Webinars: Where You Meet Colleagues from Different Continents!

This semester we were introduced to webinar. Webinars are seminars but they are online! Because we can't attend all the seminars around the world, we now have webinars! Now, we will stay updated with all the information we tend to miss in seminars around the world.
This experience was amazing. I personally loved how you get to attend a seminar with so many people around the world, express your thoughts, and ask questions while you are at home in your pjs! The webinar that I attended was loaded with information. The presenter was talking about spelling which I consider the most challenging task for young learners. Well, after three years in the domain, I could observe how much the students struggle in spelling. Teachers overwhelm them with huge paragraphs that they have to prepare for dictation in class. "Unlocking the Mystery of Developmental Spelling", my eyes laid on this title when I was surfing the internet to look for a topic that I would like to know more about. 
We, as teacher, usually stress students especially young learners with spelling. Our intention is to help them write and advance in writing, but are we doing the best job? Do we know our students' level of development that can highly affect their performance? In this webinar, I learned that students actually don't learn how to spell if they weren't ready for it. For each age/level, there are certain strategies that teachers must follow to help students fulfill their spelling tasks.  But first, to know student's level, there is a technique that the teacher can follow: she pronounces the word, and then asks the student to spell it. Accordingly, she/he assumes the level of development for this student. Then, the teacher starts scaffolding him/her. For example, if a student represents the word with only one letter, the teacher expands the word with him so he sees the other letters in the word...  The presenter talked about the different strategies that teacher can use while scaffolding students, like blending consonants and expanding vowels... 
I personally look forward to attending other webinars because I enjoyed the experience! Not only did I learn a lot from the presenter, I also communicated with other teachers around the world who were also answering my questions!