This will be a short note just to prove that I can still use my keyboard. For the past week, I’ve been totally consumed with events with the Western Regional Computer Advisory Committee.
Yesterday was our annual Symposium. Held in London, 416 educators from the Western Ontario Region (and beyond) made the pilgrimage to London Ontario for a little shared learning.
Keynote addresses were delivered by David Warlick and Amber MacArthur. I’m just determining a bit of the audience feedback. I’ve just listened to Rodd Lucier’s podcast interview with Amber and read his blog, and Rob De Lorenzo’s blog. Presentations at this event are always difficult to gauge when you’re working the event rather than enjoying it. The day is chock full of things that have to hit the timeline marks so that we’re not wasting time. With all of the principals, superintendents, consultants in the audience, there’s a lot of professional time that they’ve given for the day to the event. You don’t want people to think that it was sloppily run with loose timelines.
From a presenter’s position, it’s difficult. You need to have a presentation that appeals to an audience of starters to folks that live and breathe this stuff. It’s a tough gig to pull off.
This weekend, I’ll do some formal reflections on what I thought happened during the day.
Last night, I had the honour of picking up today’s presenter Leslie Fisher from the airport and delivering her to the hotel safely. I’m already pumped for today. I received so much PD in just that simple task. First, I found a way to determine flight arrivals from a scratching cell phone message with no indication where she was coming from or when! Gotta love London’s website and the way that they’ve kept the public informed with arrival times! More importantly, we talked about the content for the PD for today. Holy smokes. Given the audience, we’ve given her the OK to push the envelope and I’m excited about some of the things that she says we’re going to do.
I may sleep all weekend but it’s going to be a good sleep.
More to follow but I know that Ron wants to see if I’m posting in the early hours today…
doug -- off the record 
Please share your thoughts here. I’d enjoy reading them.