Organic Learning

My colleagues and I are learning together from the K12 Online Conference 07. Each week, for 5 weeks, we are meeting together to discuss the keynotes from each strand and also to view presentations together ala lan party style that Jeff Utecht started last year at the 06 conference. Our first meeting was November 7th. Together, we watched the Pre-Conference Keynote, Inventing the New Boundaries, by David Warlick. The conversation that came from watching the keynote address was rich and deep, as we thought about the possibilities of inventing new boundaries in education. I thoroughly enjoyed the keynote, but enjoyed even more the conversation of my colleagues after watching the keynote together. I recorded the conversation as a podcast and also invited more conversation through a gabcast channel. If you would like to add to the conversation about the pre-conference keynote, please leave me a comment and I will give you the information to call and leave your comment on the gabcast channel.

Lately, many in the edublogging community are conducting “unconferences” in their conference presentations. An unconference is when participants are given a topic to consider and have a conversation about that topic to further their learning and deepen their understanding. The one I remember most is the Edubloggercon at NECC07, in which I participated. It was an amazing learning experience! Many of the wonderful episodes that Wesley Fryer is publishing on his Speed of Creativity podcast, and David Warlick on his Connect Learning podcast model the “unconference” type of presentation. I think this type of presentation is very effective in deepening the understanding of what we are learning. I’m glad to have experienced that process first hand with our first lan party, watching the Pre-Conference Keynote from David Warlick.

Direct link to podcast episode.
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