Bit By Bit

Photo by: Caitlinator

I’ve been thinking about a “conference metaphor” lately: the conference serves as being a sort of “watering hole”, where we go to refuel as teachers, sidle up to those that are of the same species as us (zebras and zebras, let’s say), and those that bring different perspectives (uh… lions and hyenas?). With most conferences, once the members leave, they take the water hole with them… or it just “dries up”. With the k12 Online Conference, it will stay there indefinitely. Even if I’m late to the party, there’s plenty left for me, and “Oh look at all the tracks left behind by others who have come before!”

I thoroughly enjoyed Ann Davis’ keynote, “Unleash the Potential: Remix Obstacles into Opportunities!” and it is an excellent example to demonstrate the above metaphor. I listened to the podcast on the way in to school this morning. It ended just as I pulled into the parking lot, on a Monday morning, the sun not yet up and was just the thing I needed to launch me into another week: a healthy dose of optimism.

I love how Ann calls it “remixing”. It makes me think of working with a Garageband file and correcting or manipulating the files. Don’t like an “obstacle” in the way? Delete it and rerecord!

The best idea for me was “Remix #5”: involving others outside of the classroom. Rather than just leaving it up to students to make the transformation for the school through their work being posted on blogs, podcasts, etc., I need to make sure that administrators and teachers are actively responding to these posts. It might take a bit of “nagging”, but I believe once they get involved, they’ll be hooked!

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