High Techpectations

Expanding Your NECC 2009 Experience

 

Cross Posted at the Infinite Thinking Machine

View and edit NECC 2009 Washington, DC in a larger map. Please add your recommendations!

It's that time of year again... The International Society for Technology in Education will celebrate its 30th birthday in a few weeks by hosting the National Educational Computing Conference in Washington, D.C. For me, it's a particularly exciting time to be visiting our nation's capital in light of our new president and a renewed focus on improving education.

NECC 2009 promises to be professionally rejuvenating event for anyone interested in educational technology. It is a potentially overwhelming conference with nearly 13,000 attendees and approximately 500 vendors presenting their wares. For the record, educational technology has never been about the tools for me (although I do revel in the cool factor of many technologies), but about leveraging learning for kids. That said, I hope that educators from a wide variety of backgrounds and interests will attend for similar reasons. I would actually like to see the excitement about educational technology filter down more to those who aren't necessarily techie geeks like myself.

For the past few years, I've posted a blog entry highlighting a few tips and tricks for making the most of your NECC experience. Review my ideas for 2007 and for 2008; I still stand by that general advice. Pick an area of focus, spend time planning before you get to Washington with that theme in mind, and give yourself plenty of time to digest everything. Bring your laptop for taking notes and accessing additional content; I suspect more people will be using iPhones for this purpose, however. Finally, get connected with other educators through the plethora of events that are scheduled. For the second year, ISTE has an online community for conference conversation. Networking isn't just for job seekers or administrators anymore!

If you are not able to attend in person, you should be able to participate virtually as well. Some presenters may elect to post their materials online and to stream video feeds of their presentations. At Edubloggercon, an informal "unconference" to be held Saturday, June 27 as a precursor to NECC, many sessions will also be broadcast via tools such as Ustream. Finally, similar sessions called NECC Unplugged will be taking place in the Blogger's Café during the actual conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

In addition to all this, people will be blogging, posting pictures, and twittering away about conference happenings. You can find this stuff by searching various sources using tags (keyword labels) such as NECC, NECC2009, and NECC09. For instance, search Twitter using #NECC and you'll find a steady microblogging stream. I recommend searching Technorati for blog posts and Flickr for photos in a similar manner.

Finally, I like to make the most of any travel experience by doing a little research ahead of time. I usually do a cursory search in iTunes for content related to my destination that I can put on my iPod or iPhone. For instance, I purchased the audiobook of A Cricket in Times Square for my daughter when we traveled to New York City prior to NECC 2005. In 2006, I traveled to Europe with other Apple Distinguished Educators on a project and I brought along a Passport to Europe episode on Berlin and a No Reservations episode on Paris (this show isn't necessarily for kids, by the way). In addition to these items, there are tons of free podcasts available in iTunes if you do a search for your particular destination.

I've taken the liberty of putting together a few Washington DC related resources. I have not reviewed all of these; I just explored and plucked ones that look potentially interesting. If you have any additional recommendations, please add them to the comments. Enjoy and see you in DC. I'll be in the Google booth from time to time and presenting as part of Larry Anderson's Podcasting and Podcatching for the Absolute Beginner panel. Stop by and say hello!

Washington DC and NECC Resources

Lucy's NECC Calendar - Each year, I use the NECC conference planner to plot any sessions interesting to me. I'm focusing on math, science and interactive whiteboards this year.

Lucy's NECC '09 Map - Join this Google Map and add your info and recommendations.

NECC Ning - NECC's online community; attendees and virtual attendees are welcome to join.

GovFresh - one stop shopping for multimedia produced by the U.S. governent. Everything is aggregated in one place; web 2.0 at its finest!

Apps for your iPhone:

• iTransDC Metro - (99 cents)
• iMetroMap DC (99 cents)
• Dubbele.com (99 cents)
• Washington DC Public (free)
• Washington Post's Going Out Guide (free)
• Washington DC Travel Guide (99 cents)
• Washington DC - GPS Tour (99 cents)
• U.S Historical Documents (99 cents)
• iCongress (99 cents)
• politicoTrack ($9.99)
• Presidents Match Game (99 cents)
• USA Presidents (free)

Podcasts:

