My 2007 TCEA Experience: Things I Learned…

I had a great week of learning at TCEA this year. I attended many keynotes and breakout sessions and was fortunate to hang out with really smart people in the evenings. I did my best to capitalize on my time away from my family and my campus this week. On the last day of the conference, I sat down to reflect on my week. I came up with seven things I learned. Reading through them again, they come off sounding pretty negative. I wasn’t really sure how, or if, I should re-spin this into something more sugar-coated, so I didn’t. Obviously, I was disappointed in several things about the whole convention experience. I really didn’t “connect” with presenters who were sharing “quick” or “easy” technology tips or projects. These sessions seemed “gimmicky” to me. Gary Stager stated at the beginning of his session that there isn’t anything quick or easy about improving the current learning environment we find in most schools. I tend to agree with that outlook. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Learning is based on passion. You have to want to learn something to really learn it well. Otherwise, it’s just a “remember and repeat” exercise. Writing it down doesn’t work either. You have to absorb it and own it. Writing it down just gives you an excuse to not listen critically and memorize it the first time. You can’t time-shift “the moment.” If you are going to do a face-to-face meeting, get your head out of the notes and look the presenter in the eyes. Be passionate and get involved in the moment.

2. Do we have to show up anymore? There’s a lot of smart people out there who are willing to share their knowledge and expertise freely. Lucky for us, most of them write, record and present what they know on the internet. If you can use Google effectively, you can probably find what you need to learn in less time than it would take for someone to spoon-feed it to you. With the sum of all human knowledge available for free on the internet, why do we need to wait to be told anything? Learning is now a function of “pull” technologies and I have little patience left for “push” activities.

3. Don’t turn learners away. At many presentations, I saw people being turned away at the door due to a lack of seating or a shortage of handouts. This is stupid. Why do we need to limit learning activities to a physical space or materials? Using copy-and-paste is FREE. In what ways do we turn learners away in our own classrooms…when their learning style doesn’t fit, or when their excitement level is too low or too high? As I walked down 6th Street on the way to dinner one evening, I was struck by all of the people who seemed to be living on the streets. Were they ”turned away” at some point? Did it happen when they were still in school?

4. We better step it up if we want to keep up. The web moves faster than any of us realized. Wikipedia is updated 500 times every two minutes by people all over the world. You don’t have time for technology tutorials. Just jump in and start learning. If you wait until you feel comfortable with the technology before you use it with your students, you will find yourself teaching a history lesson. Don’t fool yourself. You are already behind, its up to you to play catch-up every single day.

5. Learning is a come and go activity. We are a highly mobile and multitasking group pf people. It is possible to learn new things in 5-10 minute sound bites. It is also possible to get high quality work done in short, but highly intense sessions. Creativity happens off the clock. Just because its 4:00 doesn’t mean that its time to check out for the day. After we learn this concept, we need to teach it to our students. I’m not talking about teaching them to get their homework done either. I am talking about high-end, creative thinking while pursuing what they are passionate about.

6. It’s not about the “bedazzler.” Don’t be impressed with the shiny things. They are usually distracters that cover up the lack of something else really important. People are trying to sell $6,000 laser paper cutters and student voting-clicking things that are a waste of both time and money. Don’t look for the quick fixes…they are usually offered by people selling things. You should be listening to the people who talk about investing your time, effort and creativity. That can’t be sold or marketed.

7. Knowing which buttons to push on the computer is worthless if you don’t have something meaningful to create. Don’t learn to use technology if all you plan on doing is making more worksheets, asking multiple choice questions or writing an autobiography. We should be learning how to use computers to create things in the classroom that would otherwise be impossible without them.

Now, I just need to give this some more thought and address the implications this has at the classroom level. If I can skip out on next year’s conference and still get my professional development fix, what does this mean for our classrooms? Give me a week or two and I’ll write some more.