EduCon 2023

Obsolete? Outmoded? Unaffordable? These are just a few of the questions we hear about libraries and computer labs in the age of the ubiquitous Internet. We invite you to do some 180 degree thinking, planning, idea sharing, and leadership to move traditional ideas into exciting physical and virtual foundational elements of knowledge building.

What is the central role of information and technology in a world of digital natives? Are teachers and students so sophisticated in their tech and info use that they require little to no partnerships with teacher librarians and teacher technologists? If inquiry is so central to learning, do kids and teens automatically excel the moment we flip on the Internet switch? Is the library and computer lab just an organizational solution for teacher planning periods?

During our time together, we will confront major reasons and possibilities and tours of what really happens when a Learning Commons rises like a Phoenix as a new physical and virtual world.

Asking every participant to brainstorm, we will, together probe ideas, examine actual school transformations, and lay down together major principles that will propel schools of inquiry toward excellence.

Meeting in an actual library, we will redesign an actual space and a companion virtual space for almost no money, for some money, and for a complete architectural redesign (architects and administrators needed)

Each participant will go home with the collaborative intelligence we build together plus a plethora of information sources, and actual transformations of schools around North America who have created Leaning Commons.