The Power of a Conference

Posted by on Nov 30, 2008

I believe attending conferences is one of the most dynamic ways for a professional to develop. I recently attended the IETC conference in Springfield, IL, and I left, as I typically do from such a conference, with the indelible notion that there simply aren’t many better forms of professional development in existence.  I find this […]

What if…

Posted by on Nov 17, 2008

What if we stopped for just a moment, took a step back, and asked why?  Why are we engaging in education the way we are right now?  Why is it that the modern construct of education not only looks the way that it does, but why are we using it? Maybe a better way to […]

The Ability Paradigm

Posted by on Nov 12, 2008

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a professional baseball pitcher more than anything in the world.  I’d go outside and throw a tennis ball against my front steps and play every ricochet as if it were a batted ball.  I’d write out a lineup of the Cubs vs. whomever they happened to […]

Building Better Backchannels

Posted by on Oct 30, 2008

I remember the first time I heard the term, “backchannel.”  I was at NECC, and I was immediately struck at how the word seemed somehow geekily mystic.  It took me a bit to realize the term was really just synonymous with chat. According to the define function of Google, a backchannel is, “the practice of […]

Ed Tech Goes to Eleven?

Posted by on Oct 21, 2008

*One author’s note for this post.  I began writing this prior to attending the Illinois TechCon 08 conference, and that experience resulted in a major clarification in my own thinking about this issue.  I’ll explain near the end of the post.* Sometimes I feel like being in the Ed Tech community is a bit like […]