I don't go to conferences often anymore. It's not because there is absolutely no money, I don't find it all that useful in the land of hyper connectivity. There is a great deal you can get out of a Google Reader and a Twitter Feed. Times is also an issue. Online if something isn't useful, you can scan it and move on. At a conference you're liable to sink 20 minutes into a session before you cut bait and by then it hardly pays to just into another session, because it's likely half-way done by that point in time.
I want to want to go back to conferences, but what I want to hear is what you are doing with it in your school? Let me give you some examples. Two years ago, I went to a conference called SLATE here in Wisconsin. The conference was fine, but one annoyance was I watched Scott McLeod's Did You Know: Shift Happens video at every session. Really? There were two sessions that stick out in my head from that day, one incredibly useful because it was about what he was doing in his building, the other just a plagiarized "top 10" Web 2.0 for administrators list.
The really useful presentation was by a James Bouché, a principal at Lakeland Union High School, who had opened the gates so to speak on handheld devices in his school. Mind you this was back in 2010, so for my district that was pretty cutting edge. Bouché shared his vision, talked about how he sold the plan to administration, the board, most importantly the teaching staff, gave concrete examples of policy that was written into the student handbook, how he communicated expectations to students and enforced them. He talked about his philosophy, some tools and how he applied it. Like with all learning, application is the key. I don't know how many times in meetings I've referenced what they're doing at Lakeland Union, that we aren't even scratching the surface on. This was an incredibly useful session.
The other was "hi I'm an assistant superintendent...this is Dropbox, this is Prezi, this is Google Docs." What a waste of time. 45 minutes I'll never get back. Shouldn't a media specialist be showing those things to your staff?
Who cares what tools you know about? Anybody can make that presentation. How are you using it? That's what we need if we're going to spend our precious time and money on a conference. With a 2-year old and a 1-month old I think I owe it to my family to make the best use of my time away from them. I will continue to kick the tires on conferences. I have hope, and maybe I'm not looking close enough at the descriptions. I'm kind of bull-headed. Unless you're telling me what you're doing with the tool in your district, it isn't worth my time.
My challenge now is the find something I'm doing in my district to present on. If I'm going to mouth off about it online, I should be part of the solution. Its my hope to present on portfolios with Google Sites, which is being rolled out to all freshmen next fall. This year we're running a pilot with three classes. So far so good!
I want to want to go back to conferences, but what I want to hear is what you are doing with it in your school? Let me give you some examples. Two years ago, I went to a conference called SLATE here in Wisconsin. The conference was fine, but one annoyance was I watched Scott McLeod's Did You Know: Shift Happens video at every session. Really? There were two sessions that stick out in my head from that day, one incredibly useful because it was about what he was doing in his building, the other just a plagiarized "top 10" Web 2.0 for administrators list.
The really useful presentation was by a James Bouché, a principal at Lakeland Union High School, who had opened the gates so to speak on handheld devices in his school. Mind you this was back in 2010, so for my district that was pretty cutting edge. Bouché shared his vision, talked about how he sold the plan to administration, the board, most importantly the teaching staff, gave concrete examples of policy that was written into the student handbook, how he communicated expectations to students and enforced them. He talked about his philosophy, some tools and how he applied it. Like with all learning, application is the key. I don't know how many times in meetings I've referenced what they're doing at Lakeland Union, that we aren't even scratching the surface on. This was an incredibly useful session.
The other was "hi I'm an assistant superintendent...this is Dropbox, this is Prezi, this is Google Docs." What a waste of time. 45 minutes I'll never get back. Shouldn't a media specialist be showing those things to your staff?
Who cares what tools you know about? Anybody can make that presentation. How are you using it? That's what we need if we're going to spend our precious time and money on a conference. With a 2-year old and a 1-month old I think I owe it to my family to make the best use of my time away from them. I will continue to kick the tires on conferences. I have hope, and maybe I'm not looking close enough at the descriptions. I'm kind of bull-headed. Unless you're telling me what you're doing with the tool in your district, it isn't worth my time.
My challenge now is the find something I'm doing in my district to present on. If I'm going to mouth off about it online, I should be part of the solution. Its my hope to present on portfolios with Google Sites, which is being rolled out to all freshmen next fall. This year we're running a pilot with three classes. So far so good!
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