TLt IT Summit2007

I’m at the TLt IT Summit2007 in Saskatoon, SK. Ian Jukes is the opening keynote speaker talking about the need to move education from where it is to where it needs to be. Through the keynote, he constantly refers to the need for educators to acknowledge the world of the kids where it is now. Educators were not trained to teach the way that these students are learning. To engage these students there needs to be a revamping of education and the way that teachers interact with students.

He focuses on change and the change process. Much of what he says is repeating what Will, David and others are saying about the need for change in education. It is important for teachers to begin using the tools that are available and know about blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS and other tools from web2.0. The presentation focuses on the need for education to change from the sit-n-git to using and creating. He used Dale’s cone of learning that focuses on how we retain information.

Now, using the triangle and combining it with the tools and technologies, students are able to retain more than through conventional methods. All-in-all the information is not new to those of us that have been discussing this for awhile but to many of the people here, this is new and, for many, really scary. Having said that, I found that Ian was very emphatic on the need for schools and educators to begin using and adopting the technologies.

I’m now off to a new session on creating a division wide tehcnology plan. I’ll update on this. This afternoon, I’m going to be meeting Dean Shareski and going to work with him on RSS. Should be fun!