Paper Love

We love our paper.

The experts have been predicting for decades that we are going paperless. The paperless office. The paperless school. The paperless bathroom. Okay, maybe not. But looking through this stack of papers brought home by my fifth grader, I can’t believe that we’re making any progress at all toward reducing our paper consumption. And one look at my desk would tell you that I’m about as paperless as a news stand.

In the 1970′s, Xerox was so concerned about the promise of a paperless world that they set up the Palo Alto Research Center to figure out how the company could survive once people stopped printing. The researchers at PARC invented ethernet and laser printing and the graphical user interface and object oriented programming. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates famously stole ideas from PARC for their own products. And many of the researchers left PARC to start their own companies, including Adobe and 3Com. But Xerox? They just kept printing.

For all of the efforts of the information age, we’re printing more than ever. Take a look at this document from the Resource Conservation Alliance and this one from ID2 Communications. Both are written from a conservationist perspective. Both have statistics about how much paper we actually use. Both are kind of out of date, which is why I’m not reproducing the numbers here. But what else do you notice about the documents?

They’re documents. They’re formatted for printing. They assume that they’re going to be viewed on a standard US Letter size piece of paper. The second document is a little apologetic about it, asking people not to print it, or at least to print it on recycled paper. But if the goal is to get people to read it on a device rather than on paper, why is it still formatted for the printed page, with a layout that looks awful on my computer or tablet or (God help us) phone?

Ryan Collins was thinking about this recently, and it became the basis for his Beyond Paperless presentation that I skipped didn’t have the opportunity to see at eTech this year. I hear he’s going to repeat it at the Catiie Conference in June, and I may not be able to avoid it be able to catch it this time around.

Last week, I found myself in a meeting with my Superintendent and two school board members talking about Board Docs. This is a tool to computerize the process of building and disseminating agendas for school board meetings. Traditionally, the board agenda is posted on the web site a few days before the meeting. There are ancillary documents (called tab items) that are also assembled. These are things like contract proposals, studies, reports, and various documents that the board will discuss. All of this stuff is printed, and placed in a binder. A separate binder is prepared for each board member, the superintendent, the treasurer, and the news media. For a typical meeting, this can add up to a thousand pages or more.

In an effort to improve transparency, the board has requested that we post all of the tab items on the web site when the agenda is posted. That way, any community member can see all of the details of all of the documents that the board is discussing. The next logical step, then, was what we were discussing at this meeting. Why do we need the binders at all? What if everyone just had a laptop or a tablet or something? We could project the agenda for the audience to see, and the board members wouldn’t need the binders.

We talked for a while about logistics — would we have to buy computers, or could they use their own? How can board members take notes and annotate their documents? Can we embed things like videos and PowerPoint presentations that are typically shown at the meetings? As we talked, I could feel my to-do list piling up. How can I embed a PowerPoint presentation into the PDF of the board agenda, and how do I teach the administrative assistants in the central office how to do that? But I had missed the same thing you did when you looked at those pdfs about paper consumption.

“Why are we designing for a printed document?” I asked at the meeting. “What if the agenda doesn’t look like a sheet of paper? What if each agenda item is on a slide?”

“Like PowerPoint?”

“Yes, but don’t get locked in to PowerPoint just yet. Think slides. Each agenda item is a slide. If there’s a document (tab item) related to that document, it’s linked from the slide. If there’s a presentation, it’s either embedded on the slide or there’s a link to it. The same goes for videos and other multimedia. But it’s not designed to be printed, because we have no intention of printing it. Instead, it’s formatted for the computers (and projector) we’re viewing it on.”

They were intrigued. I crossed off a bunch of things on my to-do list. Now, I just need to riff on this idea. I have to play with it with actual agendas and documents and see if I can put together something that will make sense. But the paradigm shift made all the difference.

