Ben Daley at Wireless EdTech

To be honest the Wireless EdTech conference wasn't horrible, and I have no real reason to call Chris Dede a prostitute, other than I can't stop thinking "What a prostitute" when I listen to him. I don't know why.

The fact of the matter though is that ed tech is still in a boring period. Maybe near the end of it, and part of the reason I went was to check in on that.

Nope. Still boring.

Also, the self-referential ed tech bubble was in full effect. You know what I'm talking about.

Ben Daly of High Tech High was the best part. I know he's not a big ed tech conference guy because I asked him if he was going to NECC about five years ago and his response was "What's NECC?" Anyway, he talked about:

• Using Elluminate to do their "looking at student work" protocols virtually. The public can also join and observe this process twice a month over the interweb.
• He showed off some nice books the students have made. Of course, that's nothing new, but they were really substantial, well designed, with high production values. In particular he passed around a book of artwork with text obviously culled from online discussion of the work. Really excellent modelling.
• HTH is dipping their toes into online math instruction, which is probably going to become popular in a lot of progressive high schools which can't fit enough traditional math content into a project-based curriculum. If this can be made to work, it will be a great relief to many schools.