Flip Con 2012 - Keynote

Since I am unable to attend the FlipCon 2012 conference in person, I have purchased the virtual package...in a way I think this might be better because I get to watch every session, at my leisure, from the comfort of my home...at least that's what I'm telling myself :-)

As a way to keep track of everything I'm learning, I decided...of course...to blog about it!

First up is Brian Bennett (@bennettscience on twitter) giving the keynote.  Brian Bennett is a former chemistry teacher from Evansville, Indiana.  He recently accepted a position at South Bend Career Academy.  I've been following Brian on twitter and his blog for the past 6 months or so.  He's also been an active member of the #flipclass pd on Monday nights.  For those of you who don't know what that is, I think I'm going to have to dedicate a whole other post to the topic because it's been a very powerful tool in my learning this year.

I'm looking forward to his keynote because many of his posts have really intrigued and inspired me.  If you're interested in more about Brian, his blog is here.

Brian talked about a lot of different things during his keynote, and it was incredibly inspirations, here are some of the take aways that I want to be sure to remember:

It's all about the choices we make as an educator...
Brian talked about how nothing will really change in education until we make a mental shift.  Having all the technology in the world isn't going to make us good teachers, it's how we use it that will make the difference.  He voiced his frustration of recognizing that even though he was using the videos, nothing had changed.  This particular part of the presentation really spoke to me because I'm also feeling that frustration.  I've got the videos, the kids are watching them & coming to class & solving problems...but I don't feel like I'm there yet.  So where to go from here, that is one of the things I'm hoping to glean from the conference in the next two days.

What does a good classroom look like...
I think, at least at the elementary level, we do a lot of the group work/collaboration/desk arrangement that he's talking about.  I don's see too many classrooms set up in rows (at least not in my district).  However, it does make it difficult when everything you do isn't group work.  In an elementary we teach everything, and not everything is flipped & group work, so when we need the direct instruction, it does make it a little more challenging.  I guess it all comes down to procedures set in place for when you're doing different types of learning.

What does "class time" really look like...
This is where I want some more guidance.  My focus needs to be how can I best utilize my face-to-face time.  Right now I don't know that I'm using my time as well as I could.  I'm not trying to totally get down on myself, because this year has been an improvement.  However, this improvement and constant reflecting that I've been doing has shown me how much room I still have to grow...which in itself is a pretty amazing reflection.


Menus as assessment = awesome!
Brian talked a bit about using menu's as assessments...more on that later, bc I have some real thinking/planning to do around that.

Overall, a very inspirational start to the conference...now I need to play parent for awhile, more posts to come!