Parting Thoughts on Pittsburgh; Planning for What’s Next

A safe ride home finds me back in Lansing, with thoughts of teaching, learning, and technology in my mind. Tonight, I sit again in my living room—with reliable wi-fi—and a head full of ideas, most of which will have to wait for me until I get a good night’s rest.

Yet, for final reflections on the conference, I wanted to take a moment… Many of the thoughts that I am reflecting on have already been shared by those who posted earlier today, so I will simply echo the comments on how well RCWP was represented, how much I appreciate Janet’s work at the national level to support and grow the RCWP/MSU Writing Center, and, most importantly the dedication, determination, and good nature of all of you who were able to come to Pittsburgh. I am so impressed by your willingness to take up podcasting and blogging, support your colleagues by attending their conference sessions, share in the excitement of author sightings, and take the time for the collegial conversations that will strengthen our site.

My thoughts tonight are that the ride home from Pittsburgh was, perhaps, one of the highlights of my trip. Aram, Cathy, and Tara are already talking about ways to extend our technology learning from this conference and I am sure that conversations in other cars and planes were similar. I believe that you all have the experience with blogs, wikis, podcasts, digital photography, and other technologies to begin thinking critically and creatively about how to share your knowledge with other teachers and I look forward to thinking about how we can do that.

While I could go on more here, I simply want to close by saying thanks to all of you. Like Janet, I feel that this has been my best conference to date, all because of you, and I am so glad that I was able to support you and share in that experience.



Nashville, here we come!