We Need To Avoid the Calculus Syndrome, Thoughts After ISTE 13

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The post-ISTE13 comments and blog posts I've been seeing have me worried.  There are many educators who are now questioning how basic some of the sessions were and how we need to ensure there are discussions and not just presentations in the sessions.  I think it's time for a quick reminder of where we have come from and how, extremely, far we need to go with conferences and educational "events" like edcamps.

When I hear some of the brightest education stars making these comments I am reminded about how most schools treat their calculus teacher. The best and most experienced math teacher on campus earns the right to teach calculus. And, because of this, the students who need to have the best teachers miss out on quality instruction. What needs to happen is that the best teachers need to be teaching Algebra 1 so that the foundation of math for the high school years is set.

Similarly I see the best educators, with the greatest ideas on ways to improve education, hanging around with the other best educators. Those teachers who need to hear great ideas and might be wavering on staying in the profession aren't hearing from these great teachers. We need to be increasing the number of edcamp-style events, shifting professional developments to a more conference or edcamp feel, and we need to be creating financial incentives to get teachers to the more expensive conferences.

ISTE13 was my first ISTE conference. I have been to NCTM conferences (both national and regional), I have been to a FETC conference when I was living in Florida, I have been to TCEA conferences,  I have been to an EDUCON in Philadelphia, and I have both put on and attended edcamps.  In addition, as a teacher in the New Tech Network I have attended their annual conference, NTAC, each year.

Almost all of those conferences, with the exception of the NTAC's, I have had to pay the bill or have had to sneak into the event to be able to be around what was going on.  Yes, I have found ways to get around the entrance fee at some of these events. I'm not really proud of that but I do what I have to do to be able to afford the conferences. Once inside, I am able to stay in the areas where people hangout and I can be a part of the conversations.

For me, the conversations at conferences and edcamps are where I get the biggest bang for my buck.  There are many educators who are discovering this and are finding great value in the discussions going on in areas set up as Blogger Lounges or some other catchy name.  There are usually comfortable chairs, good wifi, and power plugs. And the people who congregate here will usually have interesting things to talk about.

But that is exactly the problem and the reason for me writing this post. The most "famous" and knowledgeable educators are hanging out together in the blogger lounge. New teachers can feel intimidated by the number of people and the feeling that everybody knows everybody else "in there." Believe me, I am just as guilty as everyone else. At ISTE13 I stayed in the blogger cafe almost throughout but I was also at the conference on my own dime and so I was in on a free vendor-area badge.

We need to remember that the majority of teachers have not heard of ISTE, or FETC, or Educon. And a majority of those who have heard of the conferences, I just mentioned, won't attempt to go unless it is nearby to where they live. The cost is too much or they just have better things to do like spend time with their families. So we get down to the small percentage of educators who are, not only, familiar with the conferences but they have ways to fund attending the conferences. Again, we are talking about a very tiny percentage of educators attending these events.

So, when someone attends their first ISTE, FETC, or Educon we need to have plans in place to make them feel as comfortable as possible. ISTE has the Newbie area and they start the conference with an overview of what will be going on each day.  That is a huge help. Then we need to have more of the power hitters attending some of the basic sessions to help with the discussions. Of course some of the presenters in these sessions might be presenting for the first time. They may not be comfortable, yet, in this setting and the last thing they need is someone hijacking their session.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think conferences and edcamps need to start thinking about having a nice blend of both basic level sessions and "advanced" sessions which are more discussion-like with the session leader being more of a facilitator than a presenter. I know I hope to do a session at the next Edcamp on PBL with the discussion topic of "So PBL is the answer to all of our needs.  Is it really?" Or I'll come up with something better by then. But I know that someone will come up to me and ask me to do a "PBL Session" and I know that what they mean is I need to go through what the PBL process looks like. It will be very basic and it will be Standing Room Only - guaranteed.

ISTE13 Blogger Cafe Keynote Watching

Blogger Cafe ISTE, Tue Keynote

The Blogger Cafe is always humming but when the Keynote is going on this is the place to avoid going into the scrum of the auditorium.

We're all watching Steve Johnson who is talking about how old ideas can be revisited and recreated. He included ideas such as the WWW and even the theory of Natural Selection.

He also introduced us (most of us) to DEVONthink which is a way to stare databases.  How can we keep a record of ideas and compare them with each other? DEVONthink can do that for you.

Here's his Ted Talks which covers many of the topics he discussed today.

Monday at ISTE, My Day 2

Blogger Cafe ISTE 13, Tuesday Morning

If you read my last post on my thoughts on ISTE 13, then you know I came into San Antonio Friday night and spent Saturday at #hacked13. Unfortunately I had to drive back up to Round Rock that night and spent yesterday there. But this morning I got on the road early, arrived at my hotel at 7 AM and now the day can begin. [Side note, thank you to Crowne Plaza Hotel for checking me in that early - did NOT expect that.]

