geeking it up

I'm ridiculously excited about some of the upcoming conferences and events I've got on the horizon.  Next weekend I'll be at the Learning & the Brain conference in Boston.  I absolutely cannot wait. Check out this list of speakers and presenters. Alfie Kohn, Nagleri, Howard-Jones, Kagan... all people whose work I've read, cited repeatedly, and wondered what else they had to offer. Some of the session objectives include:

• brain-based strategies to improve learning, memory and executive skills
• How stress, sleep, exercise and obesity affect brains, learning, and test scores
• Neuromyths and ways neuroscience can improve teaching and achievement 
• Rethinking learning, multilingual, reading and math teaching and treatment
• The effects of unhealthy brain and school-family environments on learning
• Strategies to help struggling students, math learners and multilingual children
• The role of environment in early education, temperament and creativity

I'm totally geeking out over this conference & hopefully will have opportunities to blog from Boston in order to begin to process my thoughts on it all.

AND, in terms of geeking it up in the future, splatypus, my awesome co-teacher, and I are leading a conversation at EduCon 2.3 this January in Philly about using Google Docs as a collaboration tool.  I've never gone to EduCon in person before, I've always just attended virtually, getting up early on a weekend morning to hover over my computer in my pjs to follow the conversation. Needless to say this time I'm psyched to be attending in person (although I will miss contemplating the greater meaning of education in my pjs.)

This Tuesday I'm hoping to attend a Global Summit on using technology with people with disabilities in downtown DC. Although I am also really excited about this opportunity, much of me being able to take off work will depend on PJ.  And so, I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I wont be holding my breath.