What if we did that in other places? What if we stop printing that stupid report each time a student takes an Accelerated Reader test? What if we stop making endless copies of workbook pages and find something a little more engaging for our students to do? What if we teach our students to do research by reading on screens and annotating or taking notes in a document, rather than printing everything out and grabbing a highlighter? What if our students share their work online, and their teachers make comments on it, or send them an email with their grade and feedback? Why do we have to do so much printing?

Last week, we also had a tech team meeting. For the first time in 12 years, I didn’t print anything for the attendees. They noticed. They didn’t have anything to take notes on. But they didn’t need anything to take notes on. If they needed notes, they could have grabbed their devices and taken notes. None of them did.

I don’t pretend that we’ll ever really be paperless. And I don’t necessarily think we should be. Paper is, after all, a remarkable technology. But when I look at the hundreds of thousands of dollars we spend each year on printing, I can’t help but think there must be a better way.

Photo credit: Sean Stayte on Flickr.

Bring Your Own 1:1

As we’ve been discussing next generation learning, it has become increasingly clear that every student needs a device. I’m not sure yet what the specifics of that device are. I know it needs to be network-connected. I know that it has to be portable. I think it should be a content creation device and not just a content consumption device. But beyond that, I’m not sure how much it matters.

Throughout this process, our thinking seems to be moving between a bring your own device (BYOD) program and a 1:1 program. BYOD implies that students bring the devices they already have — whatever they may be — to school and use them as part of the learning process. A 1:1 program is typically one in which the school provides a device for each learner. In most of these programs, the device is assigned to the student for a whole year (or multiple years). The student can take the device home, and it’s also used at school in most classes.

From an educational perspective, 1:1 is a lot easier than BYOD. I remember the early days of graphing calculators. Teachers asked the parents to buy graphing calculators for their high school math students. They couldn’t say “you must buy the TI-81.” They simply explained the features the calculator had to have, and the students brought in whatever tools they had. The results were good — the students learned how to use their devices, and most of the time everyone was able to accomplish the required tasks. But the road to success was pretty rocky. Teachers spent countless hours in class trying to troubleshoot problems with the various devices the students had. They would consult the manuals and the help systems and help the students try to figure out how their particular calculators did all of the functions they needed. It was a pretty steep learning curve.

The same can be said of BYOD programs. Some students will have iOS devices that can’t access web sites with Java or Flash. Others may have a phone or other small device that’s difficult to type on. Some students can watch videos. Some can create videos. Some have great e-readers that work with just about every format out there. Others can read some e-books but not others because of competing DRM and file format systems. Some students will have unfiltered access to the Internet through their mobile plans. Others will have to rely on wi-fi at school and home. Figuring out the various capabilities of the devices and trying to take advantage of the tools available without leaving a child behind will be a major challenge for the teacher in this type of environment.

A 1:1 program is a lot easier, because it gives the school a sense of control and the students a degree of standardization. If we give every sixth grader a netbook, for example, we can easily enumerate the things they can and cannot do with those devices. The teachers know what can be done. The tech support people can more easily identify and troubleshoot problems, and it’s much easier to make productive academic use of the devices. In short, a 1:1 program helps us stop focusing so much on the technology. Instead, we can concentrate on the learning.

But 1:1 programs are expensive. Some experts warn that the cost of purchasing the device is only half of the cost of the program, once you factor in the needs for technology infrastructure, tech support, professional development, and instructional support. In an age when we’re cutting staff, increasing class sizes, and constantly trying to stretch our education dollars, spending $200-500 per student per year on technology is probably unrealistic.

So we’re faced with the decision: do we try to go with 1:1 or do we use BYOD? I’ve been leaning toward both. Let’s plan for a 1:1 program. To do that, we’d be looking at a year of planning, and probably a 3-4 year implementation. If we pulled the trigger today on a 1:1 program, it would be the fall of 2016 before every student in grades 6-12 has a computer. Our current eighth graders will be seniors. Our second graders will be in middle school. That’s a long time. So, in the meantime, let’s do a BYOD program. Let the students bring the things they have. Do some work on the infrastructure to support a lot of technology. Increase the focus on professional development, and prepare teachers for the connected classroom. In addition to meeting the current students’ needs, it’ll help make the transition to a 1:1 program easier.

