Just spent the day at what used to be called EduBloggerCon (and a few other iterations over the years). As always great folks having conversations about where education could / should be going.
Now I’m actually sitting in the Bloggers’ Cafe at the end of the day … blogging … used to do this more often, kind of feels good.
I’m not going to go into all the conversations I had today, but instead focus a bit on one notable takeaway. Several conversations I had today with individuals centered around that we are having the same conversations about the same topics (how much things need to change, and we need to get people onboard, what we could be doing, how to do that, how to speed up that change, … you get the idea) and that it is really getting old and nothing seems to REALLY be happening.
I’m as frustrated about that as anyone out there (here? … wherever), but one takeaway I had about that today is that we are having those conversations with more people from more places. The first EduBloggerCon 7 or 8 years ago had about 30 attendees (more or less). Today, hundreds were in attendance and many were new faces. Having those same old conversations (and they weren’t all old topics BTW) is important I think. Maybe its not enough, maybe it won’t lead to change fast enough, but until enough people hear the message let’s keep at spreading it.
I’ve also heard for years that certain blog posts / topics have already been written … I think we have a whole new group online now that would benefit hearing about some of those same topics. Perhaps now that more and more stakeholders are connecting this is the time to re-visit and refresh those past conversations … maybe more ears are listening? Am I off base here?
Learning is messy!
Great reflection of day 1. It can be frustrating to hear something over and over , especially without seeing results. Clearly there are results from previous years’ conversations. Maybe when we bring these successes into the conversation we’ll be left with more inspiration rather frustration.
I found this extremely interesting. I only found this because I joined Twitter…2 days ago. And I am the newly formed “Tech Specialist” in our building, so take a guess if anyone else is on Twitter….or blogging….or on google+….absolutely not. Until now, people in my school had no reason to listen to Ed Tech ideas (although as Ed professionals we probably should’ve been listening anyway), because we had no technology (not even one classroom computer for kids to use). Now we are jumping right in (perhaps too big of a jump in my opinion) and we are finding that we should’ve listened earlier so we weren’t so far behind, and so overwhelmed. From our point of view, it’d be nice to have some of those earlier conversations around, so we didn’t feel like we were jumping in midstream…without a boat or a paddle. Tell your friends…change does not happen for everyone at the same rate, so although they feel like it is taking forever, we feel like it is happening too fast…or it happened while we were away on vacation and now we don’t know how to get caught up. For now my plan is to just jump in and flail around, hoping to find meaning among the madness of all this “new” information to my world.
Brian, you post reflects upon something that I’ve been thinking a great deal about over the past year. I agree that there are a lot more people joining the conversations, but I still think we need more. I actually did a post about this at the beginning of Connected Educator Month last August:
http://teachnlife.blogspot.com/2012/08/connected-educator-month-more-than-just.html
We do a lot of talking, but at some point, in order for things to change, we need to act. “We” being we teachers, the people in the classrooms. That action may be in the form of getting ourselves connected and learning new things to help our students learn better, it may be in taking steps to change the testing culture in our districts or boards. It may be something we do to speak up for our kids as people and individuals rather than little test taking machines. Whatever it is, we all do need to act on all of the great conversations. It’s the only way things will truly change.
From Brian – Hi Becky! – I agree with everything you said … so let’s get there!
Brian, I enjoyed reading your post. I wound up here through a class assignment to explore blogs. I am in the early stages of working on earning a Master’s Degree with a concentration on integrating technology into the classroom. Your blog was a repeat of one of this week’s learning resources — why is the education world so slow at using and incorporating technology resources into teaching? For a personal comment on that question, I would say it’s due to lack of familiarity and instruction. I am pursuing this Master’s because I want to become stronger in my use of technology with my students, knowing it will impact their learning. The problem? I receive about 3-4 hours of technology training each year prior to the start of the school year. I’ve been out of college for 30+ years, so when it comes time to actually get into the classroom and teach, I use what is familiar and what I have had success with in the past, which does not revolve around new technology, unfortunately. I feel my age and technology inhibitions and limitations each year, which is why I am challenging myself to grow. However, just like my students, I need quality instruction to grow and learn. 3-4 hours/school year just doesn’t get the job done, so hence, for many of my colleagues in my age bracket, we stick with tried and true methods of which we are more familiar, rather than embracing the wonderful, new technology that is out there. I certainly wouldn’t want a surgeon operating on me using a new piece of equipment with which there has not been proper instruction and training time. I hear your frustration and understand it completely, because it is the same frustration I feel as I try to incorporate more technology with limited knowledge and training. I have no answers for the problem, other than more time and more money, something education probably won’t see.