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NECC Attendee Tips Gleaned From My Vast Experience Being There … Umm … Once .. Last Year!

#1 – Unless you have to be there, spend as little time on the vendor floor as possible.  Last year I did a “walkthrough” for about 25 minutes and that was it … and I didn’t feel later like I missed anything. The glitz and freebies are tempting but what you generally find is you get bags of freebies that weeks or months later you realize you mainly just threw out. Most software trials are available online anyhow.

Some good friends of mine gathered so much “stuff” at the National Science Teachers conference years ago that they paid over $25 to ship it home because they had no room left in their baggage. They were ecstatic at all the “great stuff” they got. You guessed it, 99% of everything ended up thrown out unused over the next 2 or 3 years. Besides, there is so much else going on that you will miss a ton being collared by sales people that want you to see their stuff and listen to their pitch.

The vendor floor has always been where you went between sessions at any conference. If there weren’t any sessions that appealed to you during a time that is when you visited the floor. Well at NECC the Bloggers Café and various other venues are constantly abuzz and full of people to have conversations with and see Impromptu demos of software and techniques. When I would stroll into those venues after being at a session last year something was always going on. I also skipped sessions I had planned to attend because of getting caught up in what was going on in the Cafe.

#2 – Make a schedule of all the sessions you want to see … then be ready to ignore it … or at least a lot of it.  If you’ve been to any conference you know that figuring out which sessions to attend is hard because how a session is described too often isn’t what you expected, or it ends up being way over your head or so introductory as to be worthless to you, and by the time you figure that out it’s too late to get into another. 

Last year there were times that, via Twitter or Skype, someone already in a session that wasn’t even on your radar screen would Twit that they were in an awesome session with empty seats in room ____.

#3 – Don’t be afraid to hang out and put your 2 cents in. My experience last year was that all those people whose blogs you read are pretty approachable. Use common sense and if they look busy leave them alone. You could tell when someone had just been in a session or had a conversation they wanted to blog or whatever … they would sit off to the side and be obviously totally focused on writing on their laptop … get a clue and leave them alone. Anyone you see sitting with the group … mosey on over and look for your opening. Nobody was a bigger no body last year than me (or shyer), and I felt included throughout. I did read blogs from people later that stopped by and were afraid to inject themselves (understandable … it can be intimidating), but give it a shot. If you see me … come say hi.

#4 – Bring a cheap plug strip. I forget who exactly … it was one of the WOW2 women (Cheryl or Jen I think) had one last year and we would all moan every time she left the café and took her strip with her … there were only so many plugs. AND if you have an extra battery, BRING IT!

#5 – Don’t stress … YOU ARE GOING TO MISS SOME COOL THINGS YOU WISH YOU HADN’T MISSED! It’s OK … you will see and learn so much that you won’t be able to process it all … it won’t matter!

If I think of anything else I’ll pass it along. And those of you that have more experience than I … pass it along in the comments.

Learning is messy!

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ISTE Video/Audio Capture Policy At NECC 2008 – A Step Backwards, Or No Big Deal?

UPDATE: 6/20 – I’ve pasted the response from ISTE to Miguel’s post about this subject below. I commend ISTE for listening to members’ concerns and responding rapidly and responsibly.

Letter from Leslie Connery

Hi Miguel – We received substantial feedback about this issue and have had great internal conversations in the last 24 hours about how best to respond. We needed to listen to and address the valid concerns of ISTE members while also protecting the rights of the people who have agreed to present at NECC. The statement below addresses how we’d like to handle this for NECC2008.

Post NECC2008, we are planning to convene a discussion around the issue of broadcasting presentations and to work together collaboratively with podcasters, bloggers, presenters, and other stakeholders to develop guidelines for NECC2009 that meet the needs of the education community. ISTE recently disseminated a code of conduct regarding video and audio recordings at NECC 2008 which has generated some thoughtful and energetic discussion.

We welcome your interest and comments and would like to clarify and amend the code of conduct for NECC 2008. For NECC 2008, ISTE’s permission is not required for non-commercial video and audio recording of sessions and workshops.

However, for NECC 2008, written permission from the session or workshop presenter is required prior to capturing a video or audio recording. Any permitted recording should respect the presenter’s rights and not be disruptive.

Under no circumstances may any length or quality of video/audio capture be used for marketing, advertising, or commercial purposes without express written permission from both the session presenter(s) and ISTE. 

Thank you. We look forward to an ongoing dialog about fair use.

