In case you’ve never been, the Urban Sites conference is a National Writing Project conference that is intended to bring together Urban teachers to share experience and conversations about best practices in Urban education.  The Urban Sites network is one of a few other special focus networks: Rural Sites Network, Technology Liaison Network (TLN) , and the English Language Learner Network are the others.

I have been a member of the Technology Liaison Network for the past year, and had the privilege of thinking through, designing, and implementing a technology focused pre-conference here in Boston on Friday.  The other facilitators, Cliff Lee and Alina Aldonyi, are two amazing colleagues with whom I always treasure working.  Of course, we couldn’t have done any of it without the leadership of Paul Oh and the support of Shannon Boling.

For this preconference, “Tapping Into the Cultural Wealth of Urban Youth’s Technology Know-How”,  we were keen to de-emphasize the “how-to” of the tech and instead focus on the provocative ways that technology can transform student learning and writing, moving students from consumers to empowered creators. We honored and evaluated the myriad strengths of our students, and assessed how best to tap into that wealth to not only help students move forward, but to also celebrate who they are and what they know.  That being said, to get to empowerment, you have to name the factors of disempowerment, and to that end we had frank and honest discussions about racism, on the individual and institutionalized level. We used these uncomfortable conversations to catalyze us to action, ending the day with collaborative time to envision work for our classrooms or our Writing Project sites that might change the world. I was humbled by the risk-taking and honesty in the room, which is no surprise considering how impressive National Writing Project teachers are in general.  The talent, hard work, and intelligence of this network never ceases to amaze me.

If you would like to take a peek at the work we did, the readings we shared, and the resources we highlighted, we have put the agenda on a Google Doc which allowed us to additionally crowdsource the room for the best information on the topics of the day.   A huge thank you to the folks who were in that room. You make me believe that world is changing for the better, knowing that dedicated and innovative teachers like you are out there advocating, caring, and of course, transforming learners all across this country.

More information:

• Tapping Into the Cultural Wealth of Urban Youth’s Technology Know-How