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What struck me, however, was the similarity to techniques used in primary classrooms daily to engage students in oral literacy. I remember when I first began teaching in a grade one classroom how I would “sing” attendance with my students. I did this to capture their attention, keep them focused and to assess their musical ear and sense of rhythm.  Not knowing anything about brain science, little did I know I was helping them to embed language in different areas of their brain. I’m glad to know that what I felt was the right think for early learners, actually was

I cam away from this session with some ideas about how we need to connect these exemplary educators across jurisdictions using the tools we have at our fingertips.  I am looking forward to working with some of these groups to connect, learn and dissolve the classroom walls.

I read one of our spotlight speakers, Dean Shareski’s blog post this morning where he was reflecting on his summer of nothing. I have been doing pretty much the same over the last couple of weeks.

This summer I elected to unplug myself, stepping away from Flickr, Twitter, blogs, rss, skype, the lot. It was surprisingly painless for me and a much needed time to reflect and engage in other activities like sleeping, eating, hanging out and family time. I did throw in some extended hours of reading, we did have an awesome family vacation and I did pay for my indulgences (am on diet now).

Dean quoted from another tweep in his blog and I have to agree with him about it being “pure gold”. No matter how connected we are, the most important thing we do as humans, educators and learners is build relationships in order to learn better and be better people in a connected world.

I think that is what ASI is all about, hands on learning yes, but as always the best learning comes over coffee, lunch and those chats between sessions, where learners connect the dots and build the relationships.

I look forward to doing that over the next three days as we learn together.

ISTE promotes it’s international status, but I found myself continually being referred to the American context. Being the polite Canadian that I am, I kept these thoughts to myself until I connected with several Australians who had the same thoughts. I’m thinking that Canada and Australia have much to share and learn from each other and will be looking for opportunities to connect and continue to learn from these new colleagues.

Things I enjoyed most at ISTE: connecting and sharing with like minded professionals in the unstructured caves, over dinner and lunch. Loved learning about the research conducted by Dr. Sofia Pardo and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Rob Mancabelli was a new voice working with @willrich45 great discussion about moving yah but to change. Enjoyed the masterful facilitation skills of Scott McLeod in the Tech Savvy Principals session and all the TSP’s on the panel and I thought that Roger Pryor from Australia did a wonderful job of integrating multiple modes of teaching into his discussion about change and planning forward for our learners.

Overall, ISTE had many sessions that certainly made me think. Philadelphia was a wonderful host city, and I have much to ponder over the summer as I take a break and plan for next year’s learning adventure.

Today I had the pleasure of working with a group of system leaders in the Hastings Prince Edward County DSB. Despite a minor wrench thrown into the works by mother nature (downed power lines,no electricity or Internet) we managed to get together and learn together. As always, the rich conversation with engaged learners and leaders is always challenging and stimulating. What strikes me most when these conversations happen is the fact that despite our talk about social media and learning with these tools, it always comes down to the importance of effective relationship building, nurturing and maintenance. It’s so exciting to hear these converging ideas and to understand that no matter how much change that occurs, the human interaction is what drives learning in this digital era.

I feel energized and absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such dedicated leaders and look forward to seeing what comes next!

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People for Education advocate Annie Kidder was talking about the importance of school libraries and Teacher Librarians today on CBC radio.  Their research released today details that learners are not getting the instruction needed to navigate information they access daily.  Kidder was discussing the importance of information literacy as part of all students learning experiences as well as the fact that shrinking school budgets have forced school districts to trim areas deemed unimportant.  Never has the school librarian had a more important role for teaching and learning.  To me this was not news but it was great to hear positive reporting supporting teacher librarians.

Checking my Twitter feed, Seth Godin posted a great discussion about how Library advocates must stop referring to the room as an institution but the important skills and practices that Librarians bring to learning.  His comment “The librarian isn’t a clerk who happens to work at a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.” explains the valuable skills the librarian should bring to the job in the 21st Century but the ongoing lure of staffing school libraries with librarians who are in enamoured with the idea of “library as a warehouse for dead books”.  Godin’s discussion of what libraries need to be truly reflects a culture of knowledge, collaboration and networked learning with the guidance of an engaged and engaging facilitator.

With this kind of  forward thinking approach to learning, knowledge and librarianship, school libraries, public libraries would truly provide the guidance needed to enhance and guide library patrons in schools and public libraries everywhere. To quote Godin “We need librarians more than we ever did. What we don’t need are mere clerks who guard dead paper. Librarians are too important to be a dwindling voice in our culture. For the right librarian, this is the chance of a lifetime.” What we need are administrators who understand this and step up to the challenge, it would be a great experience to work as a Teacher Librarian in this culture don’t you think?  Sign me up!

Now as an educator, I have been reading about Augmented Reality applications in this year and last year’s Horizon Report. I have been intrigued by AR applications in use in some musuems and cities around the world. All I can think about is what this can mean for learning. How can we use AR in the classroom? Imagine if students can take 3D images of AR characters to use in their digital storytelling. Better still, how long will it be before our students can begin to customize AR code to create their own images using this technology? Can you just imagine? This is a Nintendo game that kids carry around in their backpacks!

Better still, Nintendo has allowed for backwards compatibility with the software so that educators can access existing games that many are using as part of existing classroom activities. This wireless, handheld device is a game that most students will either own or have access to and in a school with ubiquitous wireless….well just imagine the possibilities! I sound like I’m gushing but this device is totally awesome and I’m going to have to buy my own, since my son won’t let me touch his new toy!

I was really impressed by Heidi Hayes-Jacobs’ presentation via Skype, not only was her message right on the money, but she also demonstrated very effective and engaging use of Skype as a videoconferencing/presentation technology.  (Something that is always important when we are promoting the effective use of ICT for educational purpose!)

All in all it was such a great day to connect with my virtual network, meet new leaders and plan forward for future learning and system reform advocacy and planning.  It was such a pleasure to work with such a committed group of system leaders.

What I found myself wondering was how many folks in this audience of approximately 1,000 people who work in libraries in a variety of roles, truly understood the ideas he was presenting and the impact upon the work they do now and forever?  He asked this group to move beyond information literacy and really they are still grappling with the idea of information literacy in the 21st Century!

Really, he is on the cutting edge of exploration these days in a realm that most folks know exists but don’t truly understand.  Heck National Geographic has named him an Emerging Explorer!  He stated right at the beginning of his talk that we need literacy in new media to learn to change our assumptions about learning.  This reminded me of the statements that Trung Le made in the panel discussion at Educon last weekend, where he indicated that we have to change the language that we use to talk about education in order to change the thoughts and conversations we have about learning and education.   These two gentlemen are definitely thought leaders in the field of learning, yet are not necessarily trained educators, makes me think.

I guess my takeaway from all of this great learning is that learning must be about passion based work, learners must create information about their interests and that learners today need to consume information so that information finds them by the creation of learning networks that feed this interest  and passion.  So how many educators at all levels of education are embracing these ideas?  How many educators understand the importance of the learning network and the read/write web? These ideas are’nt new to me but I think they were to about one half of the room on Thursday.   I know that I would love to learn in Mike Wesch’s classroom and I’m sure my own children would too…how do we make this the norm in education?

pwn McLuhan & Woody Allen

The conversations I had with some of the staff were the same.  I was thrilled to see how thoughtfully all the learners in the building considered their learning environment and expectations.  It was so obvious that there was a truly innovative synergy happening here at SLA and its wonderful!

This evening the panel discussion at the Franklin Institute about the importance of innovation for learning was further food for thought.  Setting all of the delegates up for some great conversations over the next two days.  I can’t wait to get started!