Hitch Hiking and Learning

I’ve been attending the eLIVE conference in Edinburgh. Well, I’ve actually been spending my eighteen-hour work days lately moving web sites to my new honkin’ dedicated server and programming. But, I’ve seen the conference, through “elive” tagged pictures in flickr, and through the bloggings of Will Richardson, Ian Mcintosh, David Muir, and John Johnson. So very cool. It’s not like being there. No! I’ve worked in Scotland, and nothing, nothing, nothing, is like being there. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so much at home. But I’ve breathed in the exhaust of the eLIVE event, and I’ve learned.

On Tuesday I was sitting in my office at StarBucks, writing, when my phone jingled and a text message appeared.

Oh My God, David — it’s been a long time since I’ve felt like a tech-dinosaur. This stuff is unreal. And our schools could USE THIS STUFF now. Now as in now.

I’m sure you’ve felt like this before, like suddenly you’ve been thrust into a conversation that has come out of no where, and you feel you should know where you are, and you try to hide your cluelessness. Or perhaps you haven’t had that feeling. Maybe it’s an A.D.D. thing. The best thing to do is pretend that you’re fully aware and above response. You ignore it.

Then,

The whole focus of this conference is ‘What do we mean when we say Open.’ You would love the spirit of this.

While reading this, my phone vibrated and jingled again and…

——– At the MIT Media Lab – wish you were here to experience all of this…. My observations would be richer if combined w/ yours.

I shot off, my thumbs typing as fast as they could…

OK! Who is this? I’m wishing I was where?

Of course, as my thumbs typed in a blur of action, I realized, “This has got to be Chris Lehman (Principal of the soon to open Science Leadership Academy, in Philadelphia). He replied…

It’s Chris Lehman ;-), and this event is amazing.

We talked, for a few minutes, about the culture of the Media Lab and its relevance to K-12 education. Then the conversation died down, as text-messaging tends to do — as my thumbs start to spasm.

But, I was there. My mind had hitch hiked up to Boston, and across to the U.K. and I have learned, and the event has become a part of me. Am I becoming a tenticled creature like my children, able to reach through walls, and listen, and learn?

In your conversation!

2¢ Worth!

One thought on “Hitch Hiking and Learning”

  1. Hi David,
    I was in my classroom for the first day and like you hitchhiked in. The second day I was there.
    Even though a lot of this could be seen as a bunch of folk messing around in the pub(as apparent from flickr), it really felt like a tipping point for Scottish education and blogging, hopefully the scotedublogs wiki will expand even faster.
    There was a great mix from several different sectors, all with a different angle, but all excited about the same sort of things, a great way to learn. Having Will there was icing on our cake.

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