//Leslie

Original Post Below:

Twitter was abuzz this evening after Wes Fryer and then Miguel Guhlin posted about ISTE’s new (or maybe not new) policy regarding recording audio/video of presentations and events from NECC 2008 in San Antonio next week. The policy states that to record you must have the permission of the presenter (which is fine and just common courtesy) AND permission from ISTE … which may be a problem depending on how easy and timely it is to obtain.

“Full video/audio capture of NECC sessions and activities is strictly prohibited without express written permission from BOTH: 1.) the session presenter/s, and 2.) ISTE. Those holding official ISTE-issued press credentials may capture footage for media coverage purposes only.    

Amateur video/audio capture is permitted of ambient environments, informal exchanges and sessions, and sessions and activities not organized by ISTE, etc., provided that appropriate permissions have been granted by the parties affected. ISTE assumes no liability for copyright and/or intellectual property violations that may occur as a result. Amateur video/audio capture is also permitted in NECC sessions and activities provided that the length of capture does not exceed 10 minutes AND appropriate permissions have been granted by the presenter/s.

Under no circumstances may any length or quality of video/audio capture of NECC sessions be used for marketing, advertising, or commercial purposes without express written permission from BOTH: 1.) the session presenter/s, and 2.) ISTE.

As always, if you have any questions pertaining to your presentation or the conference in general, please feel free to contact us: For sessions, neccprogram@iste.org; for workshops, neccworkshops@iste.org.“

This may not have emerged as such an issue except that sharing the goings-on at NECC last year via Skype, and since then the advent of USTREAM and other sharing technologies and their use at conferences since have whetted the ed-tech worlds appetite (for good reason) for quickly having access to the learning and conversations – formal and informal – that come out of a conference like NECC.

The other disconnect here is that unfettered access to information and tools on the net is supposedly  one of the goals of ISTE … it’s definitely  a goal of every ed-tech proponent I know. So this does seem like a step backward. I suspect that no one made a decision not to attend NECC this year because others would Skype and Ustream sessions. However, it sure seems that the sharing that happened last year, mostly via Skype and podcasts, probably was an incentive to many to take the plunge and experience NECC live. If this was done because those in charge are afraid that sharing over the net will cut attendance I feel they made a huge mistake …  a bad call.

I have seen some commentary that perhaps this is about ISTE covering its behind against suits over copyrighted material and they put this out there to look tough, but will really just “not notice” what may go on otherwise.

Some have started email campaigns and other forms of protest, it will be interesting if ISTE comments anytime soon, before NECC 2008 commences.

Another example of messy learning!

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“Ed-tech groups give candidates a wake-up call”

This is great if it will really have an impact on things. Article in eSchool News today:

Ed-tech groups give candidates a wake-up call
New ad campaign aims to spur discussion about education and technology
By Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor, eSchool News

A quote from the article (Note: you can read the first part of the article without registering, the rest with free registration):

“The campaign calls on the next president to respond to the groups’ vision for a 21st-century learning environment, says Keith Krueger, CoSN’s chief executive.

“We hope it will draw the attention of the presidential candidates and become something discussed and debated on the campaign trail, leading to major educational technology initiatives in the next administration. We also hope that the PSA will raise the profile of this issue in the minds of voters,” Krueger said.”

Check out the whole article.

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So Where Is The Blueprint For Technology Integration In Elementary?

First I’m not sure having a blueprint is what is appropriate or really needed. Too much of what we have been doing in school has been pre-selected, pre-decided and scripted … the art of being a teacher … the creativity has been leeched from the system, especially in “at risk” schools.

I have been voicing concern to my administration for several years now that teachers that have taught for less than 8 years have NEVER taught when we weren’t doing “programmed” teaching. They have done little creative teaching outside of what is allowed by whatever the program says is appropriate. That scares me … especially if that trend continues.

I realize that part of the move to less teacher control of what we teach has been a reaction to lessons and units of instruction that while interesting and fun really didn’t teach the concepts they were supposed to cover.  The “Apples Unit” from “Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe is a great example:

“Vignette 2
For two weeks every fall, all the 3rd grade classes participate in a unit on apples. The students engage in a variety of activities related to the topic. In language arts, they read Johnny Appleseed and view an illustrated filmstrip of the story. They each write a creative story involving an apple and then illustrate their stories using tempera paints. In art, students collect leaves from nearby crab apple trees and make a giant leaf print collage on the hallway bulletin board adjacent to the 3rd grade classrooms. The music teacher teaches the children songs about apples. In science, they use their senses to carefully observe and describe the characteristics of different types of apples. During mathematics, the teacher demonstrates how to “scale up” an applesauce recipe to make a quantity sufficient for all the 3rd graders.
A highlight of the unit is the field trip to a local apple orchard, where students watch cider being made and go on a hayride. The culminating unit activity is the 3rd grade apple fest, a celebration for which parent volunteers dress as apples and the children rotate through various activities at stations—making applesauce, competing in an apple “word search” contest, bobbing for apples, completing a math skill sheet containing word problems involving apples, and so on. The fest concludes with selected students reading their apple stories while the entire group enjoys candy apples prepared by the cafeteria staff.”

