Post Conference Debrief

Click above to see a more readable version.

This is a wordle of the 108 sessions that had a technology theme at the NCTM conference in San Antonio. If you eliminate the largest words (Students, University, CC [i.e. convention center], School, and Session) from the picture you start to see patterns that tell you something about one of the conference's main themes: Technology. So it's no surprise that it is the most dominate in the wordle.  The words learning, Learning and Learn tell you that the presenters want you to learn while you are in their session. How much did you learn? You can share your learning via a blog! Also you can "join" the MTBoS movement especially if you have never blogged before.

My “short” trip to NCTM

My plan this year regarding the NCTM annual meeting in San Antonio was not to go. I did my annual routine with the technology sessions making note of them via a CLIME blog. So I decided that would be enough since I started a very ambitious 8 week “course” entitled change.school led by Will Richardson and Bruce Dixon. But I changed my mind because David Wees was going to attend the NCTM affiliate events (At-large Caucus and Delegate Assembly) for the first time representing CLIME and I didn’t want him to go alone. So I made arrangements to stay only through Thursday morning and fly back home on Thursday afternoon. That was the plan until Delta stepped in and cancelled my flight. The good news was that I was now able to attend the conference on Friday. 

The highlights for me were:

Ed Burger (#580) - Very slick presentation (4 out of 5 stars). Mostly promoting his book “The Five Elements of Effective Thinking” One of the reviewers summarized it’s proposed strategy as Think…fail…question…understand…change…learn: the path to the genius of learning.

Patrick Vennebush (#294) - who works for Discovery Learning - (5 stars). He presented interesting and engaging  problems that use crowdsourcing.

Eli Luberoff (#458) - CEO of Desmos (5 stars) shared a new project with the audience: A Sketchpad-like Geometry component which got oohs and aahs from the audience.

Cathy Yenca (#529) (5 stars). Did a nice job of mixing a variety of online tools and activities to weave a nice presentation.

Dan Meyer & Robert Kaplinsky (#119) - How to Apply and Present at NCTM Conferences (on video) which I watched after I got home. Very valuable information for perspective speakers. Being able to watch videos like this after the event is very valuable. It extends the conference experience for those who missed the sessions in real time. I found myself rewinding the tape and making notes (which I wouldn’t have done in real time).

I went to a few more sessions with titles that included key word(s) such as crowdsourcing, productive struggle and “tools to transform learning” but wasn’t  impressed. I guess that will always be true at conferences. Though the titles/descriptions are attractive, they don’t live up to the hype that the title/description convey. For example:

Intro to Coding: Scratch session (#537). Unfortunately the “light” Wifi provided for the conference wouldn’t allow me to open my Scratch files. So I sat there frustrated. Left early.

If you have a great idea for a presentation don’t hesitate to submit a proposal for the next annual conference (Washington, DC April 25-28, 2018). Please submit your proposal by May 1 here. 

On the CLIME scene, David Wees and I will be reviewing/updating some of the initiatives for the upcoming year that David highlighted in his CLIME blog last year.