But there’s this little voice in the back of my head.

You’re doing it wrong.

What’s that?

Stop building the networked world. Use the network that’s already there.

Huh?

Don’t bring your students to your learning network. Bring the learning to the students’ networks.

That’s a major paradigm shift. It ties back to the work I’ve been doing with Massive Open Online Courses. When we take an online course, we typically enroll in some kind of learning management system. We log into Blackboard or Moodle or whatever we’re using, and we interact with the course content there. We complete readings. We write reflections. We participate in discussions with our cohorts. In the good classes, we build a little learning network and we actually learn from one another.

Then the class ends. we lose our access to the learning management system. We lose the connections to the other participants in the class. We can’t get to our discussions or our reflections or any of the course content. Our time is up. The learning stops.

Instead of building this artificial learning environment, though, what if we used our existing personal learning networks? So instead of posting assignments in Moodle, the instructor posts them on a blog. Students interact through Twitter. They write their own reflections and respond to prompts using hash tags and their own blogs. Maybe it’s as simple as writing in Google Docs, sharing publicly, and tweeting out the link. (Stay with me, here, I’m about to drop an F-bomb). What if the course content were actually integrated with my Facebook feed? I go there every day already. So I see the photos of my cousin’s kids. I see that I’ve been challenged to a new Words With Friends game. I see the link to a news article that my wife posted on her wall. And I see a discussion about the online course. I see a post made by the teacher and comments from the students. Or a question raised by a student that sparked a discussion.

What happens when the course ends? Nothing. All of the stuff is still out there online. If I want to continue those connections I’ve made with my cohort, I don’t have to do anything. They’re still there. Learning can continue.

What if online learning for our students were like that? What if social networking and social learning were the same thing? That would be a lot more like “real life” wouldn’t it?

Back to devices. Shouldn’t our students — or at least their families — be making the decisions about what’s best for them? For all the complaining I do about Microsoft and Apple, I really couldn’t care less what people use. I mostly just don’t want them to tell me what I have to use. If they understand what the device will and will not do, and the merits and shortcomings of their decisions, who am I to tell them what to buy?

So, yes. 1:1. Every student needs a device. And let’s do BYOD while we’re working on getting to 1:1. And if we never actually get there, that wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing.

Photo credit: Ken Colwell on Flickr.

EdCamp Cleveland is Coming!

In my school district this year, we’ve been talking a lot about next generation learning. We’re seeing a need for an increased focus on collaboration, communication, problem solving, and creativity. In our PLCs, we’re working collaboratively with our colleagues to improve our professional practices and make school relevant for our students. Students and staff alike are building personal learning networks, and the idea of an education centered around knowledge transfer from a single content expert to a group of learners is starting to seem quaint.

When it comes to professional development, though, we frequently revert to the old paradigm of one expert lecturing to a room full of passive listeners. If participatory learning is a good model for our students, doesn’t it also make sense that we should be doing professional development that way?

Here’s an opportunity to do just that. Over the last few years, a number of cities have hosted EdCamps. These are FREE one-day conferences with the agendas entirely driven by the participants. When people arrive, they indicate the types of sessions that they would be interested in facilitating and attending, and the schedule for the day is built on the spot. Instead of listening to boring presentations in hour-long breakout sessions, attendees actively engage in collaborative sessions around a common topic.

Think of it this way: when you go to a professional conference, frequently the best part is the space between the scheduled sessions. That’s the time when you meet new people, exchange ideas, and apply the topics and themes of the day to your own situation. EdCamps take those best parts and make them the whole conference. You can get a better feel for how this works from this video, produced by True Life Media for EdCamp Philly last year:

I’m excited to announce that the first EdCamp Cleveland will take place at Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School on Friday, June 15, 2012. Anyone with an interest in education is invited to spend the day with us, make connections with other educators, and engage in a participant-driven professional development experience. This opportunity is not limited to BBH staff — we already have commitments from teachers in several other communities throughout Ohio and beyond for this event.

