Teach42

EduBloggerCon has come and gone and to say it was a success would be an understatement. The networking alone made it a success, but it was the conversations that are going to stick with me. I’m still not 100% sure whether we’ll be able to look back on it as any sort of a turning point in the way we, as a community, start putting theories into practice on a larger scale, but I do think we may have discovered what direction that path lies. Hopefully we’ll keep taking steps to get there.

A few personal highlights:
1) Sheryl having to pause in the middle of a point to answer a Skype call from someone who was following virtually and wanted to hear the rest of the conversation.
2) Doug Johnson pointing out that with today’s tech and assessment tools, we may be in the unique position of being able to create an IEP for every student and actually tailor instruction to their specific needs. He compared it to the long tail theory. While the majority of students may share many common characteristics, there are an infinite number of variations therein that make each student unique. Can schools really tailor education to every student in the ‘tail’?
3) Hearing Julie point out that overseas (I believe she’s in Australia), if they have a good idea that would be good in education, they act on it. It’s astonishing how much we debate whether we should be taking actions rather than actually doing something. As John Candy says in Canadian Bacon, “There’s a time to act and a time to think, and this gentlemen is no time to think.”
4) Learning that David Jakes is everybody’s personal hero (sorry Jakes, I couldn’t resist).
5) A full day of sessions, almost 20 in all and not a single PowerPoint (or keynote for Mac types)
6) Chris Lehmann aritculating one way that he gets past the paralyzing fear that so many schools fall victim to. “What’s the worst possible consequence of your best possible idea?”
7) Learning that John Pederson’s last name rhymes with pedestrian and that I’ve been mispronouncing it for years.
8 ) Warlick looking around the room during the first session and commenting that he was sitting in the middle of his aggregator!
9) Noticing that Chris Sessums takes notes on his notebook. Not a laptop, actual pen and paper. I didn’t see anybody else writing anything by hand the entire day (tablet PC’s excluded).
10) Realizing that I have never been in the same room with more people that speak the same language as me.

I can’t imagine a better way to kick off NECC. Thanks for a wonderful ‘Con everyone!

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