It’s ASCD weekend! ASCD is a global community of educators dedicated to excellence in learning, teaching, and leading. Thier innovative solutions empower educators to promote the success of each child. They’re also one of the BIG places I turn to for my own professional learning. From books to their Educational Leadership magazine…they are a great resource. I was also named an ASCD Emergent Leader last year, so that makes me even more invested in what they have to offer!
For the first time in 5 years I am not going to be there. (Carol Dweck, sadness! Mike Schmoker, eek!)
Whoa.
While I know my attention and focus is where it needs to be (#bestfirstyearprincipalinthehistoryoftheworld), I am super sad to be missing out on connecting with my PLN friends turned IRL friends, learning from the BEST speakers, and hearing high-quality sessions…I can take comfort in the fact it’s 2016, and I can STILL learn from home! Budgets are tighter than ever, and there are so many responsibilities on educators in the spring. Don’t miss out when there are many ways to connect and learn!
1st way I can learn from home- I can stay dialed into the #ASCD16 hashtag on Twitter. The thousands of twitter’ers that will be tweeting all their gems of greatness will be vicariously sharing their learning with me, far far away in Texas. I’ve set up an IFTT recipe that will send all tweets marked with #ASCD16 to an Evernote page, so I don’t have to worry about missing a one, and I can scroll with ease this weekend, knowing I am capturing it all! @ASCD will also be tweeting up a storm!
2nd way to learn from home- ASCD is on Facebook and Instagram. They’ll be sharing highlights, great quotes, and tidbits from the conference all weekend long. They’re a great resource year round, but their team kicks it up a notch during the annual conference!
3rd way to learn from home- If you look at the sessions being offered, many of them ar highlighted ASCD writers. Their professional development section has a plethora of titles, including the ASCD Arias’s which I love! Check out the session titles, connect with some great authors, and get to downloading!
4th way to learn from home- Have you used the app periscope? The amazing Steven Anderson wrote about it for ASCD several months ago. Search the app for #ASCD16 to see live what all is going on! I know many educators have been using this app to stream great things from PD they are attending and I doubt ASCD will be any different!
How else can you connect with a conference you can’t be there? Let me know so I can add it to the list of ways I’ll be tracking #ASCD16 this weekend!!
Amber
Thanks for these wonderful ideas! Wishing I was there, too!