This story originally appeared in the fall 2013 Harker Quarterly.

On June 7, Harker hosted its ninth annual Teacher Institute, inviting teachers from schools all over the Bay Area to attend a wide variety of workshops intended to improve their teaching methods and their understanding of instructional technologies.

The event was organized by Harker’s instructional technology department and sponsored by Silicon Valley Computer-Using Educators (SVCUE). Each of the Teacher Institute’s three sessions consisted of a number of classes that visiting teachers were free to attend. “There were so many things we are going to take back to our school,” said Julia Maynard, a language arts and social studies teacher at Parkside Middle School in San Bruno. “I have been to several tech conferences, and this was by far the most beneficial!”