Conferences, Twitter, and PD

I attended the ITEC Conference in Des Moines earlier this week where teachers, administrators, some students, and experts in the field of educational technology came together to learn. It's always revitalizing to me to rub elbows with others who care so much about students and education that they are willing to learn more and to "imagine if."

Conference website

Conference session resources

My notes from Jamie Fath's Classrooms Gone Google Workshop

My conference session resources

Twitter as individualized, just in time PD Research Articles:

• #TwitterforTeachers: The Implications of Twitter as a Self-Directed Professional Development Tool for K-12 Teachers (full text) - Ryan D. Visser, Lea Calvert Evering, David E. Barrett
• How and Why Educators Us Twitter: A Survey of the Field (abstract only) - Jeffrey P. Carpenter and Daniel G. Krutka

Not being able to attend a conference is not really an excuse anymore. There were sessions available remotely. Twitter was lit up with #itec14 posts, including lots of information and links. And, the above links keep much of the information available now. The question to me is:

"How do we motivate educators to continue to learn on their own, to continue to perfect their craft of teaching or administrating, and to be brave enough to try new things and learn from failing on occasion?"

We no longer live in an age when a finite amount of information learned in school will prepare us for our careers. Everything is in flux and changing, and the only way to keep up is to constantly learn. We owe it to our students to feed their creativity, their inquisitive natures, and their ability to continue to learn on their own. It's the only way to survive in our information-rich, ever changing world. Are we as adults modeling this kind of learning? And if not, why?