A View From the Schoolhouse
Thanks to EduCon 2.1 scheduling guru Diana Laufenberg for putting all the write-ups for EduCon sessions into Wordle, so we can see what the focus of the conference will really be about: 
!["EduCon]("http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3236/3148399613_e9c2d93748.jpg")
EduCon 2.1 — January 23-25th.
Hope to see you there.
One of the hardest parts of running EduCon 2.1 is that all of us at SLA feel a fair amount of pressure to put our best foot forward with the sessions we run. That means for folks like Zac and Diana and Marcie and Tim and me who often go out and work with schools or present at conferences, we want to do something we haven’t done before. Needless to say, that means we stress ourselves out about what we want to do. Fortunately for me, I keep this here blog as a running record of my thoughts, which means I’ve got a pretty good place to look if I want to think about presenting my current train of thought. I’ve been thinking a lot about the ideas I wrote about in Where Does It Live?, and I realized that’s something I want to explore a bit more at EduCon. So here’s my session:
Where Does It Live: Building Systems And Structures Around What You Believe
- School-Level Reform
- Classroom Reform
- Systemic Change
The myth of the single teacher, bucking the odds to be that one great teacher in a school may make for a great Hollywood movie, but it rarely — if ever — leads to lasting, effective change. We must examine the manner in which our schools and classrooms are set up so that the greatest number of students, teachers and even principals can thrive and learn and feel valued. This session is focused on looking at institutional change, so that attendees can explore what they value and then examine the systems in their districts, schools and classrooms that must change to reflect those values
Hope to see you there!
The non-SLA sessions for EduCon 2.1 are up on the site! Check out the Conversations page for some incredibly exciting sessions.
I tried to make a list of all the sessions and people I’m excited to see, but really, the post got too long too fast. It’s going to mean that people are going to have to make some hard choices, but we are holding to our structure of longer sessions, fewer sessions a day, time in between, and sharing meals so people have time to talk.
There’s more to post… more sessions coming… panelists announced… dinners planned, but we’ve got the first HUGE piece of the content of the conference up, and I couldn’t be more pleased.
Hope to see you in Philly… it’s going to be an amazing time!