We’re right in the midst of our Integrating Technology in the Classroom Institute, and I have to say that I feel that it’s going pretty well. Can’t be completely sure until the evaluations (midway and final) come in, but it seems like there’s a good, positive, buzz so far. It’s always hard to run these things–given the diversity of levels of interest, and levels of skill and experience, among the participants, but I think we’re learning every time. Finding the balance between pedagogy (what we care about most) and technology (where we find the biggest deficits) is difficult.

One thing that works very well, though, is the cohort-building this kind of program can accomplish. Keeping people together, all day every day, through a lot of activities, feeding them (fairly well, at least by BMCC standards), and making sure that they get chances to talk to one another, online and f2f, formally and informally–that always has some kind of effect which grows as the days go by.

Each day I seem to think of something else that we should have/could have/would have liked to add–but there’s only so much time and so much capacity the human spirit can tolerate. And we still have them biweekly in the fall!

And I have to say, in all modesty, that I thought my keynote: “Imagination, Knowledge, Magic and Crap: Teaching (and Learning) with (and from) Technology” (alternately titled: “Gunslingers, Bankers, and Whores: Teaching, Learning, and Technology on the Frontier”) was very well-received. I had fun with it, anyway!