The reason for f2f

Back in Bangkok and still making sense of what happened last week. Two conferences with a total of 13 presentations and a 102.8F fever in between.

The one idea that keeps running through my head is this:

What is the reason we gather Face to Face?

There is a reason we like going to conference, there is a reason why students like coming to school (and it's not to be by oneself) there is a reason we want students in a class. What is that reason?

What is the reason we gather face to face when content can be found 24/7/365?

What is the reason when research can be done outside face to face time?

What is the reason when reading/listening/gathering/analyzing content can be done outside of school?

What are we doing with face to face time to maximize the learning potential for students?

If we are worried that students are just "skimming the web" for information then what is the face to face time in our classes for?

If we are worried that kids won't have an opportunity to go deep with knowledge, that things come to easy and to fast. What are we doing with the time we have them in front of us?

If I have every student find the 5 best articles they can on a given topic and bookmark them using Diigo or Delicious, when we get together face to face, what do we do? What is my role as a teacher facilitator?

There is a reason we get together, there is something that online courses, Skype, and all of it can not replace. What is that? And how do we change our classrooms so that is what we are focusing the majority of our time on.

How do we maximize face to face time with students? What is technologies role? What is the teacher's role?

As usual I come back from conferences with more questions than answers....and that's a good thing. :)