Observation #1: If you end up in the Blogger Cafe then you really don't need to go many other places during the conference.  Everyone who I was hoping to see during the conference, (ok, so there are a few of you who I didn't see yet and I don't want you to think I don't care about you. Just roll with it.), I saw between 8:30 and 12 today. If I started listing their names you would think I was just showing off, so I won't. But, trust me, it was a great experience. The networking is well worth the time spent there.

Observation #2: If you talk with the people working the conference, there are some interesting stories you can learn about.  The person I talked with about registering was Paul Hunter who authored No Love, No Charity: The Success of the 19th Child.    19th out of 21 kids, only one to go to and finish college. Now in San Antonio, homeless, and looking for a job. I'm hoping between twitter and this tiny blog post I can spread his name out there. Someone needs to take a chance with him.

Observation #3: Timing is everything. Last night I missed out on 3 different groups of people to hang out with plus a  final game of the NHL season. Unless you come with a core group of people and do everything together, you will be on your own to join people heading to lunch, happy hour, dinner, after dinner drinks, etc.  Last night I chose to be with a good friend and teacher from my school who was at her first ISTE. We went to dinner and then had the unfortunate experience of having to wait over an hour for our taxi to bring us back to our respective hotels. We could easily have met up with people at 10:30 last night but starting at that time didn't seem appealing to this old guy. [Side note: missed the hockey game except for catching the twitter feed of the last 5 minutes of the game while riding in the taxi.}

Duh Observation: If your hotel wireless sucks or becomes nonexistent, then it ruins everything. When I went back to change before dinner the wireless was out so I missed a couple of key tweets that might have changed my plans and when I got back it was still out and I gave up on getting connected. During that time I missed the last chance to say "What the heck let me just meet them."

Observation #4: Conferences shouldn't have great speakers set at the same time.  Yesterday I had to choose between Will Richardson, George Couros, and Chris Lehmann. They were speaking on relatively common topics and were, ironically, in the same big ballroom with dividers separating them. I chose Chris and really got a lot out of his thoughts and interactive approach. As I walked in he was setting up and he even said, "I wish I could be in Will or George's sessions." nuff said.

Observation #5: There are a lot of great people NOT here at ISTE.  See this post by Peter Dewitt: Education Conferences are Missing Out on Important Voices and my last post on the ISTE First Day Observations. 

Looking forward to the Tuesday Line Up. Wrap up post will be tomorrow.

The Educator as Learner Conundrum, Thoughts From ISTE '13

Here it is, mid-June, and school has been out for a few weeks for our teachers in Manor Texas.  Since that time I've been able to select books about being a better instructional coach , I've attended Ipadpalooza, and now I'm at the ISTE Conference.

There are educators at this conference who I saw at Ipadpalooza and some of them had gone to another conference a few days before that. These guys are geeking out in the education world and their enthusiasm and excitement for being in these learning environments is contagious.

So why aren't all of the teachers at my school rubbing shoulders with me at these events?  Well, some are teaching summer school and their summer really hasn't begun. Some are spending much needed time with their families, spouses, or besties. Many are just recharging their batteries from 10 months of being "on" 5 days a week from the early hours until bed time with instruction, paperwork, phone calls, and preparation.

Still, I feel that it is my job as an instructional coach to encourage our teachers to take the time to learn about their craft during the summer "vacation" time.  There really is no better time to learn, share, and collaborate with other educators in a non-threatening environment. Allow me to describe the awesomely geeky day I'm having, today, which actually started last night.

I'm at the Hack Education at ISTE 2013 , (#hacked13 ), day which is a free event prior to the official first day of ISTE. I drove down last night and spent the night so I could roll out and be close to the convention center. Did I mention that today is free? After my arrival last night, I was able to meet up with friends from Twitter. Some I had met several times and others I was meeting for the first time. Imagine seeing someone who you have interacted with for 6+ years on Twitter for the first time. After the requisite hug we were able to roll right into small talk, deep conversations, and really funny inside jokes. Really. They were funny but you had to be there.

The morning and afternoon sessions, today, feel very Edcampy - and that's a good thing. We met and mingled for a wonderfully long time which gave us time to meet those twitter friends we had never met face to face (f2f).  Then we all took the time to write down topics that we thought were worth discussing.  There was everything from how to use Minecraft in the classroom to global collaboration to 1:1 rollout. The group then voted on each of the topics and the top dozen or so were set up on a 1 hour rotational schedule.

