Where I Learn

I often say that I blog to learn.  I also teach to learn, and no time was that more evident to me than yesterday’s workshop at the NCAECT.  The first thing that struck me about this group of about 20 educators was the number of them that reported that their schools or districts had either committed to or were strongly considering 1:1 initiatives.  I’ve thought of NC as being somewhat behind in this area, choosing to pay attention to other areas, such as bandwidth and student information management systems.  It makes me wonder if we might be approaching some tipping point.

Most of the attendees were tech facilitators and several were young — and several of them were gamers.  We even had a Guild Master in the audience.  Needless to say, I learned much in our conversations.  I also tried a few new techniques during the day, including Twittering out a request for people to Skype in and talk about their Personal Learning Networks.  Many thanks to Meg Ormiston, Scott Merrick, and Joe Brennan, and to everyone else who knocked on my Skype door.  That was a huge hit.

At the end of the day, we had a conversation about personal learning networks, school 2.0, and new definitions of teacher and learner.  I broadcast the conversation via Ustream and got a few spectators there.  One of the physical attendees volunteered to handle the iSight camera, aiming for the conversation.  She also monitored the chat on Ustream, and reported in salient comments from the Stream. 

I learned!

Perhaps the most learning for me was going back through the backchannel chat transcript this morning, popping it over to the wiki, and then inserting my 2¢.  It sometime amazes me how much richer these things might seem to people who are in this room to listen, but are freed to express at the same time.  Thanks guys for the links.