If they had asked me...

If I went down to EduCon 2.1 a day early to check out what was happening in the English classes at SLA. Zac Chase's class started with this journal prompt: "If they asked me, I could have told them..." The genesis for the rest had been rolling around in my head for awhile, so here is the result.

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If they asked me, I could have told them the best laid lesson plans don't always go the way one expects, especially when technology is involved. At any given moment, the network will crash, and the glorious lesson plan you had ready to go will suddenly be useless. I could have told them to always have a back-up plan for the event of when (not if) the network will crash. I could have told them that the site you checked out yesterday will inevitably be blocked today, so have a back-up plan. I could have told them that network protocols are constantly being changed, so always check to see if your access is still present. I could have told them that what works on the teacher's computer might not work the same on the students' computers, so always try the activity on those machines before going live. If they had only asked me...