NECC from the Exhibit Floor

Posted on July 2nd, 2008 by mkrill

One more time, this is my first time at NECC! One of the things that is very different from my state educational technology conference is the size of the exhibit floor. It is immense and the displays are the size of small stores that I might find in my hometown. Clarence Fisher, over at Remote Access posted his reaction to the exhibit floor. I felt compelled to report my reaction to the exhibit floor, as well as my reaction to his reaction. Mr. Fisher suggests the exhibit floor has no meaning for him, because he can manage his classroom using free tools in a DIY manner. I applaud his efforts…I share his blog with teachers…I share his practices as best practices.

If I had a district full of DIY teachers, an IT department of a size that could support the DIY efforts and federal guidelines that didn’t tie teachers down, I would agree that the need for vendors of products would be greatly reduced. However, after meeting teachers at NECC that had never heard of google docs and seemed confused about what type of computers were being used in their district - it becomes obvious that some teachers need a packaged product. Visiting booths like Fablevision, Tech4Learning, Discovery Education, Kerpoof and VoiceThread should not be missed. In fact, visiting the booths new to NECC this year gave me the chance to talk with many products that would otherwise have escaped my attention.

Many of my teachers are enthused to teach with technology and engage students in learning using technology tools. If the available tools are not reliable or require technical tinkering, teacher confidence plummets and often techniques revert to tried and true methods. The big vendors are giving away big prizes. If a teacher at NECC chooses to sit down for the 8 minute Plato presentation and wins and iPod or PSP to use in the classroom, who can blame them? It’s true that the content these vendors demonstrate can often be replicated with free tools. However, if attending one of those well packaged presentations excites a teacher and sparks desire in that teacher to talk to someone that recommends a free product to do the same thing, then that’s a winning situation in my eyes. I visit the exhibit floor because my district has funded me to attend the conference and one of my roles is to evaluate tools and products, for good and bad.

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Views from NECC

Posted on June 29th, 2008 by mkrill

There will be many posts coming out of San Antonio this week. I was disappointed (and secretly relieved) to find out that the fitness center in my hotel was closed for renovations. Now that I’ve experienced the vastness of the NECC convention center, I realize I’ll be getting tons of exercise! One thing I’m worried about is cramped toes from sitting with my laptop on my lap. Check out this image and see if you that’s how you sit with your laptop? I’m coining a term for it - laptop feet!

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Links from NECC 2008

Posted on June 28th, 2008 by mkrill

Using Diigo and Grazr, I will be feeding in any links from NECC 2008 that I bookmark.

Grazr

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NECC will be busy!

Posted on June 23rd, 2008 by mkrill

With NECC quickly approaching, I’ve been working to design my conference experience using the conference planner. After talking to folks that have attended in the past, I added all the concurrent sessions I have an interest in and will decide which to attend once I’m there. The problem is that I want to attend ALL the sessions I have selected!Conference Planner

I have never spent this much time prepping for a conference. I’d bet I have 20 hours of prep work in already and there’s still a few days to go.

I’m hoping to have a chance to see some sites when I’m in Texas, as it’s the first time I’ll be in the Lone Star state.

Stay tuned here and at the Reporting Back wikispace for notes from the sessions I attend. It’s possible some other attendees may post notes there also.

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Shame as Punishment

Posted on June 12th, 2008 by mkrill

A group of teens participated in a prank that involved tossing a soft drink in the drive through window at the establishment employee. Then, they posted a video of the incident on YouTube. Interestingly enough, the victim at first thought the prank was personal, but then heard about the YouTube posting. The victim did some personal detective work and discovered the identity of the pranksters. Now, the perpetrators have been ordered to post an apology video on YouTube. Read the USA Today article . Also, see the apology video.

This isn’t the beginning of shame as punishment as noted in a 2004 USA Today article that describes shaming sentences as “… sometimes called Scarlet Letter punishments, after Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel in which an adulteress is forced to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothes.”

We discussed this topic in a workshop not too long ago and there were folks on both sides of the fence as to whether shame was a good punishment or not. What do you think?

