One of my goals for this year is to move a little bit beyond my own classroom this year and get more involved in the larger education community. I’m fortunate that there’s one excellent resource for doing so right in my hometown: Educon, the annual conference held at the Science Leadership Academy. This year the event will run from January 27-29, 2012. Registration just opened, so I’ll be buying my ticket soon.
Why is EduCon valuable? I attended last year, and there were three major benefits:
It’s a great way to collect information about a lot of tools, techniques and resources that can help teachers make their classrooms a place where students can take chances and think deeply about important questions. I learned a lot about using storytelling tools, games, and document archives at last year’s con. I’m looking forward to following up on those threads and branching out into others.
It’s a good networking tool if you’re looking to use social networks to connect to the online education conversation. I didn’t really use Twitter before I attended the last EduCon, and now it helps me keep up with news, issues and techniques.
The SLA students and staff who volunteer at the conference have so much enthusiasm, and have built such a strong community, that I found that talking to them about how they learn and what they want to achieve was a major shot in the arm for my teaching enthusiasm.
So my calendar is already marked. Now I can spend the next four months making sure I have something interesting to say when I get there.