CoSN Day 1--International Symposium

Today is Monday and the first day of the CoSN conference. It is the first time that I have paid to attend the International Symposium. I have now had the opportunity to hear from people from China and leaders from Kenya. Sponsors from Adobe and Pearson have insight and have commented on everything from Adobe ceasing to continue work on Flash and focusing on HTML 5 to Pearson stating that we should get away for the term ebooks since the iBooks and similar items being created are curriculum not textbooks. It is always intriguing to talk with an education leader from another country such as the one from Spain sitting at my table. Wow, she is looking for the same answers that we are looking for in Alabama. This gives new meaning to the song...Its a Small World... One of the statements was that we have yet to really develop PD to support the digital teacher. We talk about teaching the digital learner but what are we really doing to develop the digital teacher. Several items worth Googling from the speakers are iHub,MPrep, and eLimu. These are primarily projects and products in Kenya. The term of the day is mlearning. The concept being stressed is to NOT focus on the mobile device but rather on mobility--Anytime, Anywhere Learning. Another phrase that I found interesting was "flipped conversations." There is so much buzz around the flipped classroom, but I had not heard the term, flipped conversation. It is really a no brainer. A flipped conversation is really just a real conversation if you consider a conversation is 2 way communications. In a meeting such as today, a flipped conversation just mean that the audience is contributing and commenting on what the panel speakers are saying. Comments from the audience continue.