Monika, 1) like I was your mom and so proud of the trek you’ve made – holding your ground all the way

Ha. Can I share with you: I used to feel this so often — weird smiles on the faces of women in the crowd who could’ve been around my mom’s age. It was unnerving. They weren’t smiling because of the content but because I was some kind of surrogate for their own sons who were long gone to college. I wrote about this somewhere.

Anyway, back to substance. I caught Junto back when Stephen Downes wrote about it. A kind of chat roulette for education if I recall. I’m interested but I tend to observe on the sidelines and rely on front line reports from hard chargers like you.

So keep us posted.

This is nothing like teaching 20 years ago.

We’ve got to keep tweaking this avenue.
I’ve been following #junto http://bit.ly/axXgpA – there’s got to something more there for us. Check it out when you have a snippet of time.

on your talk:
I don’t even know you.. and I’m beaming.
I read these comments twofold:
1) like I was your mom and so proud of the trek you’ve made – holding your ground all the way
2) as a math colleague – a learning to learn colleague – together seeking more solutions.

We live in an amazing time..

bravo man.

IMO, the worst talks were the ones filled with emotion, but little substance. I’ll calling those speakers “preachers.” (You know which they were.) The better were the “philosophers” who asked big, unanswered questions or – like David – made sound moral arguments. The best were those that showed off accomplishments and left the audience *enabled* to implement something similar.

You quick deconstruction of a math problem was a perfect example: I can take that and incorporate it into my teaching the very next day.

Thank you for your comments here, for your words on stage, but mostly for the time we spent at lunch. I have spoken of it in my own braindump.

I appreciated and learned from your hard work. But most of all, I consider you more than that “math guy” online that I tell my colleagues they need to read. I consider you a personal resource in the quest for better ways to teach our students the things in life that really matter. I hope you don’t mind.

Ric

Also of note was how pleased I was to see your presentation, but you knew that.

Most importantly, as I mentioned to Boone Gorges, I felt like, for people who aren’t always in the conversations / conferences, like me, it was a great experience. Unfortunately, whether it’s opportunity, time, or network, I don’t always have the access to these types of events that I should. When fellow “big” educators in the room started namedropping, I just pulled out a proverbial marker and drew a question mark on my face.

Then I met many of them and found out why they’re so cool. People like Andy Carvin, Mike Wesch, and David Wiley (who indeed has a nice shot considering the tether-ball we threw around in the courtyard) had great ideas that were immediately applicable systemwide and in the classroom. There were certainly some talks that were focused more on uprooting current thinking and improving pedagogical thought.

You are right about the preaching to the choir / chum – fish analogy. That is to say, is it about mobilizing these people to make a change or to inform them on the “next” greatest idea about the work of true change? Hmm.