For all those who have been following, the coffee was still disappointing this morning, and after 3 days of this java, I can't wait to find a Starbuck's or a Second Cup and have something resembling a Cafe Late or, if I am feeling "adventurous", a Mochachino of some sort...

The morning was spent in expert groups exploring curriculum connections to Web 2.0 initiatives.  I am already quite comfortable with everything that was being offered, so I spent the morning working with a few keen colleagues who were interested in developing their own Weebly sites.  I love the interaction that takes place when you put 3-4 keen people in one area and give them time to teach each other.  If any message from the Conference hits home, I hope it's that "we are learners not the learned".  It's how I approach my classes, and I hope that there are more than a few educators who will take this to heart and take risks...the payoff is well worth it.

What an amazing morning.  If you ever have the chance to listen to Will Richardson speak, please take advantage of that opportunity...easily one of the top 5 speakers I've heard in my career.

The afternoon, degraded a bit into a "typical" PD session..new iniatives are met with skepticism and fear.  I am okay with skepticism (heck, I'm a card carrying member of Skeptic-R-Us, lol)..it's the fear of anything new that drives me around the bend.  It's always the same argument, just with a different focus.  Web 2.0 is reality, embrace and deal with it, or at the very least get out of the way and let others educate.  There is a disconnect between pedagogy, the Ministry, the Unions, and reality...that is the discussion that should be taking place.  Surely, new legislation could easily be passed to protect teachers, and quell some of these fears. 

"Right now, schools are: time and place, filtered, teacher-directed, standardized, push oriented, content-based, group-assesed, linear, closed, september-june, and local."  The sooner, as educators, we realize that this is not how kids learn, the better job we will do.  One only has to look at our prepensity to "google" everything we want to know...that is on-demand learning.  We don't wait.  We want to interact.  We want it personal.

This graphic is the world we live in.  How are we going to move education forward to deal with this new reality?  We could stick our heads in the sand and try and "la la la la" it all away.  But the reality is we need new learning environments.  WE need to engage them or risk enraging them.  We truly need to be learners first and teachers second.

Wow.  So many keen teachers, so little bandwidth.  We're just into the many (too many?) thank-yous and introductions and the flakey Wi-Fi network, has gone from bad to worse.  Seems to be endemic of these sort of Conferences.  Teachers are being asked to go from being "digitally aware" to "digitally proficient and innovative", yet this is opportunity #3 that I've been too that the infrastructure cannot support the day (sigh).  Such are the growing pains, as the hotels themselves realize the new economic reality of needing to provide larger pipes to the internet.

So, despite snow squalls and a horrendous amount of traffic on the 410, I made it to the Conference.  Wow!  The Hilton is amazing, the fact that my room has 2 (count 'em 2!!) LCD TVs, I am in tech heaven.  Standing in the middle of the room and controlling both at once is immensely entertaining.

A quick look around the Conference area has me very excited about tomorrow (there are Smartboards, free Wi-Fi, and more importantly, strategically placed coffee stations).  Add in the fact that the Bruins won 8-6 over the Canadians, and I managed to find a nearby Teriyaki, means that this has been a most terrific of evenings! 

This section of the website is meant to be a place for me to express myself.  I love intellectual interaction, so if you have anything to say, please leave comments...as from discourse comes perspective, and in some cases, education.

Today my energies are focused on preparing for the start of Semester II tomorrow, figuring out how to win a very important basketball game on Tuesday versus OSCVI, and of course, the Super Bowl (go Steelers!).

This week I will be attending the Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century Conference in Toronto, and I am looking forward to exploring how other educators have used social media sites in their classroom to not only reach their students but also to enhance their curriculum.  I will be blogging live from the Conference on Thursday and Friday.