Eating the Napkins at the Buffet - Reflections on ECOO 2013

Kevin Honeycutt said at ECOO that not involving technology, and specifically social media, in today's classroom is like having a huge buffet of delicious food in front of you, and just eating the napkins! Even worse, its like forcing your students to eat napkins.

At a conference filled with inspiring speakers and sessions, I found myself amazed at the fact that my phone died after three sessions because I was Tweeting too much.  If you want to expand your experience past this post, simply go to the Twitter hash #ecoo13 and you will experience why #ecoo13 was trending as the second most popular hashtag in Canada.  Here are some of my highlights:

Amber MacArthur (@ambermac)

• Amber encouraged us to let the students get into the real time world by using social media.  She used this Oreo add which was published while the lights were down in the last SuperBowl.  The entire campaign was created and launched while the lights were out. The add reads "You can still dunk in the dark".
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Amber also urged teachers to use the facets of the internet to allow students to create and participate instead of just consuming the content.  This will empower students and give them their own voice.  She showed an example created for the BYU library by its students, as well as an example of a kid recording his dad's reaction when he finally passed math (with a C).  Pretty powerful stuff

Jamie Casap (@jcasap)

• "No one walked in here this morning and was impressed by the fact that there's electricity.  Your students aren't impressed by the internet.  It's what you do with it that matters."  We have to understand that WiFi is like the air to our students.  Not saying that they need it to survive, but to them its just there.  Its not impressive.  We have to make use of it in a way that impresses them.
• "The iPhone5 is to kids what the Commodore64 is to us."  It is the worst piece of technology that they will ever have to use.  This says to me that since we work with those kids, we have to be willing to grow and adapt at a pace faster than most professions.  Adults are more patient than students.  We have to keep up.
• "Teachers used to be the Google in the room." So that begs the question, what do we do now?  Information is out there.  We don't own it, and we're not needed to access it.  Siri can tell me what -3+4 is (try it...pretty cool).  We have to help students curate this information and digest it for bigger purposes.
• "Technology is not the silver bullet.  Education is."  Education overcomes poverty.  Technology is just about how we make education relevant to this age.

Kevin Honeycutt (@kevinhoneycutt)

• "Live out loud! Don't be a secret genius."  Allow students to demonstrate their understanding to the world, not just you.  Use social media to get their genius seen throughout the world.
• We've all made mistakes on the playground we're not proud of.  The upside for us is that those mistakes aren't Googleable.  Our students aren't so lucky.  We have to get it across to them that they have to own everything they post online. Kevin also said "Don't give your Like away.  Every time you Like something, you're signing a petition that you support that thing for the rest of your life." Pretty powerful, I think.
• "Let it hang."  If you don't reply to online slander, it dries up.  If you reply, you fuel a fire.  So let slander hang itself.

So when you're at a buffet, don't eat the napkins.  Get at that delicious food that's out there, and let the kids eat too!

See you next time.