Do U C What I C

The further away I get from NECC, the more I see.  The specific conversations that I had, from the time I sat down at the web 2.0 smackdown at Saturday’s Edubloggercon, to the last conversation I had in the elevator the night before I left are all starting to weave themselves into this tapestry of voices.  It’s all coming together for me, and I am realizing that every conversation I had leads me to one question in my own mind…what will I do?  The whole idea that teaching needs a good kick in the pants is really not up for debate, though I must say I heard a few.  What I did not hear, is a lot of solutions.  Who has the answer for that?  What exactly does the everyday, teach between the bells teacher do to impact the future of education?  Yes, we talked alot about what is wrong, and what we don’t have, and what we don’t do.  I just want to know, what should I do?  How can I help?  I suppose I wanted someone to come over to me at the bloggers cafe and just answer that question for me…lay it out and tell me to run with it.  But I realized about 2 days into the deal, that we were all just really in the same boat, rowing the same direction, not really knowing how to get where we need to go.  So, I started asking some people..”what should we do, what can we do?”  I had some great conversations about that- I talked to Bernie Dodge about my struggles with using webquests in a student-centered, constructivist classroom, and how I could balance those things.  I talked with Tina Steele, Kevin Honeycutt, and Wes Fryer about how we needed to take advantage of our geographic proximity and make something great happen in our little corner of the world.  I talked to Riptide Furse about my ideas for a new kind of technology training model for teachers.  Those, and many other conversations are all mashing up together in my head, and I am beginning to see what I will do.  I spent the last hour creating a model for change, and tomorrow, I will share those ideas with my tech person, and my principal.  Then, if they don’t fire me, I’ll share them with you….well…I’ll share them with you anyway:)  I was beginning to think that all of my social networking (fun as it was)  at NECC had not really produced anything tangible.  Now I see..the powerful force of my network.  Thanks to all of you!!  Also.. to Jeff, Will, Jakes, Shareski, Wagner, and the others in Utecht cafe that morning, who let me just listen for awhile- made an effort to say hello to a newbie, and let me toss a few ideas-thanks-it was empowering to me.

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