There were only a few hundred people who hung around until the bitter end of this year’s NYSCATE conference in Rochester when Gary Stager and I had an hour to “discuss” (not debate) the world of technology and learning, and I hope they felt it was worth it. Gary and I really don’t disagree on all that much, we just come from different frames. And I admire the passion with which he holds his convictions about learning and classrooms. And the fact is that I like Gary; I learn a lot from my “discussions” with him.
We UStreamed the event live (David Jakes, producer) and at one point had over 50 people in the room from around the globe. (Yawn…) The backchannel ended up being about 20 pages long, and, as always, it’s an interesting read on a lot of levels (especially as one of the participants.) I’ve embedded the stream and the chat on the wiki site I’m keeping for many of the streams.
If nothing else, it’s pretty cool to include other audiences in events like these. Would love to hear from some of you who were in the room, physical or virtual.
Technorati Tags: nyscate07, garystager, learning, education
Will I was there for a bit, and technically there were three of us watching from my ws. Since the chat was blocked at school, i used the enlarged view, and we sat and listened in for about fifteen minutes before we had to break up and go back to working w/ kids (it was a school day afterall, and we had a class come in the library–where we work.) But my assistant was amazed at you. She kept wanting know how I know about you, and if you knew me. LOL. I told her you had at least once called me by name in a Ustream before. But I could not say for sure that you knew anything more than a general knowledge of me, as with other bloggers. I told her while joining these Ustreams is fun, I find them a bit like preaching to the choir–I’m already convinced. But the other two with me were mesmorized by the conversations. So it was worth it tom today to see two other educators totally transformed by the possibilities. LOL, it was fun while we had time to listen in, and I am ever so grateful for the twitter invites (you ROCK David Jakes.)
Will,
I stayed for the complete main event. It was a great discussion… yet probably too short. For me, it was just beginning to get at the heart of a lot of issues toward the end of the scheduled time. I think that the both of you are certainly more in agreement about things than in opposition. I do think that Gary’s point about underusing these powerful mind machines is quite valid, along with catering more the the visual and languages than to the maths and sciences. Which gets at a deeper problem at the elementary level, I think… that many teachers themselves are not prepared to use computers in powerful ways (esp. in math and science) beyond the simple fill-in-the-blank prompts and “next” buttons.
It was great to meet you (it’s alright if you don’t remember ;-). I was in your last forum as one of the few representing higher ed.
Cheers,
Steve
There was more than just me in the chatroom as well.
I was at a conference in California and invited about 12 people to join in as we stood around a grand piano in a main lobby to watch both you and Gary.
They were confused by the chat at times, and also my enthusiasm of being a part. They kept wanting to know more about you (which I could share a bit) and Gary (which I do not know at all.) They wanted to know how I had heard of this (Twitter) and how it was being done. They wanted to know how it helped me (to finetune my own thinking structure and expand my ideas) and if this is something we should be doing at school (whoa — what a thought!)
They were intrigued and wanted to know more. It was quite the topic on the way home — and at least, for an hour yesterday, the audience (viewing the choir) expanded a great deal.
Thank you for opening the doors to even more conversations…..
Jennifer Wagner
It was a great success. I know you enjoy the conversation as do many others. But this format for a keynote was interesting. What do you think, would this be better at the start or the end of the conference? I posed the same question to Gary over at The Pulse. Thanks again.
Will, I had a chance to attend your morning focus session and stayed until the “bitter end” of your final keynote. For me this conference was like adding fuel to my fire and with that I need to take a breath and find balance to be able to achieve maximum effectiveness.
How do you find balance in something that you are so passionate about? If you are truly immersed is there really such a thing as balance?
The four days I spent at NYSCATE were intense with a severe spike in my learning curve. With that, I am going to have to be very strategic with my time and find ways to continue to leverage my own learning and then ultimately help my students do the same.
Being a husband, dad, teacher, and learner I approach this idea with a needed sense of urgency.
I think your final keynote with Gary brought some balance to the technology conference. The method of exchanging ideas and having dialogue face to face is still very much needed and deserves our time. The Tuesday sessions with you felt more like Socratic Seminars rather than focus sessions or keynotes which allowed for a deeper and more meaningful learning experience.
At any rate, thanks for your time and I look forward to your future reflections on learning.
Honestly, I came away very disappointed. There is no disrespect meant toward you Will or to Gary Stager… You both spoke well and had good presence.
The problem is that I think we need much more real “debate”. I felt like I just watched two members of the same political party have a hug fest with the slightest disagreement on what to name some local highway.
The presentation was billed as a debate. Maybe I was expecting too much from Gary’s “Throwing Down of the Guantlet”. I think we could have gotten as much from you both had you had two individual presentations.
We need to have more events like this attempt with people who have real differences of opinion. I have discussions with a colleague of mine on a regular basis who is very anti-tech. He isn’t alone.
Hopefully my point is made without any offense taken as you have been a great teacher of mine for sometime now…