC presented on the topic of  “Leveraging Video to Support Teacher Learning.” In this session, members of the NTC team shared “best practices, strategies, and research on how the Santa Cruz/Silicon Valley New Teacher Project, a face-to-face mentoring model, is leveraging video to support ongoing teacher and mentor learning.” Team members highlighted how they utilize Torsh TALENT in their ongoing work.

A former Teach for America recruiter before joining our sales team at Torsh, James had this to say upon returning to the office after the symposium: “To sit in an audience and hear our clients talk about their positive experiences with Torsh TALENT is incredibly motivating. I’m very proud that an esteemed organization like NTC continues to derive value from our platform… so much so, that they share it as a best practice.”

Congrats to NTC for hosting another successful symposium this year. And congrats to the entire Torsh team. Together with our clients, we are truly having an impact in the field of education. Keep up the great work!

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So what exactly goes on behind the scenes at an ERDI conference, and why would Torsh want to be there? This conference provides an opportunity for our CEO, Courtney Williams, to participate in a three-hour panel discussion with five school superintendents, all of whom are experts in the field of education. The topic is determined by the client (in our case, Courtney). What follows is a free-flow of invaluable input, candid feedback, and brainstorming during which these leaders in K-12 education share their insight, feedback, and advice with us. Having the opportunity to learn from their collective experience and wisdom makes this a conference well-worth attending!

At Torsh, we have always been interested in learning from educational leaders. Our teacher professional development platform, Torsh TALENT, was built on a solid foundation of input from teachers and administrators. We listened to their needs and created a comprehensive solution. Each and every year we take the feedback we receive from our clients and find new and innovative ways to incorporate their suggestions.  

Last week, I interviewed Courtney to learn what’s on the roadmap for 2017. We are excited to run these new ideas by a panel of superintendents from across the country to receive “candid, unvarnished feedback.” We hope they like our ideas but most of all, we hope that these discussions lead to even more meaningful improvements to Torsh TALENT. 

As always, what motivates us is our commitment to education. We are looking forward to meeting with people who share our vision for better schools. If you’re here for the conference and are interested in learning more about what we do, we would love to connect with you while you are here in NOLA! Drop an email to me at contact@torsh.co and I’ll be sure Courtney schedules you into his calendar. 

For more information about ERDI and the conference, you can visit their website here.

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BAEYC is an organization that “strives to increase respect for, and visibility of, early childhood professionals by supporting practices and policies that promote high-quality programming, leadership development and attention to the needs of the diverse communities and individuals who serve young children and families in the greater Boston area.” These are certainly areas of great concern to the future of our youngest learners in the Bay State, and beyond.

Today being inauguration day, the conference theme of “Inspirational Leadership: Defining Your Legacy” seems particularly timely. We are proud that our own inspirational leader, Courtney Williams, was invited to present today to conference attendees alongside Torsh partner, Early Childhood Associates, a Boston-based consulting firm with a nationwide reputation in the education space.

Courtney joined Benita Danzing, Senior Research Associate at Early Childhood Associates, to present a case study on a pilot program for the State of Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC).

Early Childhood Associates worked closely with Torsh on this pilot, which was part of EEC’s Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant award. The pilot was focused on developing a Peer Assistance and Coaching (PAC) model, to increase program quality by supporting the professional growth of early educators. EEC’s goal was to improve outcomes for children specifically by improving individual educator practice, and improving program quality as evidenced by meeting additional criteria on the MA-QRIS, a set of standards by which Massachusetts early education programs are measured.

Torsh TALENT, our online professional development platform, played a key role in the EEC pilot. TALENT enables organizations to support educator growth through the entire development cycle of observation, assessment, goal-setting, feedback, and coaching. These attributes made TALENT an ideal partner for EEC and also for Early Childhood Associates.

We are happy to announce that while our work with EEC was deemed a success, so too was our partnership with Early Childhood Associates. We will continue to work with them in 2017 on a project for the State of Maine Department of Education. Congratulations to Courtney and Benita, who demonstrated the power of Torsh TALENT to a receptive audience today. We look forward to gaining more early education clients through their efforts.

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At Torsh, our team is made up of individuals with a passion for education. While we have former teachers on staff, we always value feedback from current teachers, administrators and school leaders – the users of our product. We are excited to be part of an event that connects the users with the makers. 

