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.

*****

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...

My Big Playdates

That's what my partner has termed my attendance at two conferences in the last three weeks. And while making fun of me to some extent, it's a pretty accurate description of my attendance at EduCon 2.1 and Pete&C. I've gotten to meet up with a bunch of great educators from around Pennsylvania and the United States, I've met a number of people in my Twitter network for the first time face to face, and I've gotten to catch up with some really close friends.

I also have taken pause to think about where I am with my teaching and where I am professionally. The conversations of EduCon and the presentations of Pete&C have both given me much to think about, and there is much I would like to try to do in and out of my classroom in the coming weeks and months.

With all that said, my hope is to approach my blog with a renewed vigor. So, what that said, let me take care of a little bit of housekeeping. Just before EduCon, my friend Lori tagged me in the "Seven things you don't know about me" meme. I'll honor her tag in the next several days, but I'm not sure I'll invite anyone else to play along. The bloggers I personally know have all been tagged already, so there's no need to hit them again. Second, I wrote a blog post as a result of my attendance at EduCon, and within the week, I'll post that to along with the background that led to it. I am quite proud of it actually, and it, more than the meme, actually applies to the intent and spirit with which I started this blog.

Finally, my Backchanneling presentation at Pete&C got me thinking about how I could continue to promote this concept to teachers around the world, so starting soon I will kick off a series of posts entitled Backchanneling Basics. Over the course of I'm not sure how many posts, I'll introduce the concept, talk about services, address concerns, and I'm not sure what else. I'm hoping that maybe some comments I receive will guide the direction of these posts.

See you soon.

EduCon 21. Sunday Morning Panel Discussion