(just had to get that out of the way)

Okay, I loved your write-up and rather than comment on the content of what you learned, I want to analyze the structure (or lack thereof) of the conference.

Most of us are conditioned to think that if we go somewhere and pay some money, we should listen to other people tell us what they think we should know. Yet how many times do you hear people say that the Q & A of a conference was the best part?

The reason we so often default to the passive model of learning (where someone who ostensibly knows more than you talks while you listen) is because that is what traditional schooling is all about. The teacher/principal/school board decide what students should learn and there is usually vary little deviation from that regardless of what the kids already know.

Can you imagine if traditional schools let you walk out when the teacher was covering material you already know? Or let you set up your own session to learn about a topic that interested you even if it wasn’t in a textbook or on the syllabus?

If you suggest that kind of thing, people usually respond that the result would be chaos…and it’s probably true. That’s because a traditional school isn’t set up for that kind of learning. But Montessori schools are! In Montessori, kids *can* decide what they want to learn, and how, and to what extent they want to study it.

I hope that the conference you attended is the future of learning, both in the classroom and outside of it. Thank you for blogging about your experiences there, because it was really enlightening.

To conclude: if anyone was under the impression that I couldn’t bring any topic back to Montessori, let this stand as irrefutable evidence

And thank you for the review of my session (and sitting through it with such a small group!). It’s nice to see a critical review so I know where to improve or what to keep.

Looking forward to seeing you next year!

Beth

Beth Hartes last blog post..Social media inside the echo chamber

Thanks for the feedback and kind words. The purpose of the B2B site clinic was to stimulate ideas and help people prioritize. Hopefully we added a bit more ammo to the cause of site optimization and got people thinking.

I didn’t even think to specify that my presentation would be all B2C, duh. I’ll remember that for next time.

PS: If anyone’s curious, here’s my presentation. Warning, it’s B2C focused
http://www.slideshare.net/DigitalAlex/55-ways-to-improve-your-websites-conversion-presentation?src=embed

-Alex Cohen

Alexs last blog post..A Whole Buncha Links from Twitter