If ILC was your first EdTech conference, you can’t use that as a yard stick. I was a presenter at ILC, as I have been at several other EdTech conferences and I can tell you that I was underwhelmed by the turn out in San Jose. My session was in the last group and the place was a ghost town when I arrived.

I just finished doing the CLHS/CUE conference in Monterey last weekend and had a great experience and had a crowd of over 80 in my three hour session and it was a smaller conference.

There are a few reasons, the biggest is that ILC was a mid-week conference, instead of one at the end of the week that spilled over to the weekend…

So, please don’t look at ILC as a measure of EdTech conferences, it was a first year conference and it definitely has a lot of growing to do to match some of the others.

On another note… we’re looking for an innovative, tech savvy math teacher.

What a spot-on, great idea! One that I will certainly pass along to my colleagues down the hall (I’m a Tech Explo soon to be Project Lead The Way teacher). I’m pretty sure we have access to mp3 recorders. Where is that content playbook we need? :)

Just yesterday we had a PLC session and the ELA teacher presented a very nice unit that was designed to meet the new media standards attached to ELA learning in Maine. During the consultancy I asked if she was reading the text aloud or having the students read the text aloud. “No.” (They were reading a key scene from Lord of the Flies and then watching the film version and doing a comparison.) I suggested borrowing the mp3 recorders from the guy downstairs, sending kids off into a quiet corner with their paragraph and recording it. Then she could “hear” what they read and detect their actual fluency in English, in a way that is non-threatening. Not only that but renditions could be shared and students could learn from each other how to read with intonation, etc. The point being, can they convey the doom and gloom of the scene and make it come alive with the power of their own voice? I think yes, and I think having a chance to record it and re-record it takes away some of the live pressure. As a Spanish teacher, I know the power of “saying it right”. A good reading makes a world of difference in understanding.

So yes, it was an aha moment for ELA Teacher. She’s not afraid of the tools, she just needs practical applications for them in her class. And I gave her one. We need more teachers who teach with tech to share their content secrets, not their tech secrets.

I read so often that many want tech stuff to be seen as part of the toolbag, but that means not only having tech tools be readily available, but ALSO used when appropriate. I’d hate to see tech tools become like the proverbial “hammer-is-the-only-tool-everything-looks-like-a-nail”. Makes me think of an old comedy bit (George Carlin?) about the weatherman saying, “What is the weather doing? Let’s go to the map!” and the answer being, “No, Bob, lets go to the window!”.

The right tools, at the right time, for the right purpose.

Just one example (into which I have forced my new favorite word rather uncomfortably).

I teach Spanish, by the way. It’s awesome.

However, do you think some of this has to do with the fact that the teaching of math dates back to prehistory and the inclusion of technology i.e. computers in the classroom dates back only a few decades? If everything owes a debt to what’s come before, then certainly educational technology is in its infancy and the teaching of mathematics has had some time to develop. This is not an excuse for not having higher standards but perhaps a reason to keep elevating the field.

DISCLOSURE: I facilitate learning for adults with little to no such formal study/inquiry/consideration. But, I’ve come to own that limitation and I’m learning through the study and practice of…here it comes…here it comes…andragogy!