• Cityscapes - Washington DC
• Tourcaster - Washington DC City Guide
• Mobile Tours
• Cultural Tourism DC: Audio Journeys
• Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Podcasts
• ARTSEDGE: The Kennedy Center's Jazz in DC
• The International Spy Museum SpyCast
• US Holocaust Memorial Museum iTunes U Page
• Smithsonian Podcasts
• LearnOutLoud's US Presidents Podcast
• The Washington Post Video Podcast
• Washington Week Video Podcast
• President Obama's Weekly Address

TV Shows and Movies:

• Smithsonian Channel ($1.99 per episode to purchase)
• Anthony Bourdrain's No Reservations - Washington DC ($1.99 per episode to purchase)
• All the President's Men ($9.99 to purchase, $2.99 to rent)
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ($14.99 to purchase only)

YouTube Channels:

• Smithsonian Channel
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Newseum
• Library of Congress
• C-SPAN
• The White House

Add Yourself to the NECC Map

View Larger Map

I'm doing a session for Apple on collaborative tools, and I've started a Google map to show participants some of the great collborative features. I've marked the convention center, the hotel where I am staying, some restaurants, and the Alamo to the map. Feel free to jump in and add any recommended tourist spots to this map. Also, consider adding a placemark indicating where you are traveling from.

Directions for Adding a Placemark
Find a location where you would like to add a placemark. Then, click on the EDIT button to the left of the map. Next, select the blue placemark tool in the left-hand corner of the map itself. A bubble should pop up and you can fill in the fields as necessary. To change the placemark icon, click on the icon while you still have this bubble open and you can select another icon or upload your own. Press OK when you are done.

Obama Supporter Meet Up @ NECC

I'm one of several hosts for this event. Please join us!

PLEASE RSVP AND SHARE THIS INVITATION WIDELY!

Will you be in San Antonio, Texas, on Sunday, June 29? Join me and other supporters of Barack Obama for President at a free EdTech Meet Up for Obama in '08 and Unite for Change in TX

Where: Sunset Station, Depot 1, just 2 blocks from the convention center

When: Sunday June 29, 8:30-10:30pm

What: chips, salsa, drinks, and great political conversation

RSVP: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/meeting/4gzk
If you do not want to log-in, click skip intro at the bottom right of page.

(Alternative RSVP instructions: Go to www.barackobama.com, click events in the right column, search for events in zip code 78205, and click
EdTech Meet Up)

Meet educators and Obama supporters who share a deep commitment to the use of technology to create 21st century learning communities and
transform U.S. education. Plus, learn how you can help make history and
lay the groundwork for a BIG victory in November!

To stay involved with EdTech4Obama08, please join our group on Facebook. (You must create a Facebook account to join this free network of ed tech leaders for Obama!)

Yes We Can!

New Ning for NECC 2008

Steve Hargadon, the one man ed tech machine, has created a new ning online community for people interested in the National Educational Computing Conference. Check it out and join today! You do not need to be an ISTE member or even attending the conference to be a member, and this should be a useful tool for following the conference wherever you are.

Steve also has a new post up on his blog and cross-posted at the Infinite Thinking Machine on his Classroom 2.0 unconference series. He just hosted a second informal ed tech get together in Phoenix and reports that it went very well. One is being organized for Chicago this fall, and hopefully Steve will have more details to post about this shortly!

NECC 2008 via kwout

Friday 5: Getting Ready for NECC 2007

Hi All -

Sorry for the dearth of activity on this listserv, but it's been a busy few weeks. I'm heading across the Midway Plaisance to a new job at the University of Chicago Center for Urban School Improvement, and it's been a stressful time making the decision to leave my current school. I'll be the Lead Technology Coach for the Center, working two days a week at one of four charter schools which are operated under the umbrella of the University. The rest of my time will be devoted to designing and implementing a technology professional development plan for all four charters run by USI. I am going to miss Lab very much, but I'll stay connected as my children will still attend school there. I am really grateful for the opportunity to have taught at Lab. My students and colleagues have been amazing, and I am appreciative of all that I have learned.

Anyway, I'm in the midst of preparing for the National Educational Computing Conference, which starts a week from tomorrow in Atlanta, Georgia. I'll be running a workshop for Apple with Julene Reed of St. George's Schools in Memphis, Tennessee, as well as participating in two panel presentations. I should also be floating around the Apple booth at various times, so stop by and say hello if you are attending the conference.

If you are not able to attend NECC, check out the following resources for following the conference virtually. I'll be publishing the Friday 5 on a more regular basis once life slows down a bit!

