My interest in these topics has heightened since January 1. As part of a newly formed school division, there is quite a buzz and excitement around the possibility of real change. I've been utilizing many of your postings and ideas and others to advance the concepts of Web 2.0 et. al to the decision makers of our school district. I think many are listening. I'm trying very hard to present the right mix of innovation and ideas that will realistically be considered as vehicles of change.

Listening to the podcast, I'm almost audibly shouting "AMEN!" to much of the discussion. For me it's going to be a very important 6 months of work as we begin to lay out the principles and values that will shape our new school division. Your contributions to my learning is appreciated.

Likewise Dean.

This is an exciting time to be restructuring a school division. I'm honoured to hear my work and writing has been helpful. Keep us up-to-date on your blog, I always look forward to reading your blog postings; I'm one of your most avid readers. ;-)

Mrs. Simpson: Thanks for the positive feedback. I'm glad you're able to use our chat to help others move the discussion forward.

You folks in Alabama have started on some really exciting work. I think we're going to see many examples from your district of students and teachers using technology in pedagogically meaningful ways.

Wes: Your enthusiasm is contagious. Thanks for including me as a node on your network. ;-)

I think we see eye-to-eye on these issues:

(1) Historically in edtech the technology has driven the pedagogy -- it really has to be the other way around.

(2) We need to put these tools in the hands of the students!

(3) We need models to learn from. Master teachers who focus on pedagogy first, technology second. Who have the technological knowledge to leverage technological solutions for enhancing pedagogy. Who freely share the wealth of that knowledge in a global learning community.

(I feel like saying: "I have a dream!" Kind of appropos for this weekend. ;-))

The other links:

Island Bloggers at the ECML: http://blogs.emcl.at

Modern Foreign Languages Project: http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/mfle

Thanks Ewan! I updated the show notes.

Hi Dean,

For the most part I think the four of us didn't have any disagreements.

There was one point in the discussion, when we were discussion question #3 about repurposing edtech budgets, I had misheard Miguel, spoke up and said "But we don't have technology integration." When I went back to listen to the podcast a second time to make the shownotes I realized that we were saying the same thing. I said as much when the "mic" was turned over to me.

At the end of the conversation though, we had a genuine disagreement. Specifically about how to orchestrate teachers professional development in connection with the read/write web. (See mine and Wes' comments above.) Miguel didn't feel this would be an effective format for PD. I think it will have a powerful impact on current and future teachers. I also have some ideas about teacher training but maybe we should save that for the next podcast. ;-)