Most of the activities here are great on their own, however as a unit of study were the activities chosen to meet the standards that were supposed to be covered, or because they were cute and fun and covered multiple subject areas? I’ll bet too, that a teacher doing this unit would overwhelmingly get very positive feedback from the students’ parents, especially any that volunteered to help with it. So would the teacher most likely do the same “unit” again next year? Even if they moved grade levels because they were told what a great job they did and how much the children SEEMED to learn?

If what we do with technology in our classrooms is basically akin to the “Apples Unit” … it’s cool and fun and parents like it, we are doing a disservice to all involved. And I think too many times that is exactly what has happened with technology use in education. The technology is introduced (and teachers are given zero training in effective use and use the tech to do things the same way they always have)… its cool … students are excited and parents are overjoyed that their kids are excited about stuff at school …  and everyone feels warm and fuzzy inside … for awhile. Then the newness and initial excitement wears off and what is being done is no better (and maybe worse) than what was happening without the technology and we have yet again “proved” that technology use in education is a bust.

Tom Barrett has noted that in general there isn’t a lot to read and learn from about 1:1 technology integration at the elementary level:

“Much of what I read is to do with an older age range and far different environments than our own. The sites included “blueprints to 1:1 computing” and complete “guides” suggesting, just from the rhetoric of the titles, that one size (may) fit all. Although we may learn lessons from what other teachers, schools and districts have been doing it seems we will have to discover our own UK primary version of what a 1:1 classroom looks like.”

I know there are 1:1 initiatives going on, but not many involved are apparently blogging or otherwise sharing their experiences with us. I would also note that the vast majority of edtech bloggers are at the secondary level or are mostly involved from the training side of things and are not full time classroom teachers sharing the struggles and triumphs of 1:1 integration in their classrooms.

I’ve also noted in recent posts that integrating tech at the elementary level these days involves trying to integrate it into programs that were not designed with tech in mind. They tend to be fast paced reading programs that leave little room for the further/deeper exploration, collaboration, refinement of thinking and sharing of learning that tech integration is best at.

I’ve found that often when students are researching on the web they are more motivated to use the skills they’ve been taught to make meaning from text because they WANT to understand what they are reading so they can use it in the project they are involved in. The reading program already provides what they are supposed to read and react to, there is no time to do more, read more, learn more about a topic … and yet isn’t THAT what we should be promoting? Isn’t THAT what being a lifelong learner and teaching students to BE learners is about? Hence the frustration.

I think we have a general understanding of what effective tech integration should and could look like at the elementary level. I’m just not so sure we have those “Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models”
 that would help us find our way.

Learning is messy!

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Lots To Ponder

Lots for me to ponder this summer and I hope going to NECC helps in that regard. Just to refresh the memories of both of my regular readers and as background for the rest, I teach in a 45 year old classroom that has an ActivBoard, a built -in ceiling speaker system, 30 – eight year old Apple iBook laptops, 1 original Airport hub (that is supposed to support 10 computers online, but that has to support my 30 and 30 more HP laptops sometimes), 2 digital video cameras, a digital camera, a scanner, a Lumens projector and I might have left a few things out. My school district labeled my classroom its “Model Technology Classroom” 2 years ago when it paid to have my Activboard installed. My fifth graders and I just finished our 2nd year together and are heading for a third when I roll with them to sixth grade next year.

I’ve tried to leverage the distinction of having this “model” room and 1:1 laptops to “get away” somewhat with doing things a bit differently, and have done so pretty successfully. However, I’ve never actually been told that I have that freedom, so I do so at my own peril. In other words, if something “goes wrong” admin could claim they had no idea I was going “off program”, and they are just appalled that I did so.

I’m at the point right now where that is really going to be a problem. My students started out this pilot having almost no tech savvy at all (they are very “at risk” students) and now they are getting sophisticated enough that they are ready to go to the “next level”.

What’s the “next level”?  Well I wish you were here to help me completely flesh that out, but it has to do with having my students using these tools to do their own learning and deciding how to share their learning … you know, making them learners. Having them able to research and make appropriate contacts with others (with still a lot of guidance from me …  they are just 6th graders) to gather information and then make good choices on how best to archive and share what they’ve learned. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the gist.