You can find more information, along with the registration link, on the web site at http://www.edcampCLE.org. You can also follow @edcampCLE on Twitter for updates. There is no cost to attend this event.

I’m looking forward to seeing many of you on June 15.

Reflecting on #OETC12

For the first time in recent memory, I didn’t present at the eTech Ohio Educational Technology Conference this year. Last summer, I decided to take a year off from conference presentations, and instead focus on some of the big questions surrounding the future of education. In the intervening months, I have done a lot of reading, participated in several online networks, and had countless conversations with smart people about public education. It’s clear to me that our test-driven, standards-based, knowledge-transfer approach is not meeting our students’ needs anymore, and we are struggling as public schools to remain relevant.

It was through this lens that I approached the conference this year. I’m looking for ways in which schools are reinventing themselves. While technology plays a role in that change, it cannot be the driver of it. Maybe I’ve been in this job too long. For the last 13 years, I’ve purchased computers, upgraded networks, replaced servers, and improved our technology infrastructure. I’ve fought for funding to replace computers, only to fight again to replace them again six years later. I’ve been responsible for both the purchase and the disposal of hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of technology. And while we’ve seen progress in our use of technology in the schools, we haven’t had the transformational change that we need.

So I stayed away from the gadgets. I don’t go in the exhibit hall. I don’t meet with vendors. I’m not interested in buying your amazing solution that’s looking for a problem to solve. For the most part, I also stayed away from the gadget-focused breakout sessions. Instead, I tried to focus on sessions that showcased bold initiatives for changing how teaching and learning is done in our schools.

The Keynotes
The keynotes didn’t help much. On Monday, Dr. Michio Kaku managed to win over a skeptical audience by personally taking credit on behalf of the physics profession for every major technological advance of the last 50 years. He then boldly predicted that technology is going to become more powerful, smaller, and less expensive in the years to come. He referred to wearable technology, like computer chips embedded in contact lenses. He described augmented reality, where a computer gives you real-time information about the things you’re looking at. He talked about hand-held MRI scanners and other amazing medical devices. But he failed to connect these technologies to education. While he advocated for more teaching about technology, he didn’t really address how these new advances are going to revolutionize teaching and learning, or what we, as educators, can do to prepare for it.

Tuesday’s keynote wasn’t much better. In a colossal miscalculation, Sascha Meinrath misjudged his audience. He gave a speech, not a presentation. He read from his stapled manuscript, often pausing mid-sentence to turn the page. He never strayed from the podium, and used no visual aids in his presentation. While the content of his speech was excellent, it was lost in the presentation style. Looking at the Twitter backchannel, for every message about the content of his speech, there were eight messages about the presentation style. Sadly, his points about the struggle between protecting and securing our rights and liberties online were lost on this audience.

On Wednesday, it was Brené Brown’s chance to take a shot at an engaging keynote. It wasn’t looking good. For starters, her career has centered around research on vulnerability and shame. But she immediately connected with her audience, and used a unique blend of humor, self-deprecation, and thoughtful insight to tie the ideas of inadequacy, vulnerability, and fear to teaching, learning, and technology. As she talked, she eloquently wove together the themes of embracing failure, continually striving for improvement, and engaging in learning communities. Given her research interests, her presentation was surprisingly inspirational. It left me with some hope that we really are going to figure out this next generation education business.

Leading Change
This optimism was echoed in the Leadership 2.0 breakout session led by Eric Sheninger. As a principal in New Jersey, Eric began forming a personal learning network a few years ago. He has embraced social networking tools, and transformed his school. He now leads a school where students take responsibility for their own learning. He affects school culture by including his teachers in the decision-making process and empowering them to set policies that are in the best interests of their learners. He shared many strategies for using social media in academic, professional development, and public relations contexts.

