The June 2008 FNO
San Antonio Mini Conference
Friday, Saturday and Sunday
June 27-29 2008

Friday AM - Power Learning 7.0
Powerful Searching

Friday PM - Power Learning 8.0
Powerful Writing & Thinking

Saturday AM - Power Learning 9.0
Authentic Learning

Saturday PM - Power Learning 10.0
Powerful Questions, Original Thinking and Synthesis

Sunday AM - Leading Questions

Sunday PM - Tech Planning 101
Likely the best hands-on
learning opportunity of the year!

Smart Uses of New Technologies
Teaching Thinking, Questioning, Problem-solving and Comprehension

At the end of June, join dozens of your colleagues on a special weekend of learning in San Antonio prior to NECC (The National Educational Computing Conference).

The conference offers an opportunity to join colleagues from around the nation exploring leading edge practice.

Sessions will be held in wireless facilities graciously provided by the Alamo Heights ISD at the Woodbridge Elementary School. School Web site. School is about 25 miles from Hyatt.

Woodridge Elementary
100 Woodridge
San Antonio, TX 78209

From downtown:

281 North
Exit Basse East (right)
Stay on Basse and pass Broadway and the Junior School
Turn right at light at N. New Braunfels Avenue
Go about 1/2 mile and turn left on Larkwood (no light)
Woodbridge Elementary will be on the left.
Turn left and park in the parking lot near the entrance to the auditorium.
Google Map

Costs

Schedule of Events
Friday, June 27, 2008

9:00 AM  -  Noon
Power Learning 7.0
Powerful Searching
In this session, Jamie equips teachers with a basic toolkit of search strategies to help them cope with the info-glut that can be so frustrating to them and their students. Learn these ten strategies and you are on your way to information that is pertinent, cogent and worth saving:

  1. Question and draw before you search
  2. Use only the best
  3. Learn the syntax
  4. Learn the features
  5. Start big and broad
  6. Browse before grazing
  7. Go to the source
  8. Be discrete
  9. Cull your findings
  10. Be playful

In addition to good search logic, Jamie will introduce the group to the Deep Internet and resources not easily found with Google and other search engines.

Noon  -  12:30 PM
Lunch
A box lunch served on site.
     
12:30 PM  -  3:30 PM
Power Learning 8.0
Powerful Writing & Thinking
Writing and thinking are interlinked. Jamie engages the group in seeing the interplay between mind mapping, the formation of ideas and the eventual composition of sentences and paragraphs to express complex ideas in a coherent and persuasive manner.

Learn how to equip students with the skills to make and communicate meaning even when the tasks are challenging and the answers are elusive, mysterious or puzzling. Jamie shows how new technologies can empower students to wrestle with difficult material and make up their own minds. He will illustrate the intersection between the composition of ideas, visual thinking, synthesis, comprehension and the invention of meaning. Central to the effort is grasping the relationships and interactions between wondering, pondering, comprehending and the other concepts in the diagram below:
Saturday, June 28, 2008

9:00 AM  -  Noon
Power Learning 9.0

Authentic and Engaged Learning
Learn how to employ the best elements of these two learning models so your students are challenged to wrestle with difficult questions while intrigued by the issues being explored.

Across the land, teachers are under increased pressure to meet challenging objectives set by state curriculum standards. To meet these thinking, problem-solving and communicating standards, it pays to involve students in seeing how these skills are practiced in the world of work outside of school. As much as possible, it makes sense to involve them in such work, either through internships, visits, interviews or simulations.

Even though some of these activities may be staged or simulated, they still pass the test of authenticity because they meet the following criteria:

  • They are rooted in issues, challenges or decisions that people face in the world.
  • They are genuine.
  • The act of wrestling with these challenges is purposive - saturated with meaning and significance.
  • A student can see a payoff in the future for work well done and skills acquired

Noon  -  12:30 PM
Lunch
A box lunch served on site.
     
12:30 PM  -  3:30 PM
Power Learning 10.0
Powerful Questions, Original Thinking and Synthesis

This session will focus on ways to equip students with the skills to make up their own minds, building answers rather than finding or copying and pasting answers. Jamie will lead the group through a number of challenges that require original thinking and a high degree of synthesis. Given the lack of attention devoted to synthesis over the years as part of teacher preparation and professional development, this session is designed to offer a rich collection of resources for participants to pursue as they augment their repertoire. As part of this learning, considerable attention will be devoted to visualizing the inventive thinking process.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

9:00 AM  -  Noon
Leading Questions
Teaching Your Team to Kiss Ask

Based on Jamie's new book, Leading Questions, this workshop introduces the group to the basic structure of Jamie's approach to building a questioning organization - one that values tough questions over boss pleasing.

How can leaders of corporations, hospitals, schools, small businesses and government learn to handle the confounding surprises of this century when the unthinkable arrives with such frequency?

Jamie presents a field guide to managing complexity and surprise with finely tuned questioning skills. Borrowing from a long and distinguished career in the public sector marked by foresight and innovation, he offers a practical approach to questioning that reduces the risk of folly, disarray and surprise.

Noon  -  12:30 PM
Lunch
A box lunch served on site.
     
12:30 PM  -  3:30 PM
Tech Planning 101
Learn how the True Cost of Ownership can guide school and district planning for the robust and discerning use of new technologies to focus on student achievement. Long an advocate of curriculum rich uses of new technologies, Jamie shows how investment in program definition and development may combine with professional development to generate broad-based smart usage.

Full Costs

Full 3 Day Conference - US $ 400

Friday Morning - US $85.00

Friday Afternoon - US $85.00

Saturday Morning - US $85.00

Saturday Afternoon - US $85.00

Sunday Morning - US $85.00

Sunday Afternoon - US $85.00