Today we had our 13th TechEDGE conference. We spent the whole day with brave teachers in Aurora Public Schools who are integrating technology in a 1:1 iPad environment and agreed to let us come in and observe.
It was great. It was also the first conference that I have participated in (let alone organize) that happened during regular school time with authentic teaching presented.
Here are my three takeaways, not new, but refreshing to hear from teachers:
1. One to one integration does not mean all tech all the time. Teachers integrated analog and digital across lessons
2. Social media is encouraged. I have heard multiple teachers start with "as you saw in my email" or "please post to twitter with the hashtag...". One teacher declared: "it is my job to model digital citizenship on social media. I let them know if they misbehave online.
3. Teachers need to know that what they are doing is special and of high quality. The school admins said that the conference was a great efficacy boost for their teachers.