Take care,

Lucy Gray

1) NECC 2007 Flickr Group

Check out this link in the next week or so to see images taken by conference attendees. Flickr groups also allow for discussions, so you might catch some comments as well.

2) HitchHikr: NECC 2007

David Warlick has set up a service for aggregating conference information. Visit this page, and you'll see everything related to NECC that's been tagged with the keywords necc, neccprep, and necc2007.

3) NECC Podcasts and Web Casts
http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2007/program/podcasting.php
http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2007/program/video_on_demand.php

Several sessions have been selected to be podcasted or webcasted. I'm not sure how quickly these files will be published, though. I'm guessing Apple will also publish podcasts in the Conference Connections section of the Apple Learning Interchange, too.

4) NECC Bloggers

Many people have signed up to have links to their blogs posted on the NECC web site. These people, myself included, will be posting thoughts and reactions to the conference.

5) Lucy's Global Stuff
I'll be conducting a workshop on collaborative tools used to foster global awareness. I've created several resources that we will demonstrate. Feel free to jump in and add content, or just follow our progress as we add information.

The Global Education Collaborative Ning Group

The Global Education Collaborative Discussion Group | Google Groups

Flickr: The Global Education Collaborative

The Global Education Collaborative Wiki

NECC 2007 Workshop Resources

Excuse multiple crossposts -

Julene Reed and I are teaching a workshop at NECC on global collaboration, and I've set up a series of resources to demonstrate during this class. I hope that these resources will live on as people become interested in sharing resources used to teach global awareness concepts. Please consider jumping in and joining any of these groups. Some of them are already seeded with material, but others are just getting started. Feel free to pass this info on to anyone you know that also might be interested.

If you are presenting on a simliar topic at NECC, please think about "crosspollinating" material in these spaces as well.

1) Global Education Ning group
http://globaleducation.ning.com/

2) Global Education Flickr group
http://flickr.com/groups/globaleducation/

3) Global Ed Google Group
http://groups.google.com/group/globaleducation

4) Global Education Collaborative Wikispace
http://globaleducationcollaborative.wikispaces.com/

5) I'm tagging any resources I bookmark with the tag globalawareness in Furl and in del.icio.us.

6) Google Calendar for Global Education - enter your NECC global awareness events here, for instance.

If you think of other similar resources we should include, please send me suggestions.  Thanks!!!

The Global Education Collaborative

Link: The Global Education Collaborative.

Excuse the multiple cross-postings on various listservs etc....

Please consider joining a Ning community on global education: http://globaleducation.ning.com/

At the National Educational Computing Conference to be held in Atlanta, Georgia this June, fellow Apple Distinguished Educator Julene Reed and I will be hosting a workshop on global collaboration. I plan on utilizing a variety of tools and resources throughout this hands-on class, including Ning, a service that allows one to establish a custom social networking site. I am hoping to seed this site with people and content in preparation for this workshop, and I would like to invite anyone to jump in and participate.

I've made a few prior attempts at creating an online meeting space for those interested in global collaboration which included the establishment of a .Mac group and a blog. While I still plan on posting to these resources, I think this environment might be more inviting because it allows for the posting of photos, videos, and RSS feeds. Users can make their own custom personal pages, contribute to discussion forums, network with other like-minded individuals, and comment on these features. I've been inspired by the success of Steve Hargadon's Classroom 2.0 and School 2.0 Ning communities, particularly by the forum conversations in the Classroom 2.0 one.

I also hope that this will also serve as a hub for anyone who will be presenting at conferences on various global education topics. Please consider uploading any relevant files including presentation slides. You can upload slides to sites such as SlideShare and Scribd, which I think, will give you the html code to embed videos in a Ning community. If you need help with any of this, just let me know.. it's pretty easy. Of course, you can probably also save slideshows as Quicktime files and upload them directly, too.

Please let me know if you have any questions...

