Conference happenings...

A listing of some of the professional development experiences that I'll be participating in this fall:

University School of Milwaukee mini-conference day with Alan November (October 13th)- This idea was actually hatched two years ago while at the National Social Studies Teachers conference in Washington DC with Bigbri, Chuck and Pipes. We talked about how powerful it would be to offer our own conference at USM. Last yearat this time we decided on going forward with the day an we confirmed Alan November as the day's keynote speaker. From there, we added a graet speaker line-up for the break-out presentations and the hands-on workshops. The budget for this day is significant, but I think this is a fantastic model when you consider that over 100 faculty members will be a me to experience this powerful day. I'm excited to see my former colleagues and to meet Sharon Peters, someone whom I've admired for quite some time now, in person!

Yahoo Digital Citizenship Summit with Chris Lehmann as the keynote speaker (October 3rd). This was a fantastic event and I thank the good folks at yahoo for providing this e perience for free. This day really confirmed many of the things we know about the digital lives of you g people. Like Larry Magid, one if the Internet Safety panelists, said, "99.9% of the things that youth do online are good." not that the Internet stranger range myth has officially been dispelled, it is time we start leveraging the potential associated with digital social networking platforms.

Innovative Learning Conference (October 15th and 16th) in San Jose- this conference, I have a feeling, is going to be excellent. I get back from Milwaukee on Tuesday and will be at the ILC on wednesday and Thursday. Four of our teachers will also be going down to ILC to spend a day attending some of the excellent concurrent session offerings. This is nice be ause I'll be able to connect with some of my new colleagues while I down there. My school has also made the committmen to send four members of our administrative team down to theMonday afternoon leadership session with Chris Lehmann. I think they'll learn a great deal and have an excellent time working with Chris and learning about some of the powerful strategies that his team at the S ience Leadership Academy in Philly are using to give their students authentic and powerful learning opportunities.

National Social Studies Teachers conference in Houston (November 14-16) - This will be my third consecutive year at NCSS. This time around I'll be co-presenting alongside former colleague and master teacher, Chuck Taft of American History Rules fame. Chuck and I will be doing a session on we 2.0 methods and tools in the social studies classroom on Friday afternoon.