ASCD Bound

Later on this week, I will be leaving for the ASCD Conference in Orlando, and thanks to Scott McLeod and the generous group over at ASCD, I will be covering the conference through this medium.  With that responsibility comes some pretty cool benefits, one being that I can pop into ticketed sessions that I otherwise would not have been able to get into.

In that light, I thought I might throw it out there to the readership here (whatever that number might be) and ask if there were any topics that might be of specific interest to you.  I am sitting down to plan my conference over the next two days, so here are the main headings that ASCD gives out:

• Creativity and 21st Century Skills
• From Research to Practice
• Networking Opportunities
• Urban Education

Navigating the ASCD website is proving to be a little tricky, but the sessions are all available for browsing if you are so inclined.  On a personal level, my focus is going to be on visual literacy, critical thinking, assessment, and reading strategies.  Yes, I know, rather narrow. If there is a session you see that might fit that bill, or something you would like some firsthand knowledge of, drop a comment and I’ll do my best to gather some firsthand info for you.

As they see it…

Previously, I posted about my observations of the teachers in the connective writing workshop that I have been conducting over the last two days. Actually, it was more of an introduction and overview than a workshop, but nonetheless, some great dialog came out of it.

Here are some of the quotes that I was able to pull from our discussion of yesterday’s project:

• “We needed to have a plan and sit together and work through the information”
• “Sometimes things would appear on the document that I wouldn’t want on there, stuff that I wouldn’t put on their if this were my own document.”
• “We really had no format to follow, so trying to learn the application, collaborate, and write was hard.”
• “Should we have had roles?”
• “You can see where having good communication skills is important when doing this.”
• “It is not as easy explaining to people what you want them to do this way.”

Some pretty telling soundbites here, and we spoke about these as we looked at various examples of connective writing and online collaboration. Framing this in the context of these teachers as my students, they understood a need for scaffolding with technology, and I tried to model what it would be like when the teacher learns alongside the students; I had no idea how any of this would pan out, so I was making decisions about what information to share and which direction to push in as the need arose.

A spontaneous discussion about teaching digital literacy and ethics arose as we began introducing blogging examples and formats. What was great was that they all were advocates of tearing down the filters and the blocks to Internet sites. Several of them revealed that conversations were more important than limiting access. I have a great staff to work with.