This is a stark contrast to the policy discussion held in the technology coordinators’ meeting. Megan Greulich, an attorney for OSBA, shared a number of changes that districts should be making to their policies to reduce liability and comply with state law. Among these changes are the inclusion of cyberbullying prevention language and updates to acceptable use policies to accomodate new e-rate requirements. Many of the attendees expressed frustration that curriculum is being driven through policy, and most seem to be caught between the “low liability” position of attorneys and school boards and the “high useability” needs of teachers and students. It’s difficult to find middle ground that will allow access to needed resources while minimizing the potential for costly litigation.

On the technology side, Joe Bires shared some insights on technology evaluations. Looking at school technology from a technical perspective, Bires specializes in evaluating technology initiatives in schools. He recommends gathering data from as many different perspectives as possible, and looking for the underlying reasons behind surface observations. It is important to consider the project in the context of the school culture, and to recommend a plan of action for improvement once conclusions have been drawn.

Blended Learning
One idea that is finally getting quite a bit of traction is blended learning. A group of teachers from Berea City Schools shared their experience going “paperless” in their classes by using a variety of tools. Essentially, they’re using blended learning resources like Moodle and Google Apps to minimize the amount of printing they’re doing. Our school district has similar goals, and it’s interesting to see that Berea is giving their teachers the flexibility to choose the tools that best fit their needs. David Hamman, a science teacher at Medina High School, shared a similar project. He advocates the use of focus groups and pilot projects to get started with blended learning programs.

I thought that I would see a similar program from Michael Pennington and Garth Holman. These two teachers work in very different schools, 30 miles apart. Their students collaborate on a digital wiki-textbook for their class. In this case, the focus isn’t on creating a textbook for future students to use as much as creating a lasting legacy of the students’ experience in the class. Over the last few years, students have revised, expanded, and improved the textbook to the point where it is used as a class text by other schools. But the primary goal is for the students to share what they’ve learned by creating an authentic, useful product. I was impressed by the teachers’ attitudes toward this project, and the sense of ownership they have been able to inspire in their students.

Google and Education
Despite my aversion to sessions that focus on the tools, I did attend three presentations that specifically addressed the use of Google Apps in education. As a district that heavily uses Google’s tools, it is always interesting to see the innovative things other schools are doing with the same resources. Senior Google Education Evangelist Jaime Casap was a featured speaker, and his presentation focused on the “why” question more than the “how” question. Why should we be using technology in education? What does technology buy us that can’t be done as easily without it? Casap focused on a need for innovation, adaptability, problem solving, and collaboration. He observed that about 10% of the world’s knowledge is available online, and we are acting like we have the world’s information at our fingertips. Our students are going to need a whole new set of literacies to thrive in a world where 70% of the sum of all human knowledge is freely available online, a milestone we’ll reach within the next generation. While Google’s tools help schools do this, his message focused less on what Google Apps can do, and more on the need to change the focus of education.

A group of teachers from Ross Local Schools also shared their use of Google Apps in a breakout session. Their session focused more on the logistics of operating a school than on the actual teaching and learning, but they shared some valuable perspectives on using shared calendars, Google documents, Forms, and Sites to communicate with parents, schedule shared resources like labs and conference rooms, and distribute web site management responsibilities across the school. North Canton’s Eric Curts went into more detail about Forms in his session, illustrating how they can be used for everything from self-grading short cycle assessments to kindergarten registration.

Better Design
One of the areas with which I struggle is that of design. I can create a functional web site. I can evaluate tools and resources and gadgets based on their usefulness, and I can do a cost-benefit analysis. But I’m not so good at creating and evaluating elegance. I have a hard time designing web sites that are intuitive to use and as visually appealing as they are useful. Zach Vander Veen’s session on Principles of Design helped with that. He provided some great ideas for organizing and presenting content in a way that is visually appealing and easy to follow. His focus was on organizing resources for online or blended learning, which fits well with some of our district goals. Alvin Trusty also addressed visual literacy in an entertaining presentation that explained how to create and use images to convey a particular message.

