TxDLA: Day One

March 26, 2008

This week is our favorite conference of the year– annual conference. Shane and I are in Galveston and having a ball. I am so excited that we have 15 teachers and coordinators from our region attending. That is up from four two years ago and six last year!

Highlights from today:

TxDLA Awards for Outstanding Commitment to Excellence and Innovation–Shane Howard for the Individual award and Humble ISD (Angela Conrad) for the organization.
Our Maiden Voyage: Breakout session by Lori Colwill, Dallas ISD. It was awesome to hear how a district has increased their usage and used what we teach during our summer JAZZ training. My big “ah-ha” was that Lori’s district is bigger than my entire region! She serves 175,000 students, 11,000 teachers in 34 high schools, 37 middle schools and 157 elementary schools. From August 2007-February 2008, they have had 120 connections serving 5,000 students. Kudos to Lori and her teachers! (NOTE: Next year do a session about managing large scale projects without losing your mind!)
Show, Don’t Tell: Breakout session with Ken and Janine. This is my favorite training to facilitate and my favorite conference presentation. To work with Ken and Janine is wonderful. It is the definition of collaboration. Bonus today: the videoconference session was exceptional!
The Vendor Hall: I love this part of TxDLA. Complete with Polycom gum, mints, cool Renovo swag, I-2-I new products. Excellent!
Connecting at the Speed of Fiber: This was quite a treat. Paul Heironymous in person working with Charlie Brown. What could be better than this? Even though the session was at 4:30 PM, there was a full house due to Charlie’s clever marketing strategies. Just ask me…I really can’t blog it! Paul is an engaging presenter and has a twist on the VC newsletter…check out his PageFlake. He also has a cool ppt to share, but I forgot to get the URL. Will add it later.
Dinner with Polycom: Awesome dinner at Gaido’s with Brian, Elaine, Marci and the whole Polycom crew. It was an excellent networking session (complete with Shane’s original Texas music).

Now, if only the WiFi access were better…I could actually blog during the sessions. It was HORRIBLE today. It is awful that a distance learning conference cannot have adequate connectivity. They explained it on the announcements in the vendor hall, but no one could really hear.

Also, next year, have two projectors in the videoconference rooms so that you can have the ppt full screen and the guest full screen.

That’s it for today…Ken, Angela, Lori, I know you will be reading this eventually…be sure to add your comments.

Category Posted in Conferences