I have been thinking a lot about my session at Educon 2.2, and I think that I have finally figured out just what kind of conversation I would like to have. Originally, I thought that I would really be working with presenting ideas in context, with meaning, and for perspective. I thought that this would produce a lot of really good conversation and help everyone taking part to build their own context or meaning for their own innovations. While, I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad way to go, I think it is really just too uninspiring to create any lasting change. And, I decided a couple of days ago that if I let a chance to be in the same room with the smartest people I know go by without changing myself, them, or the way that we do things in education for the better then I might as well not even go.

With that said, here is the plan:

I would like to pose to anyone who would like to take part in this session (you can be attending Educon 2.2 or not) the following question: “What is your innovation in education, and why does it matter?”

The reason why I want to answer this question is because I believe that innovation is the only thing that will save modern public education. I believe that somewhere out there is an innovative idea that is being executed extremely well, but is not fully explored by our network. I believe that we are all engaged in disrupting the current crop of educational theory with our own successful practice, and we need to tell that story. I believe that if we do not take the opportunity to stand up and say why it is that our ideas matter, no one will take them seriously.

So, this is a shout out to anyone who would like to do a “Prenote”.

To me, this term means that we all do the presentation before we get to Educon so that we can get on with the conversation without being hampered by that facade. We do the prenote so that our biases, passion, and ideas can be gathered into one spot before we set foot inside SLA. It is a way of preserving a snapshot of what we were like before Educon 2.2, because I believe that with a little work, we can all come away changed from such an event.

So, here are the logistics:

• Answer the above question using one of the following methods:

http://www.youtube.com/my_webcam – Record yourself with just your voice and your face answering the question

Create an ignite-style presentation (see Chris Lehmann’s here) and then upload it to youtube

• Enter the link into the following Google Form:

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Make sure you tag your YouTube video with #educon22 and #educonnovation (I will be using the second tag for my session, and yes, I do know it is ridiculous)

After the first 5 or so people do this (I hope we get at least 5), I will set up a SpeedGeek Learning session to organize the videos and create a backchannel conversation and collaborative documents around all of them. The idea is that during my session at Educon 2.2, we will be able to collaborate on the best or most inspiring innovations in our midst and come up with some concrete plans for executing them to a greater scale. Because for me, putting together these answers to the question will be nothing if we do not act on their challenge to become better educators, learners, and humans.

Any takers?