Anne, I am thinking hard about how to turn an obstacle into an opportunity. Sometimes during the working week there seem to be so many ‘obstacles’ that I feel clousterphobic. I totally empathise with your views on needing to be working with the students. As an administrator I still have a teaching load, but my classes are like fresh air to me after meetings and problem solving and planning etc etc for the rest of my time. I am very reluctant to let them go. This is where I work through many of the obstacles that others find and help to show other teachers good examples of what is possible and what does improve communication and learning.
My looming obstacle is a parent education evening where I have elected to discuss digital literacy and eLearning and how it improves education and benefits the students….I think I may be throwing myself to the wolves here. However, I was heartened by a conversation with parents today (remember I am in Bangladesh but many of our parents are well educated and well travelled) about social networking sites and found their attitude to be positive and their knowledge broad about the good and not so good aspects.
After hearing you tonight I feel heartened and reinvigorated to start planning for my parent meeting and determined to turn it into an opportunity to share experiences, discuss fears and show examples of learning in the 21st century using the tools that these parents pay a lot of money for in school fees. Wish me luck! Thanks Anne for your inspiration!

Hi Anne,

You always write about thought provoking topics. I enjoyed your presentation and wanted to comment on the obstacles examples with regards to Internet Filters. Perhaps to get some discussion going around this topic, since it really interests me.

Just looking from another perspective – hopefully district filters will improve in order to have a local overide for educators who have the knowledge, but I’m not sure all educators are at the same point regarding knowledge of information literacy as those educators visiting this conference. We might think of all the other staff that we work with. Don’t get me wrong – I want them to be – but without teacher education and PD that concentrates around ICT and Information Literacy, I don’t think we will be. I also hope that national and provincial curriculum expectations will include ICT and Information Literacy, as part of Numeracy and Literacy programs.

As I pointed out to Bud earlier, who would be a prime candidate for a Internet Filter overide.

k12online Shanghai LAN party podcast #7…

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[...] I thoroughly enjoyed Ann Davis’ keynote, “Unleash the Potential: Remix Obstacles into Opportunities!” and it is an excellent example to demonstrate the above metaphor. I listened to the podcast on the way in to school this morning. It ended just as I pulled into the parking lot, on a Monday morning, the sun not yet up and was just the thing I needed to launch me into another week: a healthy dose of optimism. [...]

Outstanding! Just the shot of “optimism” that I needed on this Monday! Thank you, Anne!

As I started listening to this keynote, I was thinking of some of the obstacles that are currently in the way of current initiatives and thinking about obstacles that have been overcome in the past. I was wondering how many would fit into the items being “remixed.” One way that we have been turning obstacles into opportunities is to make people (especially school board members) aware of what the obstacles are — share our vision for our classroom.

“Seize the time.” Reflection is a key piece to our district’s mentoring goals and is a pivotal part of the new teacher certification program in Wisconsin. I like your ideas on how blogging can address these needs without being a huge time commitment. Thanks for all the ideas about overcoming obstacles — it was encouraging.

Thanks for the wiki. I have put it in my new delicious account and hopefully will come back to it often and maybe even submit something. Thanks!

[...] At the k12 online conference, the Overcoming Obstacles Keynote by Anne Davis made me think about my own obstacles that I face.  She points out a few obstacles that include “lack of time”, “resistance to change”, and a “control issue.”  Out of the many different situations, these three really stick out in my own mind. [...]

[...] Anne’s keynote address during the K12 Online Conference definitely wasn’t preaching to the choir or what I call a “teachers’ room mentality” where we spin our wheels talking about the obstacles and how we should overcome them but nobody does anything to solve.  I liked the fact that Anne took those obstacles and remixed them into action steps for people follow.  I need to take some time to potential look at the obstacles I face at work and try to remix them into opportunities because change is good thing. [...]