Wesley Fryer has published the conversation we had (while hanging out in the Blogger's Cafe at NECC) as his latest podcast. It was great to be able to speak with Wesley - I felt like, for the most part, we were on the same wavelength. We talked for about 30 minutes about educational technology, what we can do to help teachers in their technology use, and my plans in creating a follow-up to Pay Attention.

In listening to our conversation again I was struck by how forward-thinking Wesley is (an extremely admirable quality, IMHO) - and how hesitant I can be at times when considering the best next step (I'm thinking particularly about the segment wherein we discuss 1 to 1 computers and our district's responsibility to appropriately spend this year's substantial budget).

Perhaps a better way to describe my attitude toward such panaceatic ideas like the 1 to 1 initiative can be summed up in one word: cautious. Would every student greatly benefit from the use of their own, personal, computer? Absolutely. Every student has their own pencil - shouldn't every student also have access to their own computer? Maybe. But providing a computer for every student simply isn't effective unless the proper infrastructure is already in place. And quite frankly, we're just not there yet in the Jordan School District.

In our district (on the whole), the secondary schools are starving for adequate tech support. Having served as the Technology Coordinator at Brighton High School for several years, I can attest to the fact that we are greatly under-staffed in this area. Consider: 1 school, over 600 computers (half Windows, half Mac), roughly 80-90 teachers and 2,000 students. To maintain such a network, we had (for the majority of my time at Brighton) one person to provide technology support (hardware, software, network - for two paid hours each day), and one person to provide technology integration guidance for our teachers (for one paid hour each day). Now, at Brighton we also had access to the District's thinly-spread technology support team, but an appeal to such resources often took months to transpire. Frankly, if my tech-savvy colleagues and I hadn't spent countless hours above and beyond the call of duty (most days working hours well beyond contract time), then our teachers' and students' technology needs probably would not have been met (if they ever were, indeed, met). Hence, to add additional computers to the mix in our District, at this time, would probably not be the best way to spend a few dollars.

But I digress. To be forward-thinking is good - very good. I just wish it were easier to move at the speed of creativity.

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Combined with the first annual Edubloggercon, NECC 2007 was the best conference I have ever attended. Ever. And I've been to my share of conferences. Part of the reason it was so great is because, for the first time in our planet's history, this conference was AJAX-ed to the MAX, steeped in Second Life, and totally Twitter-powered. Presenter after presenter described exciting new online tools and trends including references to:

• Mashups and remixes
• Google Tools and other online productivity applications
• Podcasting, blogging, and collaboration - this time shifting emphasis to activities that our students can do (instead of only us teachers)
• Creative Commons
• The educational uses of cell phones, Palm Pilots and other mobile devices
• The Digital Generation

Second Life was another technology that received a lot of "buzz". It was exciting to see so many educators learning about Second Life and ways that they could use it in their teaching. My personal favorite thing to do while I was "in-world" during the conference was to find a group that was learning about Second Life and then move my avatar so that it was in their avatar's field of view. Once there I would quickly perform a series of flexing, yawning, and hula-dancing gestures while the presenter's back was turned - guaranteed to produce a few laughs for participant's first lives. On a side note, ISTE returned my box of free Second Life Pay Attention T-Shirts. If there's interest, I'll find another place to stash the box - post a comment if you're interested.

Finally, NECC 2007 was the first conference I had ever attended in a Twitterized fashion. With Twitter, I have been able to "follow" the lives of dozens of other like-minded people from all over the world. Excitingly, I was able to personally meet many of my "Twitter Friends" this year at NECC, turning them in to genuinely real friends. I think that Kevin Honeycutt said it best when he told me that this conference was amazing because we were finally able to match the faces to the brains we had already come to know and love.

I'm struck with an amazing realization as I view both my RSS Reader and my list of Twitter friends. From those two lists alone, at NECC 2007 I was able to meet (and in most cases hold genuine, transparent conversations with) each of the following people for the first time:

• Brian Crosby
• Chris Craft
• Chris Lehmann
  
• Christopher Sessums
• David Jakes
  
• David Warlick
• Jeff Pulver
  
• Jeff Utecht
• John Pederson
• Julie Lindsay
• Karl Fisch
• Ken Pruitt
• Kevin Honeycutt
  
• Mark Wagner
• Ryan Bretag
• Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
  
• Steve Dembo
• Steve Hargadon
• Terry Freedman
  
• Tim Lauer
• Tim Wilson
• Tom Woodward
• Tony Vincent
• Vinnie Vrotney
  
• Wesley Fryer
• Will Richardson

Like I said, it was a great conference. I'm ready to do it again soon.

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Wow.

Dr. Tyson did an excellent job in the closing keynote for NECC. His ideas were moving, refreshing, and should be taken to heart across the world. One thing he is doing in his school that's particularly impressive is an aggressive campaign to share his students' work with the rest of the world. Last month alone MabryOnline served roughly 4 million documents.

For the first time in the history of time, schools can have access to immediate global distribution.

As a result of such global distribution, Dr. Tyson claims that assessment is far more genuine and authentic. The attitude of his students? According to Dr. Tyson:

I made an A on the project last unit, but it's not good enough for the whole world. I want to keep working.

As a part of his keynote, Dr. Tyson showed several winning entries in this year's Maybry Film Festival. As a school, they've made their movies (or portions thereof) available as a part of their podcast. Check a few of them out - they're well worth it.


My favorite quote, coming from one of the Mabry students (in one of the movies shown):

Making a movie? That's like learning on steroids.

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