Final Thoughts
Overall, the conference is struggling with the same identity issues that schools are. We have discredited the lecture as the primary and most effective means of teaching, but nearly all of the conference’s sessions perpetuate the model of a speaker standing in front of a group of audience members and talking for 45 minutes. In many sessions, we still focus on the tools, the shiny gadgets that everyone swears are going to make a difference in education. I talked with two of the conference leaders about this, and encouraged them to solicit sessions that are more interactive and participatory. I suggested taking a page from the Educon book, and specifically asking, as part of the proposal form, how the presenter intends to engage the audience in a conversation, rather than just talking for an hour. Hopefully, they’ll encourage presenters to start doing that in future conferences.

It was also disheartening to see that the unconference flavor of last year’s conference was gone. Due to the weather, last year’s conference saw many sessions cancelled, and the attendees who were left started creating their own sessions. It was pretty easy to add a topic to the agenda, find an open room, and hold an impromptu session. This year, I wasn’t aware of any of these spontaneous sessions.

While I still consider the conference to be time well spent, I think, like public schools, it’s time for eTech to rethink the purpose for the conference and work to meet the attendees’ changing needs.

Footprints

It was February, 1990. I had been using the Internet for about four months. Usenet, a distributed messaging system, was all the rage. For the first time, I started to see the possibilities of connecting and communicating with other people who share similar interests. I weighed in on a discussion about the Blues Brothers band.

Last week, twenty-two years later, I found that post online. It’s not particularly embarrassing, though it does betray the naïvité and arrogance of the nineteen-year-old college freshman who posted it. He was so smart. I wonder what happened to him.

When I made that post, sitting in the second floor computer lab of Kreger Hall, I wasn’t thinking about my digital footprint. I didn’t consider the possibility that the message could still exist two decades later, or that my children might someday read it. I was simply participating in a discussion. I had something to say, and I said it.

If we’re going to actually benefit from our use of the Internet, we have to be participants in the online community. That means we’re going to leave footprints. We’re going to share ideas and photos and perspectives online, and the things we share are going to form our online identities. People who search for me online are going to find things about me. They’ll learn about who I am. They’ll see that I blog and that I occasionally do some webcasts. They’ll see that I post on Twitter quite a bit, and that some of that stuff is related to technology and education, and some of it is not. They’ll learn about my family and my hobbies and the places I’ve been. That’s all good.

A few years ago, I learned that we have reached the point with all this interactive web stuff where you can’t pretend to be someone else online. Teachers, especially, used to have that “work life” and “personal life” which were completely separate. It’s not really possible to do that anymore. If you’re participating in social media, you can’t pretend to be someone you’re not in the online spaces. Your true character will shine through. That’s good too.

Take a minute and Google yourself.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

What did you find? For me, the first page of results are all good things. They’re all about me. Many of them are related to my professional work. On the second page, I found a few photos of me that I’ve never seen before. I also found a couple links to inaccurate “people finder” services that claim to know who I am and where I live.  On page three, there are a few links to other people with the same name as me (including my Dad). After that, the links become less relevant and less useful, but most of them are still about me.

I’ve been making digital footprints all over the Internet for more than two decades now. I also have a fairly uncommon name. So it should be pretty easy to uncover my secrets, to find a little dirt, to gather information to discredit or embarrass me. But a casual search for me doesn’t even turn up the photo in which I’m (allegedly) not wearing any pants. The biggest reason for that is the fact that there’s a LOT of stuff about me online. There’s enough out there that it paints a fairly complete picture of me. Almost all of it is stuff I chose to share. So if there were some scandalous photo or tweet or blog post out there someplace, it would be overwhelmed by all of the positive stuff about me that’s also online.

