I had a wonderful day, yesterday, at the San Mateo county office of education, presenting to about 80 teachers and administrators from across this part of California. Paul Larson also did an amazing presentation and demonstration of some of the work that his sixth-grade students are doing. I was especially impress with the emphasis that he puts on communication in their work, rather than just the technology of it.
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| This is a picture of the gift shop in my hotel, where the shelving seems more important than what’s on them. At least they had a couple of bags of M&Ms along with all of those gold wrapped dark chocolates. |
It’s 3:39 AM, Pacific time, and I’ll be leaving for the airport in about two hours for my flights back to Raleigh, where it’s suppose to be snowing right now. The conference sponsors put me up in this really Frenchie hotel. I don’t mean that in any derogatory way. It’s just an interesting place where all the employees have an accent, wear charcoal gray suits and purple shirts — and the accent is on style. It’s just different from my usual Courtyard hotels.
Then I’m home for a few days, thanks to a cancellation in New York. I’m glad to be home, but sympathetic to the predicament faced by my client in NY. They had put forth a great deal of planning and effort to provide a productive conference for area educators, only to have such a small registration that they had to cancel. My contact was very frustrated because, as he said, “If we had offered a conference about the dangers of social networking, then we would have been filled up!”
So many of us educators seem to be in a reactionary mode right now. Irrational attacks from sectors who gain from attacking have put us here. It will all change!
The up side is that I get to attend the Science Bloggers Conference in Chapel Hill on Saturday. I’m not quite sure what to expect from a science bloggers conference. Most of the attendees will be university level researchers and real scientists from across the country, though I understand that there will also be a good many K-12 science educators. Again, I’m not sure what to expect, but coming at things from new directions do tend to give us insights about things that we might not usually get when we only look at them through our own lenses. Should be fun!
For the bad news, my daughter just turned 21. Egads!
That your daughter turned 21 is the good news! Go parents.
I find myself reading your thoughts from a friend’s blog; so I thought I would add you to my blogroll. Being new to blogging, I’m still trying to figure the simplest things out; yet, I find blogging fascinating.
So glad to hear that you will be able to join us on Saturday at Chapel Hill. I’m excited not only because I get to go, but also because I’m bringing 2 of my science teachers who are just starting to blog with me. I’m hoping that their fires will be lit and it will spread. Hope we can touch base there.
Danita “Random Ramblings”