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Literature Mapping

Posted on April 30th, 2008 by mkrill

The Literature Mapping site is really cool! At first glance it might seem bland, but go ahead and give it a try. I think you will quickly see that the literature mapping site could be really useful in class. Enter an author name and click the continue button. An author cloud will appear and authors that are similar will populate the screen and move around. The closer two writers are, the more likely someone will like both of them. Then you can click on other names and see their cloud.Rowling Lit Map

I do not know for sure how the connections are determined, but even the use of this site to spark discussion about literature would be useful in a classroom.

I dug down (or back) a bit to learn that the literature map site leads back to Gnod. Here you can do a similar search for movies, music and even people!  From the site:

Gnod is my experiment in the field of artificial intelligence. Its a self-adapting system, living on this server and ‘talking’ to everyone who comes along. Gnods intention is to learn about the outer world and to learn ‘understanding’ its visitors. This enables gnod to share all its wisdom with you in an intuitive and efficient way. You might call it a search-engine to find things you don’t know about.

I continue to be amazed by what people are able to do…

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Weekly Diigo Feed ~ 4.28.2008

Posted on April 27th, 2008 by mkrill

Here’s hoping you find some of these useful:)

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Weekly Diigo Feed ~4.19.2008

Posted on April 20th, 2008 by mkrill

Enjoy the links! I hope you find them useful:)

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Speak Up 2007 Findings Released

Posted on April 14th, 2008 by mkrill

The results from the Speak Up 2007 survey (formerly Net Day) have been compiled and released in a seven page pdf file. The following notes are my annotations from Diigo. Many of the findings are interesting, these are the ones that struck me as I read through the press release today. I have the pdf saved for later reading and digesting. Check it out for yourself at Project Tomorrow. The link to the PDF is on the left menu.

  • Speak Up Press Release

    Students Want the 21st Century Classroom, but Schools Not Meeting Student Expectations, According to Latest National Study

    • The 2007 online survey collected authentic, unfiltered views and ideas from over 367,000 education stakeholders representing schools in all 50 states, bringing the total of survey participants to over 1.2 million over the past 5 years.

    • This disconnect is evident in the fact that 66% of school administrators, 47% of teachers, and 43% of parents say “local schools are doing a good job preparing students for the jobs and careers of the future,” but over 40% of middle and high school students stated that teachers limit their use of technology in schools. Forty-five percent of middle and high school students indicated that tools meant to protect them, such as firewalls and filters are inhibiting their learning.

    • “It is in our nation’s best interest that we support and facilitate student usage of technology for learning.”

    • 46% (of teachers) said they would like to receive specific professional development on how to effectively integrate gaming technologies into curriculum.

    • With the release of Speak Up 2007 results, Evans called upon education leaders at all levels to put aside their own “digital immigrant” paradigms and to listen to students who are not only on the cutting edge of technology innovation but whose future is dependent upon our ability to deliver upon the promise of a world quality, global 21st century education.

To learn more about Project Tomorrow and Speak Up, click here.

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Weekly Diigo Feed ~ 04/12/2008

Posted on April 12th, 2008 by mkrill

tags: stopmotion, claymation, animation

tags: techplan, digLiteracy, assessment

tags: article, pd, 21st, techplan

tags: article, 21st, techplan

tags: fun, music, billboard

tags: art, collage

  • Home Empower Peace is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to building a worldwide network of high school students and teachers committed to breaking down cultural barriers and misperceptions through open dialogue using videoconferencing, the Internet and other new technologies.

tags: videoconference, collaboration

tags: ning, bestpractices, socialnetwork, pln, horizon

tags: education, CellPhones, edtech

tags: firefox, tips, extensions

  • Internet Archive The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.
  • tags: search, research, library, reference

tags: images, flickr, photography, photos, web2.0, tools, creativecommons

  • StainedGlass Collage With StainedGlass Collages you share more than just collections of photographs; you share entire events.

tags: collage, web2.0, tools, art

tags: art, poster, collage, tools

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