Learning 2.008: A moment

I think these pictures tell the story better than I can. I always have this weird feeling when the conference is over. Part of me is so relieved that it’s over and another part of me never wanted it to end. I was tired, running on pure adrenalin by the end of it but so excited to see educators learning together and from each other.

On Thursday night I challenged the participants to walk away from this conference with two things.

1. That they understand that learning happens through connections. Whether it is connecting people, thoughts, ideas, or knowledge just understand that learning happens when we make connections and that this conference was about creating and fostering those connections.

2. That we try and wrap our heads around what it means to learn how to learn. We say this is a skill our students need to learn, this conference was about participants taking control of their own learning and using that time so they could learn how to learn.

I wonder how many people walked away from this conference having a better understanding of these two concepts.

There are so many little snippets that I want to write about, but I’m sure they will come out over the next couple of blog posts. For now I leave you with these pictures.

If you want…and I do encourage it. You can visit the ning site where the participants once again this year came together to create collaborative notes for each session. Visit any session and you will get an overview of what was talked about or discusses.

My hat is off to the folks at Praxis Language and specifically Ken Caroll who over the coming weeks will be editing and uploading some 70+ audio files for us. We figure we captured about 70% of the conference. Not bad for handing the whole operation over to 7th and 8th graders who organized themselves and made sure the job got done.

I really don’t know what to think or feel at this time. Where do we go from here? What does the future hold for myself and the conference? As Warlick put it, I come away with more questions then answers.

Thank you to everyone who attended both near and far. Thank you to the amazing team of organizers each one of us finding our niche, playing our role that made this conference what it was.

I can only speak for myself when I say for me Learning 2.008 is a model conference. It takes what we talk about our classrooms looking like, feeling like, and being like and tries to create that feeling for educators. Get uncomfortable, get involved, and learn!