About a week ago, we were having a discussion on Slack about the upcoming state educational technology conference. I’m sitting this year out. A couple members of my personal learning network weren’t happy. The conference isn’t necessarily about learning. It’s more about bringing technology to education than focusing on student-centered learning enhanced and supported by technology. Jeremy said that’s not the point. The conference is about … Continue reading Focused Presence
I’m a believer in personal learning networks. I’ve often said that I have learned far more from my colleagues than I have from any graduate course or workshop or conference. I’ve connected with people from all over the world, exchanging ideas, debating instructional approaches, and uniting in finding the best ways to leverage technology to improve learning and best meet students’ evolving needs. The technologies … Continue reading Are We There Yet?
Now comes the hard part. Learning doesn’t mean anything unless we can put it into practice. Sure, we went to Educon. We were inspired. We saw some really neat models of how real teachers and real students are working in real schools to build a better world. Then we came home. And there was email to answer, and neglected tasks to be completed. There were … Continue reading 5 Things to Do Next
It’s a week after Educon 2.6, and I’m still wading through my notes and thoughts from the experience. That’s pretty much what I expect from that conference now, and it’s one of the reasons I didn’t follow up the Educon experience with the OETC double feature this year. In reflecting on the weekend, there are five resources that have surfaced that I want to investigate … Continue reading 5 Resources to Investigate
Education in this century is not so much about finding the right answers as in asking the right questions. As I reflect on the #educon experience this past weekend, I’m drawn to the volume of questions that show up in my notes, in my twitter stream, and in the conversations we had throughout the weekend. Here are five that have stuck with me: Are we … Continue reading 5 Questions from Educon
One of my goals for the year is to reboot my professional learning network, which has grown a little stale lately. Because there seemed to be a lot of new people at #educon this year, and because it’s a fantastic place to meet diverse educators with differing viewpoints, I was hoping to find some folks who were saying interesting things, but who weren’t previously on … Continue reading 5 New People to Listen To
One of the new things I’m doing this year is posting lists in a series I’m creatively calling “5 Things”. You don’t really know that yet, because I haven’t actually gotten around to posting any lists, but trust me. They’re in the notebook, and I’ll get around to writing them up soon eventually. In digging through my notes on #educon 2.6, I realized that my … Continue reading 5 Quotes that Changed My Thinking
It’s a funny thing about social media. Sometimes, it can be kind of social. That’s fantastic. It’s great for democracy. It’s a monumental shift in how information is managed. It changes the structure of power. Everyone has the means to widely disseminate ideas. Everyone has the ability to engage in the conversation. Everyone can reach a global audience. The gatekeepers are gone. No one is … Continue reading Listen: We Need a Community
I’ve had the great fortune over the last few days to engage in several conversations about ideal schools. One of the wonderful things about Educon is the serendipitous mingling that happens. Even though the sessions go through a proposal and approval process, and are meticulously planned by the facilitators, there’s always an element of unpredictability when they can go off EdCamp-like in any direction. So … Continue reading Culture of Caring
It’s 8:30 on a Saturday morning, and I’m sitting in a rapidly filling high school cafeteria in Philadelphia. As I look around, a see a few familiar faces, and even more familiar names. But for the most part, these are strangers. They’re not part of my world. They’re from urban schools. Charter schools. Parochial schools. Private schools. They’re teachers. Integration specialists. School leaders. Professors. Students. … Continue reading A Common Purpose
Taste of Tech 