So what is the hold up? Well, for one the prescribed reading and math programs actually require you to follow them without deviation and that alone eats up almost 3 hours, and now we will have a required 45 minute “Intervention Block”  each day, so after lunch and recess (which might get cut back) that leaves you with MAYBE an hour each day to do science, social studies, music, art, PE and so on.

So you can see I am having to completely work “within” a system and still try to do a “model” program that might lead decision makers in my state and school district to rethink things a bit. I’m both discouraged and challenged by that. Our laptops have done amazingly well for being 8 years old, but they are really showing their age now and I just wonder how they will do this next year AND what will I do after that? I have no real prospects for replacing them. Many days I wonder how things would be different if we had newer ones and a faster, broader connection – it wouldn’t even have to be blazing fast, just fast. At one point I was approached about doing a pilot with OLPC laptops, but that fell through with our latest round of budget cuts. Also, how will I do if these laptops become unusable and there are no replacements? Will I be able to go back to not having easy access? I guess we will see.

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My Response To Mia

This is a response to a comment left on an earlier post.

Mia-

Could one of the reasons that more students aren’t doing better in the “core subjects” be because we haven’t allowed schools to move into this century along with everyone else? Could you imagine a businessman from a hundred years ago dealing with all the changes in how businesses work today? How about a doctor from one hundred years ago? Do you think they would notice any changes in how medicine is practiced today? Now let’s take a student from one hundred years ago and plunk them down in a school from today. They’d note different clothing styles, and the furniture is a bit different. In most schools they’d still see chalkboards and desks, and pencils and paper and books. Teachers in many classrooms would still be doing things pretty much the way they did 100 years ago too. Hmmm, maybe that student from 100 years ago would fit in pretty well.

How can a student know if they are destined to be an artist if they have rarely been exposed to art? In our present situation students in primary grades focus only on literacy and math, they rarely do much more than simple drawing. No real art is taught. Science and social studies are only taught through reading class. PE is not funded despite the fact that students are increasingly obese. Students often have to pay extra fees to participate in sports, music and other extra-curricular activities- so guess which schools have the highest participation? Student drop out rates are abysmal because for too many students school has little relevance. Your after school clubs idea would help too, who will stay after school to run quality ones for free? Schools aren’t funded adequately for all they are asked to do though so money for such programs is very hard to find.

You say:
“It seems to me that if students are destined to be artists, they’ll pursue art as a hobby, take classes at a local museum – whatever. I don’t know of many artists who needed a curriculum and a teacher (especially at high school level) to pursue their art.”

Really? The place where I live there is a museum about 10 miles from my school that offers such classes. How will we get the students there and home? Parents are working or don’t understand the value of such activities or don’t like having their kids away from home. How will we get them interested in going if they have done very little art in school or elsewhere and have never been to a museum? Why not offer such classes in the elementary schools which are located in the neighborhoods where the students live? No driving, just stay after school, the teacher drives instead of 30 kids’ parents driving. More kids will participate because it’s easy, and some of them will gain an appreciation for art and some might even become artists or musicians or?

Some students stay in school because they are athletes and participating in sports keeps them coming to school (you hear that all the time when they interview the pros) – maybe we should make access to sports more inclusive and more students would stay. We have turned our high schools into “college prep only” academies despite the fact that most kids don’t go to college (but I wish more had the opportunity to go and would go). How many more students could we get to stay if we offered more and higher quality options in the arts, technology, mechanics, sports, and more? It would be the best money we could spend – imagine investing in our kids. Kids with more relevant things to do might even stay out of trouble and become more educated and we could spend less on crime – might be a bit of a trade off in costs there even.

I’d go into why NCLB is much less than “not perfect”, but that will have to come another time.

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Read and Blog All Summer!

Today is our last day of school. This is the message I left my students on our blog:


“Most teachers beg their students to read during their time off from coming to school each day. Why? Because like anything else we get better with practice and rusty without practice. So yes! READ! READ! READ!
This year we have come so far, and improved SO MUCH in our writing. Most of us now have access to a computer at home, and the rest probably know someone that does or somewhere (the same public library where you can get lots of books) that does. So also BLOG! Blog about what you do, learn and feel. Blog the good and the bad … but BLOG!
I will put up ideas here from time to time as the summer goes along that you can write about too.
Remember too, that this is a great opportunity to communicate with your friends here in our school community, but also with those students all over the world in your blogging community. Keep those connections going. What are they doing? What books are they reading?
Also have a great summer! … a great enough summer you WANT to write about it!”

We’ll see!

Learning is messy!

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