Other NECC thoughts

Date June 27, 2007

Vendors

There are a lot. Check it out.

NECCVendorExpo

Apples, Apples, Apples

I know the numbers for Apple in ed has been dismal for the past few years but I saw a lot of Macs in the hands of a lot of teachers. While it may not have been even with the PC crowd, I would guess at a good third of them. But they were everywhere. The other appealing thing was that many vendor had at least included them but also used them exclusively. And with Parallels, they were showcasing their wares on XP as well.

I also saw a lot of HP in peoples hands. It goes with the recent numbers that HP has overcome Dell in that market.

It was also telling that the Apple booth mainly had their computers on display while Dell partnered with third parties to demonstrate what could be done on their machines. Add to that was that much of those thrid party apps were offered by Apple as well.

The members of the booth team at Apple were also the most laid back, friendly crowd compared to just about everybody else. They just let the product sell it self.

Attendance

From accounts I have heard that this conference has been small. 4000 or so. This year it is packed. Standing room only in many sessions. I have walked away from four now because I was only 15 minutes early. It is nifty for the level of excitement. I don’t think there has been this much synergy in tech for ed in a bit. Web 2.0 is on just about everybody’s lips and open source is big buzz as well.

Keynote Panel

I went to the follow up panel to the opening keynote. Hosted by Zolli and filled with creative types. Posted links yesterday to most of their sites. It was a bit of let down. Most panel discussions have a bit more back and forth. Even a little tension but this one was a bit stiff. Someone made mention when we were talking about it later, that it would have been great to have presented the opening statements at the end of the keynote to let them ferment for a day and then gather questions from attendees the next day or so. The moderator could till pick through them and made they would have been more engaging.

I got the most out of their opening statements with Streb and Pedro making the most impact. Pedro makes a comment that was the most shocking. In his studies students with computers at school, test scores went down. But with computers at home, scores went up. Wow. Streb, with her space and physics bending dance, challenge questioned that we should dare people to think and try the impossible in that you do the best stuff in the process.

What I am taking away

I found that Adobe has kicked Captivate in the ass in the new version and it is worth every penny. Simply record a software action, it records the steps, notates and exports in a flash movie instantly. Dude, we are going on line with professional development. (I know some might dig Snag It for the price, but this is way beyond).

Mimio is cheap and killer for the price.

Open source (wordpress, drupal and moodle) is what I am focusing on this year.

And the bottom line is Information.

That is the currency and product we should be training kids for in the new economy. Web 2.0 is all about the data. XML, API, RSS, AJAX, and every other acronym is about data and how you use it. Ed is still stuck on the tally list of skills, mastery sheets and standardized tests.

We’ve dabbled in connecting to the world, the global learner concept. But sharing and talking isn’t the end. A connection is only possible if you have the conduits for connection and it only becomes meaningful if you have the right info. The conversations they have on Myspace eventually will move into the work place and they need to have the tools to sort the mass of info coming at light speed and then make it into something useful and new.

Global and micro-local is becoming a mirror image in many ways but figuring out the difference is growing harder. Streb mentioned making an environment where failure is okay. I want one where it is okay. That it is the process for learning. Teachers need to stop fearing the tools. The kids will figure it out. Teachers have the info. Trade. Barter. And let the kids do rather than making them work.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

Random Posts

Category Posted in random

Comments are closed.