Friday 5: Summer Professional Development

Hi All -

This info is crossposted at the Infinite Thinking Machine blog. Thanks to Laurie Bartels who gave me a good portion of the technology and brain based learning links. If you'd like to contribute to this list, email me and I'll add you as a contributor to the Google Doc version of this list. You'll be able to find any additions if you bookmark this link.
Thanks,

Lucy Gray
elemenous@gmail.com

-----

Summer Professional Development Opportunities

THE BRAIN AND LEARNING

Learning and the Brain (takes place every November and April)
http://www.edupr.com/
April 28-30, Cambridge, MA

CAST conference - Universal Design for Learning (applicable to both
technology and the brain)
http://www.cast.org/pd/institute/index.html
July 23-26, near Boston, MA

The Brain, Learning & Applications Summer Institute (same as below)
http://www.carrawaycenter.com/brainlearninginstitute/
August 2-3, Nashville, TN

The Brain, Learning & Applications Summer Institute
http://www.nysais.org/page.cfm?p=4&verbose=228&month=3&start=01/01/07
August 21-22, Avon, CT

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
http://www.drawright.com/
multiple dates and types of drawing, painting and sketching sessions so
check the site

Schools Attuned - http://www.allkindsofminds.org
See this press release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/jan00/minds012000.htm

CURRICULUM

Authentic Education Summer Institutes
http://www.authenticeducation.org/si2007/

ASCD Summer Conference on Differentiated Instruction
http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/menuitem.094e328178c0162abfb3ffdb62108a0c/
June 30 - July 2  Salt Lake City, Utah

HUMANITIES/SOCIAL STUDIES

The Library of Congress | The Learning Page | Self-Serve Workshops
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/educators/workshop/ssindex.html

Professional Development Listings at the National Council for the Social Studies web site
http://www.ncss.org/profdev/

National Gallery of Art - Teacher Institute 2007
http://www.nga.gov/education/teacinst.shtm

National Geographic School Publishing and Literacy Achievement Research Center's Literacy Institute
http://www.literacyinstitute.org/

MATH

Texas Instruments Professional Development
http://education.ti.com/educationportal/sites/US/sectionHome/pd.html

Key Curriculum Press Workshops
http://www.keypress.com/x2142.xml

Math Forum - Math Education Conferences
http://mathforum.org/mathed/mathed.confs.html

MISC.

Stanford Summer Programs for Teachers
http://oso.stanford.edu/spt/index.html
For Bay Area teachers only

International Studies Summer Institute 2007
http://www.indiana.edu/~global/teacherprogram.php

NCTE - Literacies for All Summer Institute
http://www.ncte.org/profdev/conv/wlu
July 12 - 15 Louisville, KY

Responsive Classroom Institutes
http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/prodevelop/weeklonginst.html

Summer Institute for the Gifted
http://www.giftedstudy.com/

Phillips Exeter Academy Summer Programs
http://www.exeter.edu/summer_programs/88.aspx

Chicago Foundation for Education's Fund for Teachers Grant
http://www.chicagofoundationforeducation.org/pages/fund_for_teachers/99.php

The application deadline for this has passed, and it's only for Chicago Public School teachers. Keep it in mind for next year!

SCIENCE

Pasco Professional Development
http://www.pasco.com/training/home.html

Teachers as Investigators
http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/scied/LSTPD/programs/PPPL_TAI.html

The Keystone Center's Bringing Environmental Issues to the Classroom Program
http://www.keystone.org/pel/key_issues.html

Teton Science Schools - Teacher Learning Center Programs
http://www.tetonscience.org/tlc_programs.shtml#outreach

Exploratorium: Teacher Institute
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ti/classic.html

Earthwatch Institute
http://www.earthwatch.org/site/pp.asp?c=dsJSK6PFJnH&b=393763

TECHNOLOGY

Summercore - "A Unique Five Day Marathon in Hardware, Software and
Humanware"
http://www.teachingcompany.com/
dates and locations vary so check the site

CAIS 11th Annual Summer Technology Conference
http://www.caisct.org/cais/Quickforms/viewform.aspx?PostingID=82
June 18-22, Farmington, CT

Lausanne Collegiate School Laptop Institute
http://www.laptopinstitute.com/
July 15-17, Memphis, TN

Building Learning Communities
http://www.novemberlearning.com/Default.aspx?tabid=29
pre-conf: July 16-17;  main conf: July 16-17, Boston (Newton, actually), MA

CAST conference - Universal Design for Learning (applicable to both
technology and the brain)
http://www.cast.org/pd/institute/index.html
July 23-26, just north of Boston, MA

Teach the Teachers Collaborative
http://www.teachtheteachers.org/home.html

National Educational Computing Conference
http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2007/
June 24-27 Atlanta, Georgia

Logo Summer Institute
http://el.media.mit.edu/Logo-foundation/workshops/summer.html
July 30 - August 3 New York, New York

The Stonington Retreat
http://www.visioneducation.com/stonington.html
July 31 - August 3 New York, New York

Photography Workshops and Digital Lab Workshops in Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://www.santafeworkshops.com/

1 to 1 Learning: Laptops That Work

Link: Welcome!.

