Once again, this weekend, I had the opportunity to participate in a great learning experience. First off, my hat is off to Chris Lehmann and the students, faculty and staff at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia for organizing and putting together EduCon. For the past three years, I have helped organize a Science Olympiad invitational for 20 schools (500+ students). It is a great undertaking, taking tremendous support and volunteers to make the event successful. From everything that I have heard, the event was spectacular, with minimal issues. Quite a task to host almost 400 educators for an entire weekend.

Secondly, I want to thank Chris for beign forward thinking enough to open the conference, making the content available simultaneously for free. Having students film each presentation which allowed those of us, who were unable to attend the conference, the ability to engage in the conversation at the same time. Sure, there were occasional glitches (no sound), but that is the price to pay for free access. There were several great conversations, from Bud Hunt’s and Antonio Viva’s  presentation on Saturday, the opening panel, John Pedersen, Alec Couros, and Konrad Glogowski’s conversations on Saturday. I also want to give a special acknowledgement to Ryan Bretag and David Jakes for trying to incorporate and include the chat room as an active member of the conversation.

I am still trying to process the conversations. One of my biggest concerns lately is that once again, the conversation is occuring in the echo chamber. How does change occur? How does change, across the board happen?