Live, from the ASCD!

It has to be a special occasion for me to be coherent, much less posting a blog entry, at 8:00 on a Saturday morning. And special it is. I’m at the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development’s annual conference in Orlando. It’s much more interesting than it sounds.

I’m covering the event as a member of the press for the blog In Practice. I’m excited to be part of the blogging team, which is comprised of a small group of outstanding teacher-bloggers working in inner city classrooms throughout the country:

• Alice Mercer of The Blog of Miz Mercer: Reflections on Teaching
• Brian Crosby of Learning is Messy
• Doug Noon of Borderland
• Jennifer Orr of Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It
• Jose Rodriguez of The Wooden Nickel
• Larry Ferlazzo from Larry Ferlazzo’s Website of the Day for Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL)
• Matthew Needleman of Creating Lifelong Learners
• Michaele Sommerville of Kindergarten’s 3 R’s: Respect, Resources, and Rants

And then…there is me. Wow. I’m truly honored to be part of this group.

The blog In Practice is the result of these writers’ combined efforts at capturing the reality of education in the 21st century: theory is nice, but we’re working in practice. And because of the blog’s outstanding reputation, its contributors were invited to attend the ASCD conference as members of the media. So in a wonderful stroke of providence, I have the opportunity to represent the blog and cover the event as a journalist. Ahh, the benefits of living three hours from the conference location.

I’m currently in a rather dull general session (which, so far, has been only a bunch of awards and acceptance speeches). I understand the New York Times #1 bestselling author Greg Mortensen (3 Cups of Tea) is about to speak, so I’m sticking it out.

HOWEVER this morning I attended an amazing presentation about counteracting the effects of poverty in the classroom. I live-blogged the event using it Cover It Live, meaning that readers can follow along with the conference session as it happens. And because most of you have more relaxing ways to spend your weekend, each live-blog event is archived so you can peruse my notes at your leisure. It’s unedited, so you can read exactly what I was learning and thinking as the session progressed.

The preview you see below is NOT my session. Click it to view my actual notes.

The presenter was absolutely amazing, deeply grounded and focused on her vision and helping others create their own. We had an immediate connection, and I am thrilled to have secured an interview with her tomorrow morning! I’ll post info on that later.

Be sure to check out the In Practice blog for lots of live events, summary recaps of conference sessions, and more as the weekend progresses.