I’m still three provinces over but getting ready to head back home within a couple of hours. As I wait for the coffee to finish dripping, I’ve been reflecting upon the events of the past couple of days from the Teacher2Teacher Conference.
It was a really unique setting for a conference. Around 400 participants descended upon Senator Gershaw School, a Grade 4-12 schoolin Bow Island, between Medicine Hat and Lethbridge. The school had fast internet pulled to the door and the school had been transformed to a conference centre. The existing labs were opened up for big hands-on sessions; classrooms were filled with computers on a temporary basis for other sessions and the studio held yet another setting for a Macintosh environment. Both platforms, lots of people, and a great deal of energy.
There were a lot of things that were new to me as I walked around and took in the area. The conference organizers were actually the staff of Senator Gershaw. Very friendly folks that were there to handle any need that arose. The food was cooked by them and they served us in lines in the gym which had become the central staging and gathering area. Coffee was always on and if you happened to follow the discussion on Twitter yesterday, my friends back in Ontario had great delight in poking fun on a coffee dripping catcher picture that I had posted. There were wall mounted SMART Boards in every classroom with a ceiling mounted data projector in every classroom. A teacher’s computer drove the show but many of us presenters quickly patched in. Speakers? There were wall mounted speakers generating great volume in every classroom. The weekly schedule was very interesting to me. Monday through Thursday had the school day ending around 3 but on Friday, all periods were a bit shorter so that the day ended at 2. Coupled with a 8ish starting time met that the requisite hours were addressed but Friday was very flexible to accommodate missed class time due to sports, etc. Bow Island wasn’t exactly a hop, skip and a jump for folks. Driving was the only way to get there and some of the people that I talked to indicated that a 1.5 hour commute was normal.
The usual amenities were there. And yet, despite the differences were clearly offset with the desires of the participants. There were no lounges or other gathering places that you were see at a traditional conference centre.
Instead, the whole school was abuzz with activity as soon as the day started. People were always talking and always on the move. There was only 15 minutes between sessions and so there was no dead time. The sessions were 75 minutes or some were doubled with a short break in between. What were people looking for? The same thing that you’d be looking for at any educational conference. Methods and techniques to engage students to achieve. In every session, there was an eagerness to learn and grasp these new techniques. There were a large number of SMART Board sessions as well as many sessions dealing with connecting students to web-based environments and collaborations. My sessions dealt with engagement through web-based activities, using Google applications, creating and maintaining class wikis, and podcasting. A couple were double sessions so that we could really dig deeply into the concepts. And yet, there never is enough time, is there?
I have to commend the participants that I came in contact with. They came eager to learn and were extremely professional; there were a couple of clean slates but they were there to fill it up. The entire school was wireless which made for some interesting adaptations on the fly. The guest network went through a different set of filtering rules and, even though I tried to test everything before going live, there were still a couple of gotchas for those of us who elected to go wireless. But, a minor blip in the big scheme of things.
Despite the geographic difference, the desires of the teachers were the same. They wanted to know everything. They came in search of techniques for their classroom. We talked about the primary need to celebrate the 100th day of school; we talked about the need for collaborative environment to do activities of substance and to avoid some of the simple things that are available.
The out of town presenters travelled in a pack to and from Bow Island and we all agree that we were worked like dogs! With eight conference sessions, each of us worked six. But, the time flew. Participants were so eager to learn and ask the serious probing questions. In a flash, two days were over.
The challenge remains for all of us; participants and presenters to become all the more literate as a result of the experience.