I attended Global Collaborative Classrooms (which was the one I wrote down so I felt I needed to attend) for the first break out session.  Imagine 30 or so educators in a room talking about classrooms connecting with other classrooms all over the world.  There were experience levels from "never done that" to people who are connecting their students via Skype and Google Hangouts on a routine basis.  Discussions roamed between allaying parental fears to sites to find other educators wanting to connect. We had to stop our discussion, that felt like it could have gone on for hours, so we could go to our next session.

The second session was on creating a "maker space" in your school.  There were lots of people interested in the maker movement and some had experience in creating space in their schools so there was a wealth of knowledge in the room.  It helped to have Sylvia Martinez who had just written the book Invent to Learn and I shared a great article on make spaces and education. Whenever I think about Make Spaces I think of electronic gizmos and robots. This conversation helped me think of making in a new light with spaces set up for writing and poetry or spaces set up for creating artwork and music. There was a nice discussion on getting parents and the community involved as well.

After lunch, a group picture, and the requisite Smackdown (people sharing apps that they considered valuable), we had the afternoon sessions.  Since I'm writing this during the first session, this post is my report from that time period. I did attend the last session, however, and it was on Minecraft in the classroom. It was moderated (not her choice) by Diane Main who shared what she had done in her classroom and what she has seen students do with Minecraft. My take away was that this is another way we can give students voice and choice but that we need to educate teachers on how creative their students are being when they do choose to present something they have made in the Minecraft world.

Unfortunately I had to leave San Antonio after the closing comments. But I'll be back on Monday morning ready for my second day. Such a great day of learning. Just think - if all, no half, heck if 4 or 5 of my teachers had come to this. The conversations could have continued throughout the summer and into the school year. I need to keep telling the teachers about learning opportunities throughout the year.   With time,  I'm hoping edcamps and other learning days will be days of excitement for the whole staff and we can continue the learning on our campus.

That Left Out Feeling

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     Ah, summer.  That time when teachers pack up their classrooms and move to the pool or the beach.  They are out there hiking, fly fishing, and sailing.  Isn't it great only working about 40 weeks of the year!  That's 12 weeks of kicking back and doing nothing.

     If only that were true.  Yes, there are some teachers who will take an elaborate (and well-deserved) vacation during the summer.  But most will find time to relax and reload with their immediate families.  They will do some much needed yard work or house repairs.  They will work on that one project that they've been meaning to do since last summer.  It really isn't that glamorous.  And, more and more, teachers are spending a huge part of their summer getting smarter.

     Many are taking graduate classes.  Many are taking part in conferences and professional development (PD).  Some of this training is required by their district.  And some are just teachers wanting to be the best they can be and recognizing that learning the latest techniques or being involved in conversations about the latest in educational topics will help them attain that goal.

     And, that's where this post is coming from - I'm envious of many of those educators who have been able to attend really great conferences or PD's and have shared what they have experienced on twitter (got to follow that hashtag!), on Google+ (gosh I wish they hadn't shared that with me - wish I were there too), or in a Blog Post (Wow!  They really brought that conference to life.  That must have been awesome!)

     Wouldn't it be great if airlines gave away "tickets to anywhere" for educators to use during the summer to attend these events?  All we would have to do is show our teacher ID and the attendance confirmation and "poof" we were on the next flight out.

     This summer's big sigh, for me, was ISTE12.  It seemed like everyone I know was there.  And, they were all romping around in my old stomping grounds - San Diego.   They were kayaking, visiting the zoo, and watching the sun set over the ocean.  And, most importantly, they were discussing the latest topics and learning from each other.  They now have shared experiences which make them seem closer sounding in their tweets.  They sound like old buddies on Google+.  Heck, as I see it, the entire future of education was decided by these few hundred people.  And all this was happening 1300 miles from my home.  It might as well have been happening on Pluto (and, as we know, that's not even a planet any more!)

     So, I will re-tweet their hash tags with a smile.  I will give them a + on a well written account of what they discussed at their silly conference.  And I will leave a pleasant comment on their very descriptive blog post; thanking them for telling us all about it and telling them how much I enjoyed the post.  Even though I want to tell them that I hate them!  What right do they have for traveling to places I can't afford to travel to?  Why do they have to enjoy themselves and then tell us about it?  

     Well, I'll show them!  I'll be there at EdcampDallas and I'll be there at TechForum Austin.  And then I'll save my pennies and I"ll head to Educon 2.5.  And, after that I'll be at TCEA 2013 and SXSWEdu 2013!  And finally, next summer, ISTE comes to San Antonio!  I'll be tweeting the heck out of those conferences.  They'll see!  Then we'll see who's envious.  Those guys will really feel left out of the loop.  I'll tell them about my speaker proposals, and my acceptance of the proposals , and my travel plans, and my parties that I accept invitations to, and my tweetups, and .......

      Hey, things are looking up already!  What a great summer....