Jeff Utecht – Educator, Consultant, Author
Posts tagged learn2cn
Preparing for November
Oct 21st
My wife left early this morning for Hawaii. I know…completely lost on her. From Bangkok to Hawaii…..
She’s off to visit a friend, one of the benefits of taking a year off from working and having frequent flier miles to spend.
So that leaves me with a week of no school and time to myself to prepare for what has shaped up to be one heck of a busy November.
Nov. 1-4: EARCOS Admin ConferenceNov. 7-9: Jakarta Weekend Workshop: Learning in a Digital World
Nov. 21-22: United Nations International School of Hanoi
This week I’ll be creating my presentations and focusing in on what my message More >
Shift Our Schools Podcast: Season Two!
Oct 9th
The second season of Shift Our Schools kicks off tonight as David and I along with Kim Cofino reflect about the Learning 2.008 Conference in Shanghai.
We’re changing things up this year starting with a new website dedicated to the podcast. Click on the link above or the picture to head to the website.
We are in iTunes and ready to go! Click here will take you to our iTunes page where you can subscribe to the podcast to be downloaded automatically.
Once again this year we will broadcast live on the web. (Click on the Live page on the website). We have also set up a Skype account More >
Do you give yourself permission to reflect?
Sep 28th
I’ve been thinking about reflection lately and how we use it in our classrooms. I can remember being in elementary school and being asked to reflect in a journal. Reflection is a great process…a proven process of learning. We’ve been asking students to reflect for years in education so one simple question:
Do you give yourself permission to reflect during the work day?
and another question:
Do your administrators give you permission to reflect during the work day?
I say during the work day because I truly feel if we are to become better educators we need reflection time built into what we do. More >
Learning 2.008: A moment
Sep 22nd
I think these pictures tell the story better than I can. I always have this weird feeling when the conference is over. Part of me is so relieved that it’s over and another part of me never wanted it to end. I was tired, running on pure adrenalin by the end of it but so excited to see educators learning together and from each other.
On Thursday night I challenged the participants to walk away from this conference with two things.
1. That they understand that learning happens through connections. Whether it is connecting people, thoughts, ideas, or knowledge just understand that More >
Learning 2.008: No Stage, just conversations
Sep 17th
1. Before someone talks you into creating/organizing/hosting a conference make sure you’re prepared for the work ahead.
2. Once you are prepared for the work, double the time you think it will take, multiple that by two, and then you might be close.
3. Always remember you are doing this to better education (or educators) or so you hope.
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It’s the day before the conference starts and big thanks to my Principal and ISB for giving me the week off to be here in Shanghai to finish planning for the conference. I really don’t know how I would have done it otherwise.
There are about More >
Learning 2.008 is about YOU
Sep 12th
It’s about the learner!
This conference is about allowing you the learner to take control of your own learning, to create opportunities for yourself to learn. We have done nothing more than to solicit the help of professional learners to help you in your own learning journey.
We talk about teaching students to learn how to learn. Next weekend….you get to learn how to learn. This conference is not designed for you to sit and listen to sessions for two days. This conference is designed to peek your interest with 45 minute presentations and then allow you to go explore, to grab More >
Communicating from the classroom
Sep 10th
As a technology person you don’t always get to decide where you are going to start with teachers. In fact, most of the time the teachers tell you where you are going to start.
Hence my focus on parent communication. Many teachers are looking at using blogs as a way to communicate with their parent communities.
Now, before I go any further I say they “use blogs” but that doesn’t mean they are blogging. I do believe there is a difference. Teachers find the ease of which you can setup a web site and post new content using a blogging program simple More >
Thoughts on conferences
Jul 1st
So the first full day of NECC 2008 comes to an end and I find myself thinking more about conferences, how to create them, manage them, and make them relevant to participants then I thought I would. Have I mentioned the conference we’re doing in Shanghai?
I’ve been thinking a lot about spaces and how important it is to create spaces for learning and conversing at the conference. Today I ran into cognitive overload. Ewan McIntosh does a beautiful job of explaining exactly how I was feeling today.
At one point I literally had to find a quiet corner in the Hyatt to just More >
