EduCon turned 5 this weekend. While there was no ceremonial singing with cake and candles, there was plenty of professional partying - connecting with others near and far, exploring big ideas, doing lots of deep thinking, and enjoying some of the food and fun Philly has to offer. This year there was a lot of attention to entrepreneurial and design thinking toward innovation in education. If we continue to put the new wine in old wine skins, the change needed for 21st Century teaching and learning will reach a dead end. This year’s conference once again modeled the invitation to engage in sustained conversations that lead to deeper understanding of needs and next steps, including the push for expressions of creativity, caring and citizenship. The hospitality of SLA never ceases to amaze me. Their school community provided a welcoming atmosphere to the school and the city. According to the Twitter chat, Out-of-Towner’s sampled some local fare with a skeptic or two about the “scrapple.”
In his Keynote, Dr. William Hite remarked, “We need to grow from our individual and collective work. Educating the whole student is more than test taking. Thinking and learning begins with newborns.” Since becoming a grandparent, Hite is more aware of finding ways to let kids use the tools that they have had since birth, and engaging them in extending their learning beyond the school walls and the school day.
My take-aways from the Panel Discussion: How can we work within the system to bring opportunities to kids; we are not here to say that charter schools are the answer, rather good schools are the answer; kids need to be great today and greater later; self advocacy is a needed skill for today’s learners; sometimes success is paralyzing – brings you to a stopping point; can teachers “start/charter” their own classroom where teachers apply to repurpose their rooms with innovation for engaging students? I was happy to have a colleague, Tammy Stets, from my school attend, so there is more likelihood to keep conversation going. We are seriously thinking about the concept of chartering classrooms within the school to foster inquiry and project based learning in elementary school.
With so many sessions to choose from, I am grateful to those who tweeted links to slides and/or wikis. These plus the archived tweeter feed for #educon25 will keep me exploring, thinking and staying connected until EduCon turns 6! (January 24-26, 2014)
In his Keynote, Dr. William Hite remarked, “We need to grow from our individual and collective work. Educating the whole student is more than test taking. Thinking and learning begins with newborns.” Since becoming a grandparent, Hite is more aware of finding ways to let kids use the tools that they have had since birth, and engaging them in extending their learning beyond the school walls and the school day.
My take-aways from the Panel Discussion: How can we work within the system to bring opportunities to kids; we are not here to say that charter schools are the answer, rather good schools are the answer; kids need to be great today and greater later; self advocacy is a needed skill for today’s learners; sometimes success is paralyzing – brings you to a stopping point; can teachers “start/charter” their own classroom where teachers apply to repurpose their rooms with innovation for engaging students? I was happy to have a colleague, Tammy Stets, from my school attend, so there is more likelihood to keep conversation going. We are seriously thinking about the concept of chartering classrooms within the school to foster inquiry and project based learning in elementary school.
With so many sessions to choose from, I am grateful to those who tweeted links to slides and/or wikis. These plus the archived tweeter feed for #educon25 will keep me exploring, thinking and staying connected until EduCon turns 6! (January 24-26, 2014)
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