Sifting and Sorting New Knowledge

February 11, 2008

Having spent four days with 15,000 other educators at TCEA conference last week, I was quite overwhelmed with all the shiny, blinky, animated software and technology. Now, my head is cleared and I am started to make sense of all that I saw.

A few things were disheartening to me.

1. I paid for a workshop to learn about podcasting and vodcasting because we have made a couple of each type and they were clunky and amateurish (mainly because we have no budget and just started hacking around!) Anyway, we went into this workshop to find that the lady teaching it was going to teach us how to use Audacity and Movie Maker to create a presentation that we could save to a thumb drive and take with us. No mention of subscription or RSS feeds.

2. Only one session that dealt with wikis or blogs even mentioned comments and NONE of them mentioned RSS feeds. The main use I saw of blogs and wikis was merely to create a quick website. One presenter even quoted that she created the wiki “so that students would not have to look so hard to find quality sites for research”. Sad, sad, sad. I think we can paraphrase this by saying, “We use technology so that our students will not have to evaluate or to think.”

3. The TCEA Conference Blog Why even call it a blog! It seems like the program in digital form.

A few things encouraged me 

1. Several videoconferencing sessions with quality content. Many of us focused on FREE things to do, but managed to give it a different spin each time. A couple of projects were consistently mentioned: Read Around the Planet and Monster Match!

2. We are not alone. I talked with several coordinators who also manage large projects and we are all a bit nuts. While Shane and I serve 57 districts in 12 counties, there are districts in our state that serve larger student populations, so it is good for us to network with them at conferences to see how they are managing and coordinating their projects.

3. It is good to share. I heard so many variations on Monster Match that it made me think of a couple of enhancements that we could do to make our project a bit better. I always learn something when I listen to Ken, Angela, Jodi, and so many others share. Thank you!

Rebecca and the crew at CSD just finished the METC conference last week also. Next we look to our friends in Michigan to share out from Macul in March and then we will be back in Texas for TxDLA at the end of March, so stay tuned for more conference tips and tidbits.  Anyone else attending conferences? What have you learned?

Posted in Supportive Technologies