Educon 2.2 is something of an un-conference. Instead of presentations, facilitators lead conversations. The conference is hosted at the Science Leadership Academy,
a public charter school in Philadelphia, led by Chris Lehmann. Over
500 educators from primary and secondary schools, a handful of school
administrators and higher education professionals attended. Largely,
this group self-selects. Many pay their own way, all give up a weekend
to be there. It's one of the best educational gatherings that I've had
a chance to participate in.
My head is still spinning, but I'm going to highlight three areas: 1) the overall participatory environment at SLA and the conference 2) Jeff Han on Multi-touch interaction experiments and finally, 3) a conversation that I facilitated about online teaching and learning.
1) Students managed all of the logistics from tech support, to checking bags to helping people find sessions. They also joined sessions and shared their experiences. That students were central to the conference permeated all of the sessions and made the experience authentic in a way that few conferences are. Chris Lehmann spoke about how he and his colleagues create this community on a session he facilitated about leadership. I'm a bit in awe of Chris--it's great to hear about it AND see it in action at SLA.
2) Jeff Han presented Pixel Perfect, a spin off of his "multi-touch interaction research."
More on Jeff and his work here: http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/index.html Jeff was eager to hear from us about how we could imagine the data visualization tool used in education. It's worth looking at the videos of Jeff showing how the touch screen works--but it feels like something out of a movie, where instead of interacting through a keyboard we manipulate data with our hands. At a glance, one might think, oh, it's an interactive whiteboard--but it's much, much more than that. Many people can be on the board at the same time, it's as sensitive as an iPad's touch screen and it's wicked fast. Jeff argues that we have plenty of processing power, but that we're not making enough advances from the interface side. He also envisions a day when the technology is as cheap and ubiquitous as wall paper. From an educational use perspective, we imagined ideas for collaborative writing projects, virtual dissections and geographic analysis, but somehow I wished that we picked a few specific curricular contexts and started with educational goals. Nevertheless, it was an amazing conversation.
3) I facilitated a conversation on online teaching and learning best practices. I was struck by the deep and broad interest in online learning as a means of both student engagement and continued professional development for educators. Barbara Treacy, the Director of EdTech Leaders Online, a capacity building program for K-12 organizations, among other educators, joined in the conversation, along with other teachers who are designing educational experiences. Barbara posted their checklist for educators designing their own online courses as well as basic tips for online facilitation. Sean Musselman posted a podcast summarizing the session.
My head is still spinning, but I'm going to highlight three areas: 1) the overall participatory environment at SLA and the conference 2) Jeff Han on Multi-touch interaction experiments and finally, 3) a conversation that I facilitated about online teaching and learning.
1) Students managed all of the logistics from tech support, to checking bags to helping people find sessions. They also joined sessions and shared their experiences. That students were central to the conference permeated all of the sessions and made the experience authentic in a way that few conferences are. Chris Lehmann spoke about how he and his colleagues create this community on a session he facilitated about leadership. I'm a bit in awe of Chris--it's great to hear about it AND see it in action at SLA.
2) Jeff Han presented Pixel Perfect, a spin off of his "multi-touch interaction research."
More on Jeff and his work here: http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/index.html Jeff was eager to hear from us about how we could imagine the data visualization tool used in education. It's worth looking at the videos of Jeff showing how the touch screen works--but it feels like something out of a movie, where instead of interacting through a keyboard we manipulate data with our hands. At a glance, one might think, oh, it's an interactive whiteboard--but it's much, much more than that. Many people can be on the board at the same time, it's as sensitive as an iPad's touch screen and it's wicked fast. Jeff argues that we have plenty of processing power, but that we're not making enough advances from the interface side. He also envisions a day when the technology is as cheap and ubiquitous as wall paper. From an educational use perspective, we imagined ideas for collaborative writing projects, virtual dissections and geographic analysis, but somehow I wished that we picked a few specific curricular contexts and started with educational goals. Nevertheless, it was an amazing conversation.
3) I facilitated a conversation on online teaching and learning best practices. I was struck by the deep and broad interest in online learning as a means of both student engagement and continued professional development for educators. Barbara Treacy, the Director of EdTech Leaders Online, a capacity building program for K-12 organizations, among other educators, joined in the conversation, along with other teachers who are designing educational experiences. Barbara posted their checklist for educators designing their own online courses as well as basic tips for online facilitation. Sean Musselman posted a podcast summarizing the session.
I am still processing the event, but I am glad that I was able to have conversations with educators about our open Educational Technologist opportunity, want to check out the mind map that David Warlick posted http://www.xmind.net/share/_embed/dwarlick/sunday-morning-panel/
I
would like to thank all of my peers at Educon for making it such a
wonderful event, to Chris Lehmann, and the teachers, students and
parents at SLA and of course, Kristen Sosulski and the NYU-SCPS for
giving me something to talk about.
I attending the conversation that facilitated. I wish it could have lasted the entire weekend! That conversation, more than any of the others, will stick with me for a long time. There was just something about the dynamics of the participants that worked well. I think we could have kept going indefinitely. It felt good to know there are others out there who are struggling with the same issues that we are at my school in Nebraska. Thanks again for adding to my Educon experience.
Posted by: Bethstill | February 03, 2010 at 05:31 PM
Hi Beth - thanks for the comment! I'm glad to hear that the conversation will stick with you. I'm hoping that we have a group that can keep on talking about best practices for learning at a distance.
Posted by: ted bongiovanni | February 03, 2010 at 06:16 PM