The ESGI team is back at work after an eventful week in Las Vegas for the I Teach K 2014 Conference.  I Teach K is the premier professional development conference for Kindergarten teachers and is full of wonderful presenters who share many great ideas and instructional best practices. Presentations were delivered on everything from “Starting Off on the Right Foot: The First 30 Days of Kindergarten,” to the “Top 5 Ways to Get At-Risk & Struggling Kindergartners on Track,” and “Common Core Aligned Tests.” The ESGI Team has talked with many customers, partners, teachers and friends this past school year, so it was very exciting to finally meet many of you face to face during the conference!

Mary Amoson & Elvis

Once things kicked off, the exhibit floor was the place to be, and the main attraction in the ESGI booth was ELVIS Live! Elvis was serenading all the teachers who came to visit, like Mary Amoson. Mary is quite a big Elvis fan and mentioned to us that at her wedding they played “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” for their first dance; Elvis made sure to sing her this sweet tune when she stopped by to visit.

ESGI & Friends at P.F. Chang’s

Another fun booth visitor was Jayne Gammons, a ‘Friends of ESGI’ content contributor and author of the Smart Kids Blog. Jayne was more than happy to step in and help teachers learn more about ESGI.  It was great to have a successful kindergarten teacher demonstrating all of the software’s helpful features. All of the ‘Friends of ESGI’ partners, including Jayne Gammons, Palma Lindsay, Heidi Butkus, Deedee Wills & Kathy Crane are sharing their tests within ESGI with teachers everywhere who also want to recover their valuable time!

Jayne, Heidi & Palma

Speaking of the ‘Friends of ESGI,’ we had a fun night out with a few of them on the second night of the conference. We loaded up the rental car and headed over to P.F. Chang’s for a yummy Asian dinner. To complete our night out, we ended it with a shopping trip to the Target Dollar Spot, where everyone found a bargain and a hat! 

Selfies in the ESGI Booth

Giveaways during the conference were a big hit and over 150 excited teachers walked away with a free year of ESGI and other great prizes. One of the more unique giveaways we had during the conference was focused around our “Recover 400 Hours” message. It’s pretty simple actually.  Since teachers can literally save around 400 hours each year using ESGI, we wanted a way to share that during this week-long event.  We posted pictures saying “What Would You Do?” asking teachers, what they would do with all of the extra time? During the conference, attendees posted “selfies” to their social media sites with the ESGI logo in the background and #esgi400hrs.  The contest ran all week, and on the last day we announced the winner.  Congratulations again to Sarah Sherman who won a new iPad-Mini!

ESGI Team

No conference is complete without an “official” team night out, and for ours, we visited the world famous Hard Rock Hotel. There we enjoyed an amazing dinner at Nobu. Nobu was selected because sushi is the ESGI team’s traditional meal of choice whenever we can get together, and we were not disappointed!

We at ESGI felt that this year’s I Teach K conference was the best yet, and look forward to
working with many new teachers and school districts in the 2014-2015 school year and beyond! It was a non-stop week from the word “go” full of friends, entertainment and hearing why so many teachers everywhere love ESGI!  We are excited for next year’s conference, and look forward to seeing all of you again!