I'm behind on blogging about several sessions, one being a presentation by Pamela Livingston of the Peck School in New Jersey. She has a book about laptop programs due out in September via ISTE, and because she works at another independent school, I was curious about Peck's laptop implementation. It sounds like her book will be a valuable guide for those thinking about going down this road. Pam listed several schools and their varying rationales for going 1 to 1 and she also cited a fair amount of research to support the use of laptops in classrooms. I am going to bookmark web sites of some of the schools mentioned in my Furl account if anyone's interested.

tags technorati : necc necc2006 laptops

Welcome to NECC, Google!

Perhaps you've strolled by Google's modest booth already in aisle 2600 of the exhibition hall. This marks Google's first appearance at the National Educational Computing Conference, and this promises to be a harbinger of things to come.

A team of Google people did a demo of products that will enhance education over at the Hyatt this morning and these tools are linked to the Google Educators page. You must check out Writely, Google Spreadsheets, Blogger, Google Earth and Sketch Up. If you need an invitation to try out Writely, send me an email and I can send you an invitation as it's still in beta testing. The best thing about all of these tools is that they are free. Free is music to a teacher's ears!

tags technorati : necc necc2006 Google

NECC Photocast

I've had luck uploading pictures to the NECC Flickr Group and I've published a photocast, too. I'll be adding pictures as I take them. They aren't the world's greatest photos and I haven't done much editing, but they might be fun to look at!

http://photocast.mac.com/lucygray1/iPhoto/necc-photocast/index.rss

tags technorati : necc necc2006

NECC 2006: Show Me The Tools

I'm in a workshop right now that is conducted by the founders og GlobalSchoolNet.Yvonne Marie Andrés, Erica Rogers, and Al Rogers will be giving a spotlight session later today on their internet projects registry. This registry has search capabilities that are really useful. You can search by curriculum fit, use of technology, types of collaboration, keywords, project dates. Additionally, you can look at current, future and archived projects.

There are two types of membership. Contributing Membership helps keep their services free and provides some added benefits such as a newsletter. There is also a free membership because the founders believe their content should be free. This looks like a fabulous service, and of course people have to make a living, but I appreciate that they make membership reasonable and give access to all. It reminds me of some of the issues Bernie Dodge has supporting QuestGarden.

I'm wondering if I can incorporate Global SchoolNet into the project I did with Chapin School this year. During the third quarter, Steve Bergen and I partnered our students to research 21st century vocabulary and build collaborative web pages. Our students exchanged written communications, audio files, and digital pictures during the course of this project. The Chapin Kids built their web pages using HTML (no WYSIWYG editor) and my kids gave them feedback and created some banners in Photoshop.

We are trying to look at some cool online tools, but unfortunately, the network is not cooperating!

tags technorati : necc necc2006

Frustration!?@*!?!

The wireless service at the San Diego Convention Center worked beautifully for me this morning as I sat listening to Bernie Dodge's presentation. Later in the morning, the connection seemed intermittent, but I had other things to do, and didn't try to get online until afternoon. Much to my disappointment I couldn't connect to the wireless network, and it appeared that I was the only one having this problem. I stopped by the tech help desk, and coincidentally, another person with a Mac also had the same problem... we couldn't get an IP address. I eventually found out that the powers that be are working on whatever networking problem is involved, so hopefully I will be to connect tomorrow. It was just a highly frustrating experience, and I wasted a good hour of my time trying to find a solution because the help desk didn't have any contact with the networking side of things at NECC.

Back in my hotel room, the Embassy Suites connection isn't much of an improvement, but at least I can access email and post to this blog. I unfortunately can't upload anything.. I wanted to photocast my NECC pictures and upload some to Flickr. These tasks will have to wait until I can get a decent internet connection, I suppose.

A secondary problem I am having is that my posts are not showing up in Technorati. I've included tags generated with a Technorati Dashboard widget and I don't see them anywhere. This has been happening for a few days now. I've added a NECC category to my blog, so perhaps that will help. I'm at a loss as to why this is happening.

At any rate, something to look forward to is the Apple Education Leadership reception in a few minutes. I need some R and R with my fellow ADEs. Speaking of ADEs, it was so nice to see and get hugs from the brethren before and after my panel preso today!

tags technorati : NECC

tags technorati : necc2006