There are several people, who cause me to think deeper than I usually am comfy doing — and one of them is Stephen Downes. I feel his support, yet I know he continues to poke me, especially when I present fluff.
Now, my last blog post — was not 100% fluff — because I did learn (and relearn) some ideas…..but his comment “poked” me and I needed to expand some thoughts.
So Stephen, for you….
What I learned at #cue10
Not much — but before you start formulating your opinions and judgements…..let me share why.
1. I choose WHAT sessions to attend. Of the sessions I CHOSE to attend, only 2 of them were new sessions or speakers to me. Of those TWO sessions, 1 was not new information and the other, I choose to TWEET out thoughts, check emails, and update information and I did not give it my full attention.
Because I did not learn — that was MY fault, not CUE’s.
2. I am tired. Whether it is this stupid infection, or age, or just the fact that I am mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally exhausted……it was hard for me to concentrate. I found myself with about 10 good minutes of concentration and then I began to wander. And that is bothering me, because this was not the fact 10 years ago and really need to see just what and why to concentrate is much harder than it used to be.
~*~*~*~*~
I did have some takeaways, though, besides the one’s I already shared and here they are:
1. I had a great conversation with Steve Dembo — several in fact. Where he helped me and I helped him. Not our general “how is the family, how is the weather” but deeper conversations on “how could I be better, what do I need to change, why is this not working” kind of conversations. We sat and talked….we sat and listened…..necessary, I believe, for both of us.
2. I feel that the exhibit hall is WAY too big and the Student showcase area is WAY too small. People spend 30 minutes playing with a smartboard and talking about online options and walked right by the students. Something is so wrong here.
3. There are too many answers and not enough questions and there is too much acceptance and not enough challenges. I would suggest that ALL conferences, from now on, have a 1 hour Q&A time AFTER each keynote for the audience to interact instead of just absorb.
4. Teachers need to play together and not just always TALK ABOUT TECH. The DEN event on Friday mixed learning with playing. I spent over an hour talking with a professor about possibilities with Laura Ingalls Wilder and then Cherie and I went over and played Jurassic Park and Steve D and I rode motorcycles through Chicago and Dennis and I tried to play a game of air hockey. I think we need to play more!! I know I need to play more.
5. I was always on my way to the next thing so quickly that I had no time to absorb, contemplate, and even “dwell” on what I had just learned. We must have time to do those things…..or I needed to set time apart to do it myself.
6. Palm Springs is beautiful but I stayed inside the conference center almost all the time. I missed the beauty because I was to busy to stop to look.
Jen, very interesting thoughts. I think about the Q & A comment after a keynote and would suggest we extend that to sessions. While most allow questions during a presentation, I’m going to intentionally stop my presentation about 10 minutes short in a few weeks to allow for audience questions. That is, if there is an audience
Ah… much better.
I think it would be more interesting to do the Q&A with the keynoter before the talk. The Q&A after always focuses on the talk, and is pretty predictable (and consequently, not well attended). I would put the Q&A before, then give the speaker a half hour to reflect, then have the talk. Heh heh heh. What fun!
Student presentations can’t compete with corporate booths. The companies spend thousands, or more, on their demo. The student, next to nothing. Maybe combine the two – require the corporation to limit its demo to a presentation of (local) student work. This would stretch both the corporations and the students. Great fun for everyone!
Playing is really important. We did a session in Wellington where we had a room, and all we did was try to figure out some plastic constructor-pieces (they weren’t legos or anything obvious; you had to figure out how the parts would fit together). There we were, some 20 instructional technologists, sitting on the (carpeted) floor, playing with toys. There was no ‘content’ to this session, but in a way, it wrapped up the whole conference for me.
Finally – the standard conference is just 3 days. I’d love to experiment with a week-long conference. Not with thousands of people and hundreds of talks, like SXSW, but smaller, slower. With, as you say, the time to reflect.