Like any trip we take, we are also looking forward to the opportunity to meet with some of our clients and hear more about the great work they are doing. If you’re one of our clients or just interested in learning more about Torsh, let us know if you’d like to connect while we’re in town!

Watch the video below to learn more about EdSurge’s Tech for Schools Summit.

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Collision bills itself as “America’s fastest growing tech conference.” Indeed this year’s event, only the second one, will draw close to 10,000 attendees from more than fifty countries. It’s where “The giants of the Web assemble,” according to the Wall Street Journal. So who’s going to be there? CEOs from top startups, leaders from some of the world’s largest tech companies, investors, media, and our own CEO, Courtney Williams.

What’s even more exciting: Courtney will represent Torsh during one of Collision’s key events, the Launch Pad PITCH competition. The goal of the competition is to give rising U.S. markets valuable exposure to investors and the media. The cities highlighted this year are  Birmingham, Buffalo, Charleston, Nashville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham, New Orleans and San Antonio. 

Torsh is one of three companies from New Orleans that will compete for four semi-final slots and ultimately, the chance to present in front of thousands of attendees and hundreds of investors. The winner will advance to take on the best companies from the Collision Pitch (not to mention go home with lots of hometown pride).  

Courtney has been hard at work brushing up on his presentation. We know he’ll have a lot to say about TALENT, our proprietary platform for teacher professional development, and how it’s transforming education. Coaching teachers to transform student outcomes is what we’re all about, and we are proud to share our company and our mission with the world. We’re also pretty excited that Torsh is representing our great city. So, from the team here at Torsh, we wish Courtney luck! And we hope to see all of you soon down here in The Big Easy. With so many great things going on, we probably will. 

For more information on this year’s Collision Conference, click here.

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Torsh’s presentation will touch on this year’s theme by demonstrating how its prominent higher education clients use Torsh’s video platform to improve teacher training and in turn, improve student outcomes. Case studies will include Stanford University’s Hollyhock Fellowship Program, Johns Hopkins University’s Teach for America National Program and Tuft University’s’ Urban Math and Science Teacher Collaborative. 

Torsh’s main product is TALENT, an easy to use video-based classroom observation tool and data management platform. With Torsh TALENT, educators are given the opportunity to reflect on practice, collaborate among peers and coaches, measure the effectiveness of their classroom instruction, and receive high quality coaching. 

“We are excited to highlight how colleges and universities are using video to train teachers, and transform instruction,” stated James Jackson, Manager of Business Development at Torsh. “We are presenting at ICCTL because we want to share this knowledge with other leaders in the field. Video is relatively new to higher education. We will demonstrate how it can be implemented successfully.” 

For more information on the 27th Annual International Conference on College Teaching and Learning, click here. 

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At this year’s SITE conference, Torsh will be presenting on how several prominent higher education institutions, including Stanford University, Johns Hopkins University, and Tufts University, use Torsh’s video technology to support their teacher education programs. Torsh, an educational technology company, provides Torsh TALENT, an easy to use video-based classroom observation tool and data management platform. With Torsh TALENT, educators are given the opportunity to reflect on practice, collaborate among peers and coaches, measure the effectiveness of their classroom instruction, and receive high quality coaching. One vital feature of Torsh TALENT is that it easily integrates with Learning Management Systems (LMS), commonly used by higher education institutions for their teacher education programs. Because of this, higher education institutions can easily integrate current curriculum and Learning Management Systems with Torsh’s online video platform to allow for full integration of video into teacher education programs.

“Research shows that video can be a powerful tool to support educator professional development,” stated Courtney Williams, CEO and Founder of Torsh. “Video can provide hard evidence of the classroom for both teacher self-reflection and coaching and feedback conversations. However, despite the many advantages of video, there are challenges and higher education institutions are only beginning to reap the full benefits. At Torsh, we want to share with the education community the successes our customers have had using video to support teacher education and professional development.That’s why we are here at these conferences spreading our knowledge of innovative educational technology and learning from others in the field of teacher education.”

Torsh’s SITE presentation is being held Tuesday, March 22nd in Savannah, Georgia. More information is available here.

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