geek.teacher

This weekend is Educon!  I’m sitting here right now after the first full day (and panel the night before), just trying to process all of the day’s activities.

First of all, I’m extremely lucky that, of all places in the world, SLA happens to be a 20 minute train ride away.  I don’t know if I ever would have gone if it weren’t so close, and my life would be that much the poorer for it.  Besides the awesome learning potential, there’s the huge satisfaction of meeting members of my PLN.  Even better, people were excited to meet me.  Seriously!  I felt a bit like an indie rockstar at moments.  It was kind of crazy to think that these people I respect knew who I was and seem to value what I have to say.

The breakdown for the first 24 hours:

Friday night we had the panel speak on the topic “What is the purpose of school?” It was a bunch of very smart people, with, of course, some very different ideas.  The highlight of the evening besides the meetup beforehand, was being in the same room as the principal investigator for the Mars rover mission and the guy who created Multitouch technology.  My conclusion:

The next morning I got back on the train and headed for SLA.  First up, we had a keynote by the Chief Academic Office for the School District of Philadelphia.  She mentioned the core beliefs of PSD:

1. Children come first.
2. Parents are partners.
3. Victory is in the classroom and facilitated by a strong instructional leader.
4. Leadership and accountability
5. It takes the engagement of the entire community to have successful schools

In my own experience, it would seem to me they have some work to do before they meet those beliefs.

Finally, the sessions began!  I chose to go to the Best Educational Ideas in the World.  presented by Gary Stager, this whirlwind review of a small handful of his larger list focused on the use of Project-Based learning and, really, trying to look at learning from an entirely different angle than the typical public debate.  Stager is very provocative, and seems to always speak exactly what’s on his mind.  Fortunately, he’s my kind of provocative.

Next up: EdTech Connect: Tapping into the Power of the Network with Lisa thumann and Liz Davis.  I really enjoyed this session.  They made it fun and informative, got us to connect with others in the room, and also made us dance.

For the last session I attended Transparency Through Teams and Technology: a Rapidly Improving Middle School. This presentation by the principal and teachers of IS 339 in the Bronx was radically very personal and interactive.  After a brief introduction by the principal, the teachers moved around the room between groups and just talked with us.  They were great about answering every single question we asked them, no matter how much of a ridiculous tangent it went off from their original topic.  IS 339 is a school with a 1:1 laptop program, and they use the tech to analyze and inform their instructional practices.  Many of the things they are attempting really seem like an exciting model for a school.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.