As we teach our kids how to manage their digital identities, it is important for them to realize that the footprints never go away. Everything you post online — from the photos on Facebook to the tweets from your phone to the emails to your Mom — are public. Even if they’re private now, you have to assume that some day, they won’t be. All it takes is a forwarded email or a retweeted direct message to change something from private to public.

But despite this, it’s important to continue to share. Put good things online. Put lots of good things online. Use your real name, and share work that you’re proud of. Put your perspectives out there. Comment on blogs. Post in forums. Share photos and videos and resources. Learn in public. When people Google you, you want them to see that you’re a real person. You have an online identity. People may not agree with all of your opinions. But they’ll see the good things you’ve done and shared. And the picture they see will reflect the real you.

Photo credit: peternijenhuis on Flickr.

A Common Purpose

It’s 8:30 on a Saturday morning, and I’m sitting in a rapidly filling high school cafeteria in Philadelphia. As I look around, a see a few familiar faces, and even more familiar names. But for the most part, these are strangers.

They’re not part of my world. They’re from urban schools. Charter schools. Parochial schools. Private schools. They’re teachers. Integration specialists. School leaders. Professors. Students. They represent 40 states and five countries.  Zoe Strauss’s opening comment from the previous night’s panel discussion leaps to mind:

Chris, what the hell am I doing here?

The panel had included some pretty heavy hitters. Strauss, a photographer and artist, was joined by Dan Barcay, the lead software engineer for Google Earth. Alex Gilliam founded Public Workshop, an opportunity for teens to take an active role in shaping the designs of their communities. C. J. Taylor is a computer science professor in the GRASP Robotics Lab at U. Penn. Phoenix Wang founded Startl to help get new media learning projects into students’ hands. These people know a thing or two about innovation, and they were discussing how to sustain innovation in schools.

But this was no ordinary audience. The 500 people packed into the auditorium and adjoining overflow room aren’t observers of this process. They’re participants. The Twitter stream for this session was flying by faster than anyone could read it. If I had been on stage, I could have looked up to see a couple hundred people typing furiously on their mobile devices. But they weren’t being rude. They were engaged in the conversation. They were simultaneously listening to the panelists, asking questions, challenging statements, agreeing, disagreeing, and applying the conversation to their own situations. The panel provided a catalyst for a much larger discussion on innovation, and thanks to the magic of video streaming, the discussion transcended that little auditorium at the Franklin Institute and included educators from all over the world.

The high level of engagement set the stage for the weekend. This isn’t a conference where you sit through an hour of boring, bullet-laden Powerpoint slides. This isn’t an opportunity for experts to tell everyone how things should be done. This is a time for asking questions, for challenging assumptions, and for exploring new ideas and possibilities together. When Chris Lehmann took the podium in the cafeteria on Saturday morning, he described this assembly as a tribe. We are united by a common purpose. We seek to improve learning for our children. Like any tribe, there are differences of opinion. We really can’t even agree on what we mean by “improve” or “learning.” But this community of mutual respect in an environment that invites discourse allows everyone to participate in a conversation that benefits the whole. I feel humbled to be a part of that discussion. I know that I’ve taken away much more than I’ve contributed, and I feel apologetic for not keeping up my end of the discourse bargain.

Near the end of the conference, I sat in the library and reflected on the weekend. I tried to jot down a few notes on the take-aways. There was some validation of things I already believed. There were some contradictions as well. Mostly, though, there was a lack of clarity. We’re in uncharted waters. What is the purpose of education? What do we mean by learning? What is the role of the teacher in a world of information abundance? How do you convince people that schools must change? Is this a top-down revolution, a grass-roots revolution, or not a revolution at all? And how did we have a gathering of technology and social media experts and manage to not talk about the technology?

I’m looking forward to building on the new relationships I’ve made. I can’t wait to engage others in some of the discussions we’ve had. I need to do a lot more reflecting on some of the issues raised, and how they affect my particular school district. But above all, I’m proud to be part of the tribe.