I got my notification email the other day from ISTE, concerning my conference proposals. It was yesterday afternoon before I mastered my apprehension, and took a look. “Cracking the ‘Native’ Information Experience” was rejected. Drat and double Drat. I spent the better part of last week working on that presentation — an important one, I believe. It seems that we are spending a lot of time talking about 21st century learning, 21st century education, and 21st century skills, but not so much about what it actually looks like. I’d wanted to talk a bit about 21st century pedagogies and suggest that our learners ‘native’ information experiences might be a good place to look for examples.
My backup proposal, what I’d hoped might be a second presentation, “A Gardener’s Approach to Learning: Cultivating your Personal Learning Network,” was accepted. I’m a little disappointed, because this seems like an old topic, at least for folks who attend ISTE. I could be wrong. The folks at ISTE do know what they are doing. So I guess I’ll need to try to bring a different angle to the issue, something new in technique, approach, and justification. I suspect there is still room. Because as some of the Tweets I’ve gotten recently seem to indicated, back home, the idea of teachers acting like learners is still unconsidered and even, in some rare instances, considered an antithesis to their vision of teaching.
All that said, I am pleased and privileged to be on the speakers roster. Reviewing the statistics on acceptances by strand I feel even more honored.
So, see you at ISTE in Philly.
Yeah, that’s too bad. It does seem that the idea of 21st Century learning is talked about but with little evidence or direction. Maybe you can still present your information some other way or pass along your presentation!
Yes! I’m wondering if I might bleed some of the pedagogy stuff into the PLN.
Congrats on getting one accepted. I agree that we need to push the discussion of 21st century education/learning. Hopefully you can find somewhere to present it. The unconference before ISTE? There was a live feed next to Bloggers Cafe last year for people to present via Internet (Elluminate???).
Last year was my first ISTE (I will be going to Philly) and one of my goals was to establish a national PLN. I was succesful at that. So maybe teaching people how to develop a PLN will be good for Newbies. I know most of my fellow teachers at my school do not have any kind of a PLN. I was surprised how many sessions were focussed on newbies (to ISTE as well as to tech). I was disappointed that many sessions that I hoped to further my understanding of a topic I was trying, gave me no more info than what was on their website or what I had already researched. ISTE just seemed like a state tech conference, but with more presentations. Not anything grander or more enlightening. One thing ISTE does offer is access to national voices, like yourself.
You suggest a problem with ISTE and other tech conferences that I agree with and think that these organizations need to address. As I travel around, talking with accomlished ed tech’ers, many of them tell me that they won’t be attending ISTE or even their local state conference, because there is little there for them.
It is a large order to address the needs of people who have been using digital networked tech for 10, 20, or 30 years and are skilled, such as you, at utilizing personal learning to teach themselves what the need to know. But it’s a problem that we need solve, because we desperately need these people at our conferences.
I wonder how I might address the needs of newbies and accomplished personal learners in my presentation?
I’m so disappointed to hear that your ideas for what 21st century pedagogy looks like won’t be shared in a presentation at ISTE. The topic is one I am eager to hear discussed. I hope you will be able to share some of your ideas in other venues at some point!
Please lead a conversation at edubloggercon!
Congrats, getting accepted to do a presentation at ISTE, it is always such an honor. Any presentation by you will be amazing.
As for the thought that perhaps your idea is too cutting edge, the new cutting edge ideas tend to cut their teeth at the smaller conferences like EduCon and in the blogosphere first, often people who are active in the blogosphere forget that so many educators aren’t active at all in PLN’s and rather they get all their ideas from going to the big conferences like ISTE. ISTE is still an amazing conference, perhaps you can consider doing your presentation as a discussion during the birds of a feather sessions at ISTE.
Sorry to hear that ISTE turned down your primary topic. I think you are absolutely right – we lack models when it comes 21st century education. In fact, when it comes to technology and education, I think we have made some debilitating assumptions which have knocked us off course and/or slowed us down. There is far more to 21st century education and skills than a revised set of NETS.
Pardon my asking, but you write in this post that your proposal “Cracking the ‘Native’ Information Experience” was rejected for this year. A search in last year’s ISTE program shows that you made a presentation there titled “Cracking the Native Information Experience” (sessionid=49959501). I won’t claim that nothing has changed in the past year, but could the rejection of your proposal have anything to do with the fact that you presented on an extremely similar topic last year at ISTE?
After a four week vacation in Panama, I am finally catching up on my Google Reader and your blogposts. Sorry to hear your presentation was rejected. I agree that the missing piece is seeing the 21st century skills in action. This term, I will be writing my Master’s paper on this very topic: Designing Authentic Inquiry Tasks for 21st Century Learning. Your session title is far more catchy though! I hope you will have another chance to present it, perhaps in Saskatchewan.
I too wish that your 21st Century presentation would have been accepted. Please let us know if you will be able to present it at another location. Best of luck on the other presentation, and we will see you in Philly!