Reaching & Teaching Conference - Calgary, Alberta

I guess we all have our "off" days :(

I had been invited to facilitate a Blended Learning and Student Engagement: What's the Connection? session for the Reaching & Teaching Annual Conference. This conference is co-organized by the Calgary Professional Development Consortium and the Golden Hills School District. Each year, the conference focuses on a specific theme and this year the topic was technology.

Sigh, I really should have spent more time researching the needs of my audience (K to 12 teachers and administrators). Rather than focusing on an instructional design framework for online blended learning - I really should have focused on the notion of student engagement and how a blended learning approach and technology can be used to foster student success and retention. The BIG problem for me - was that I had been asked to offer the same 90 minute workshop - twice. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon. An opportunity to make the same mistake twice - insanity - doing the same thing over again but somehow expecting the results to be different.

Lesson learned - know your audience!!

Hopefully I don't make this mistake again.