My Take Aways from Inventing New Boundaries

On Monday morning, the K12 Online conference released its pre-conference keynote “presentation“. This year, David Warlick presented Inventing New Boundaries. Here are my take aways from this presentation. 1. David changed the metaphor from the railway to the airport This is an apt switch, since teachers need to switch their role in the classroom from that of a railroad engineer, pulling the students along a common path, with some excursions down the side rails, all together to that of the teacher as a air traffic controller. Each student is like their own airplane, with their own flight plan. The teacher […]

Does the Backchannel Stifle Those Who Benefit Most from Technology

Over twenty years ago, when I first started working with teachers, one of the promises of the use of technology was to level the playing field in the classroom. No longer would those individuals, who are able to think quickly on their feet with loud voices and determination, be able to dominate the learning in the classroom. The use of forums and email would allow the quieter thinker, the one who may need more time to wrestle and reflect for some time, the ability to develop their voice. The net result is that everyone would benefit from the the differing […]

K12 Online Keynote – Audio vs. Video

Like many of you on Monday morning, I opened up my web browser and pointed it two the K12 Online Conference Blog so that I could download the Pre-Conference Keynote by David Warlick. One of the changes in this year’s conference, which Wes Fryer notes in his blog post, Inventing New Boundaries, is the presence of both audio and video content feeds for the conference. I have now listened to Warlick’s audio feed nearly twice over and watched the video feed once last night. Something that I have noticed is that the experiences are vastly different. The same way that […]