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Wednesday, January 29, 2014

FETC 2014: Day 2 Underway

Things are starting to pickup at the OCCC. Crowds will continue to build throughout the day, peaking at the Opening Keynote at 3:30. Discovery Education's Chief Architecture and Engineering Expert Danny Forster will deliver this year's opening keynote address. Over the year's, the opening keynote has been a mixed bag - some good, some lacking the inspiration that teachers look for in a keynote. I report later on how this year's address is received.

My day started with a session that I am still sitting in - Educating Modern Learners: Intensive Look at the Contexts, Literacies and Practices that Supports Students by Will Richardson @willrich45. Why isn't this guy doing one of this year's keynotes? Like most attendees, I do get excited about learning about new tools. Many get really pumped up scouring the exhibit floor for free pens and water bottles. But this is the kind of session that every attendee should be hearing. Will is asking the right questions. Questions like, "What are the key changes we have to understand in order for the conversation to be relevant?" I plan on devoting a post later on Will's talk, so I'll refrain from further comment now.

So what does the rest of my day look like?

As I mentioned, I'm looking forward to the opening keynote. Before the keynote, I'll be at Techshare Live! with Adam Bellow, Hall Davidson, Leslie Fisher and Kathy Schrock. Techshare begins at 11am in the main hall (SA1). This is always a popular session, and really serves as the unofficial kick-off for FETC. If you going, get there early to beat the crowds to the good seats.

I'll probably dropout of Techshare a little early to get over to Meg Ormiston's talk, Engaging Students in BYOT Classrooms. Meg is great and the topic is hot.

I'll wrap-up the day at tonight's PLN Tweet-up at TGI Friday's. This is our 4th year getting together for the "unconference" event, and is always a great time to interact face to face with the PLN. Get more info here. All are invited.

I'll be posting later with more in depth comments on Will's talk, and anything else that comes up today.

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