
So the conference started out with a bit of a bang for me as can be seen by reading my blog post from my travel blog! But I made it to the conference. On Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast and the networking began.
It is very strange to be in a place with people who you have to have a conversation in your head that goes like this, about. “That person is familiar. Hmm, do I know that person, yep definitely familiar. Now have I actually met that person in real life or have I seen them on Twitter or Facebook. Hmm, not sure, well I will just go introduce myself and find out!”
The keynote was given by Kim Cofino @mscofino. She spoke for an hour the ideas were already beginning to flow. When she made the point that education needs to have students learn with technology the way that students live with technology, I got it. It is what I have been encouraging in my training and teaching but the way she put it made me realize how much further we can go with our tech in our school.
I liked her ideas of student-led speed geeking, thinking about ways to bring social online learning to school, thinking of ways to bring in media rich reflections and keeping things “just in time”.
Another idea that came to me during her presentation is what would happen if the school replaced one bulletin board in each room with an interactive screen of some kind? Not just in the classrooms but in the hallways as well. Not all of the boards by any means because there is still a very large place for fixed boards, but if you could have one interactive screen that streamed videos, images, books, or slides in your room, how would that change the way students see the value in their work output?