Bright House Networks 2009 Educators Conference

Last night I had the pleasure of speaking at the Bright House Networks 2009 Educator's Conference. The conference was free and it was one of the best conferences around. Kudos to those who helped put it together.

Speaking at the conference reinforced a few beliefs for me:

1.) Teachers need a Google Reader/Blog subscription service of some sort. Professional Development is morphing into an online practice and every teacher needs to get in on the game. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but we all need to make a point of telling the teachers/administrators at our sites about the benefits of blogging. Need a good starting point for some great blogs that run the gamut through a range of disciplines? Start here. Most good conferences I go to have 300 teachers (all with great ideas) staring at one teacher doing all the talking. There needs to be a practice that allows the audience to share best practices. I'm thinking...I'm thinking. My early years in teaching made me feel a lot like the guy in the slide below. Teaching is a profession that, as a whole, needs to get better at sharing our great ideas with one another so that we don't feel like thieves surfing the net for someone else's great ideas.

2.) Our blog subscriptions need to be diverse. What are you reading right now? If you don't have Garr Reynolds or Nancy Duarte dialed in yet, then what are you waiting for?!

P.S. Sorry I've been away from the blog for so long. I've had some busy times with illness in the family and dissertation deadlines to deal with, so the blog took a back seat. But I'm back!