NCCE 2010 - Seattle -- Day 4

First session was called "Beyond Cool.....Does It Work????". Presenter was Dan Matthews who is Instructional Technology Coordinator in Yakima. There was also a video feed by Dr. Janet Spybrook, a professor at Central Washington University. This was an instance of a workshop title giving an impression (to me) not borne out by the content. I looked at this title and thought, "One of the challenges in adopting technology, especially as we explore new tools and make decisions about curricular integration, is to not be seduced by the 'Wow! Factor' that is often near-irresistible when new things come along, especially if they're accompanied by hype. I know I'm as prone to fall for the hype as anyone. This session looked like it would offer some guidance on gaining a kind of healthy skepticism about the ingredients to look for in the "new" or hyped stuff so you waste less time falling for the now-it's-here-now-it's-gone.

Although there was an element of this incorporated by Mr. Matthews & Dr. Spybrook, the upshot of their presentation was really quite a bit more focused on mathematical analysis of databases measuring how various tools (like interactive white boards, for instance) are used. Not really useless information but quite a bit more narrowly focused and database-analysis-heavy for what I was looking for.

The next session boded well. I've attended previous presentations by Patrick Crispen at other conferences and he didn't disappoint then. He didn't disappoint today either. He presented on the subject: "A Random Walk through Cyberspace: Patrick Crispen’s Completely Updated Collection of Truly Useful–and Not So Useful—Websites and Web 2.0 Tools" In this hour he took us through a variety of helpful (and also fun & entertaining) sites ranging from a site that will give you your upload/download speeds of your Internet connection you're using to Instant Chan (try it, if you dare!!!!). It was well worth the 60 minutes we spent with Mr. Crispen. Now it was time to grab a quick lunch.

Partly because of how effective this session was, I decided to go ahead and return to another session of Mr. C's, this one called: "The State of the Craft: What’s New—and What’s Next—in Ed Tech, Consumer Electronics, and More". From his standpoint, the following are things "out there" that have the potential to be game-changers: solid state drives, electronic ink, liquid crystal displays, the iPad (or the Microsoft Courier, an upcoming eReader/tablet hardware combo), 4G networks, portable devices that are always on with very fast connections, voice control of devices, "hardware agnostic" clickers (polleverywhere.com), augmented reality (e.g. GE's "Plug Into the SmartGrid"), and personal learning networks (PLNs), among others. His main point was that the way in which we interact with computers will fundamentally change....perhaps sooner than we think. And, to my frustration, he did not give us a rock-solid answer to this question....which I would LOVE TO KNOW!!! That question is: How do you keep up with it all?????

The final part of my Friday I spent jotting down some notes from the previous three days and then taking my first look through the vendor exhibits. I took a fairly leisurely stroll through the many booths there although I can't say any particular product jumped out at me and said, "I'm the next cool [and useful!] thing! Buy me!!"

While I would have to admit having come away from NCCE 2010 with few things I could characterize as "seismic", attending these four days of NCCE 2010 a most worthwhile four days of exploration, finding new things, and looking ahead. Without wanting to sound immodest, I got some satisfaction noting the number of tools I've incorporated into my teaching that are still being touted as having true value in the world of 21st century teaching and learning. Just to rattle off a few of those things mentioned in these past few days: Ning, Wordle, SchoolTube, Photoshop.com, Glogster, Scrapblog, Google Docs, Audacity, TED....... A little affirmation is good, too. :-)

I appreciate the support from the school that made my attendance at NCCE 2010 possible.