Sunday, February 22, 2009

Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation


This past Saturday I attended the Colorado Conversation at Heritage HS in Littleton, CO. This was a powerful conference about integrating technology in the classroom. It was amazing to see people from all over Colorado having the same conversations that we Global Learners have been having all along. I'm posting some of the links for you to access in case you are interested in the topics discussed. The Conversation was a bit of information overload, so I cannot possibly re-hash it all here. Let me know if you have specific questions.
Home: http://colearning.wikispaces.com/Home+2009
Writer's Workshop Seminar I attended: http://colearning.wikispaces.com/Powering+Up+The+Writers+Workshop
Shifting Literacies Seminar I attended: This one is a GOLD MINE for secondary teachers who want to get more ideas about incorporating wikis and blogs more effectively into Literacy/Humanities classes: http://colearning.wikispaces.com/Shifting+Literacies--A+Learning+Conversation

Again, if you have specific questions, please let me know.

3 comments:

Joseph Miller said...

Liz,

The conference caused me to think deeply about a couple of topics: (1) how we talk to each matters a lot (Zac Chase session on seeing all learners really brought this home for me) and (2) performance management has to be multi-dimensional, purposeful, and reflect the changing demands of teaching and learning in the 21st century (discussions with Dave Tarwater brought this home for--if Dave had a dollar for every time he taught me something he would be a rich man now).

Zac Chase in his session on Seeing All Learners did a really nice job of modeling how to make connections with students. One of the concepts he talked at length about (and modeled with someone he just meant) was giving students a meaningful compliment. He calls every student's parents at least once per year and gives a compliment to the parents about their child. He said this frequently ends in tears. Wonder what it would take to see more of that?

In a session where there was lengthy discussion of NCLB and barriers to "creative" teaching Dave and I engaged in a discussion about the various methods that could be used to measure school performance. Most people believe that the various measures used today to evaluate schools do not tell the whole story. Some argue that these measures actually impact the quality of teaching. It would be interesting to see schools receive a rating for instructional creativity. I wonder how that could be measured. Any ideas?

JM

Wesley Robinson said...

Thanks for posting the links and content of the conference. I would have enjoyed the attending, but already had other plans. I looked around the colearning wiki a bit, but was unable to find some of the resulting content, thought the powerpoint you linked to was interesting. We will all have to keep on implementing new concepts in our class, especially once CSAP has ended. Thanks!

Dave Tarwater said...

Liz,

It was fun hanging out with you at Learning 2.0. It is energizing to be around folks who are like minded as were were at Heritage HS. I really enjoyed the student questions and answer session during lunch. The students were very candid in answering all the questions. I would like to include students in some of our upcoming Global Learner get togethers. I would be interested in hearing ideas for doing that from everyone.