#Podstock14

Last week was a career-changing week, and those are not terms I use lightly.  I can only describe two things as truly "career-changing":  my principal encouraging me to lose my fear of failure and my first Podstock experience.  What's Podstock you ask?  Where do I begin?  Podstock is, technically, a conference about education and technology.  In reality, though, it is so much more.  It is a family, one which accepts newbies like me with open arms.  It is an often self-directed learning experience inspiring you to new challenges.  Essentially, Podstock is a movement trying to change the world of education.

We all know students learn best when they get to respond to the lesson or learning experience.  Writing across the curriculum is integral to student success.  Since my class will tell you I probably learn more than they do throughout a year, I consider myself a student and am using this post to respond to and cement my learning experience.  Basically, if I don't write about Podstock 14, I might forget it...I'm getting old like that.  (Just kidding, I could never forget Podstock.  I took notes.)

To really capture the week, I would need several posts.  So, this post is just going to be about the three biggest ideas I brought back from Wichita.  I actually waited a few days to write this so I would know which ideas stuck out the most in my mind.  Without further ado, then:

#1:  Problem solving is an important part of learning.

 Easily the biggest takeaway from my first Podstock is the reminder of the importance of letting kids fail and, (much more importantly) fix their mistakes.  Please don't trip over the word "fail".  Go past the traditional educational meaning of "fail".  I don't mean receiving Fs here.  By failure, I mean making errors, diving in headfirst and learning from those critical mistakes.  This was first driven home in the Sandbox session, a time set aside for hands-on learning about new ideas and facilitated by one of my new edu-heroes:  Ginger Lewman (@GingerLewman).  Everyone in the room had great things to present, but my epiphany first came at the Kidwind Project.  Dan Whisler (@danwhisler) brought all kinds of cheap materials with which we were given the task of building what he called, "MacGyver windmills".  (Author's note:  If you don't know who MacGyver is, do some research tonight and thank me tomorrow.)

The goal was to lift as many washers (the little round metal ones, not the ones which clean your clothes) as possible using power from a windmill we built from random items, such as small PVC pipes, wooden rods, blades cut from campaign signs, pool noodles, and other basically household items.  Dan showed us video of a group of kids who built a McGyver windmill which lifted 75 metal washers off the ground.  My partner in crime, Jackie (check out her blog, too), and I set out to lift 5.  We like to keep our expectations reachable.  Our first attempt resulted in a windmill which would not move.  At all.  So, we redesigned it and came up with a windmill that would spin, but didn't lift anything.  Our next modification lifted 5 washers.  After this blistering success, we made one more tweak and doubled our output.  That's 10 washers for those of you playing at home.

Now, I can't say I am an expert in windmills or wind energy.  However, I did learn some basic principals of design and engineering.  All this learning came from Jackie and I failing and fixing our mistakes.  This year, my students will experience this same feeling.  Failure is always acceptable, as long as you learn from it and get better!

#2:  Learning needs to be an experience kids don't want to miss.

 I have to admit, I geeked out more than once when I saw a few of the names involved at this conference.  My favorite "I follow that guy on Twitter" moment, though, was the keynote speaker, Todd Nesloney (@TechNinjaTodd).  Throughout his keynote address and his breakout session in the afternoon, he talked about his past two years of making lessons an experience for students by flipping his classroom and using problem-based learning.  I signed up for his sessions because my action-based project is all about flipping my classroom next year and mixing in problem-based learning.  From following Todd on Twitter, I knew he would be full of information about both of these.  Not only did I gain valuable tricks and tips for both these teaching styles, I also gained motivation to be excited about learning and turn my classroom into an "experience".

In his keynote, Todd said two things that stuck with me.  First he mentioned Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess and talked about how students need learning to be connected to an emotional experience.  He gave all kinds of examples, such as turning his classroom into a hospital and an awesome bridge building activity.  These examples will guide my thinking as I go about planning lessons learning experiences for next year.  He also mentioned a quote by Erica Bauermeister:  "Adults need to have fun so kids will want to grow up."  When I set out to teach, I wanted to reach kids like me - the kids who love learning but hate school.  What better way to reach those kids than by showing them I am having fun (real, authentic fun) while learning with them?

#3:  Educators must be connected.

Collaboration has always been paramount to the success of any teacher.  In the not-so-distant past, this meant to be a good team player at school:  work with your team and colleagues within your building and district.  This is, of course, still important.  However, Podstock 14 taught me the importance of being connected to the global education community.  I have been on Twitter for a while now, but my list of followers and people I follow grew by leaps and bounds last week.  It is important to meet those people at conferences face to face and then stay connected with them after the week is over.  I realized this in a session by the aforementioned Ginger Lewman called "Ten Questions, No Answers."  Within this session, Ginger facilitated deep discussions about the present and future states of education.  These were important, eye-opening questions - ones I'm not done thinking about and hope to discuss more on Twitter with some of my new education friends.  Not only do I grow from participating in these discussions, but my colleagues at home and certainly my students will benefit too.

An additional means of staying connected is something I keep trying to get better at:  blogging.  At his closing address, Kevin Honeycutt (@kevinhoneycutt) drove this point home.  Educators are intelligent people.  We all have ideas to share and it is time to actually share them.  The education world can't be a place of trying to out do each other.  The students in my classroom don't just belong to me (and their families of course), they are citizens of the whole world and our future depends on their learning today.  Education needs change and it will only happen when we work together for the common good.  As Kevin Honeycutt said, "Don't be secret geniuses anymore!"  Let's share our learning!

I could go on.  However, this post is long enough already and it could last for pages and pages.   The best way to get more out of Podstock is to experience it for yourself!  However, until next year let's all stay connected - you can follow me here, of course, but also look me up on Twitter (@bmcd25).

Before I stop, I want to thank all the people at ESSDACK who organized Podstock as well as everyone mentioned in this post and all the other presenters I was able to learn from.  In addition a huge thanks to my school district for allowing me to tag along on this trip!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of learning to implement...