National Educational Computing Conference 2007
Well, Atlanta is hot but I am spending it in the AC geeking it out with a bunch of teachers. We are already a nerdy bunch but now we take it up to the next level by obsessing over computers for a week.
Last night’s keynote was given by Andrew Zolli of Z+ Plus Partners. A “futurist” and consultant, Zolli was a pretty good show. His message was more a less a push for teachers and education to start looking at information as the product that we are preparing kids to produce for the next 50 years. Starting with the idea that soon computers will do just about everything for us and that leaves the human race with creativity as the one thing that we still can’t get from machines. A resetting of our definitions of innovation and thinking was another theme. Moving out of the individualist approaches we have been successful with for millennia are now about to be outdated with the information age. Networking thought patterns and abilities are needed now. It isn’t really a shift from one but more of an evolution to this new way of working. The end thought I got from it was that we are going to be teaching creativity as much as any skill in the future.
The big thing from me is to hear some one say that to ed people. Ed is reactionary by default. You come with a plan for a year or two and then have to check how far off you were in the end. We often miss changes in the social and economic fabric too often. Thanks to the inter-tubes more people are plugged in and on the front edge of large trends faster. Education needs to develop frameworks of teaching philosophy that emphasize flexibility as much as results and become more prescriptive to not just the child’s needs but the real world nature of the tasks we are training them for.
As for the rest of the week here is my schedule for the concurrent sessions:
Today
11:00am-12:00pm AFI Screen Education Center: Digital Filmmaking in the Core Curriculum
12:30-1:30pm Copyright in the Multimedia Age: An Online Resource
2:00-3:00pm Five Obstacles to Information Fluency (and How to Remove Them)
Tuesday, June 26
8:30-9:45am Tuesday Keynote Panel
11:00am-12:00pm Using the IBM Change Toolkit to Manage Change
12:30-1:30pm New Tools, New Schools: Starting the Conversation about Web 2.0
2:00-3:00pm Games and Simulations for Teaching and Learning
3:30-4:30pm Constructivist Teaching with Technology: Learning with Laptops
Wednesday, June 27
10:30-11:30am Digital Portfolios: Demonstrating Standards without Standardization
12:00-1:00pm Is Your Web Site Accessible?
I might add more but I will drop a line about anything nifty in the mean time.
Technorati Tags: education, n07s616, NECC2007, technology
Hey - glad to see ya got to go to Atlanta. I wish I was there. I would love to hear more about your concurrent session on Web 2.0. It has been something that has peaked my interest. Have fun.