K-12 Market Symposium

According to the extract from the macworldexpo site:

Educators across the globe have embraced technology as a catalyst for enhancing teaching and learning. Join expert educators as they demonstrate current applications of technology to engage students, enhance achievement and impact learning in new and powerful ways. Teachers, administrators, school IT and tech coordinators, parents and students are all welcome to attend this event, co-produced by Computer Using Educators (CUE).

which is the same statement used to introduce the list of speakers last year, so it was not necessarily geared to Monica Beglau's mind-numbing lack of intensity as she lead the speakers in her keynote address.  Oh this is a painful beginning.  10 teachers from FUSD came to the Symposium based on my recommendation . . . I’m recording the sloth-like pace of Beglau's Mr. Roger's presentation style to illustrate my point.  This woman is not presenting to educators thirsting for new ideas; rather she is presenting at a board of education meeting – OUCH!  I think she is trying to relate the impact technology–rich schools have on student performance on standardized testing – woo-hoo    S o c r a t i c   q u e s t i o n i n g  . . . t h i n k  a b o u t    i t.  Good time for me to work on my syllabus.

01/10/2007, 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Speakers:
Monica  Beglau, Director, eMINTS National Center.
Wesley  Fryer, Director of Education Advocacy, AT&T.
Bernie  Dodge, Professor of Educational Technology, San Diego State University.
Alan  Brightman, Senior Policy Director for Special Communities, Yahoo!.
Mike  Lawrence, Executive Director, Computer-Using Educators (CUE).
Carol Anne McGuire, Teacher, Rock Our World.
Hall  Davidson, Director, Discovery Educator Network.

Educators across the globe have embraced technology as a catalyst for enhancing teaching and learning. Join expert educators as they demonstrate current applications of technology to engage students, enhance achievement and impact learning in new and powerful ways. Teachers, administrators, school IT and tech coordinators, parents and students are all welcome to attend this event, co-produced by Computer Using Educators (CUE). For more info, explore www.cue.org.

Welcome and Educational Keynote
Building a Better Mousetrap:  How Technology WILL Improve Achievement
Dr. Monica Beglau- Executive Director, eMINTS
In today's world of high-stakes testing, everybody is looking for the silver bullet that will increase test scores. For many years people have looked at technology as a possible avenue for this, but have had a difficult time justifying the expense associated with the equipment. eMints is professional development model that has routinely PROVEN that if you combine good constructivist teaching methods with the right influx of worthwhile technology, your students will score better on these state assessments.

Safe Classroom Blogging to Improve Student Writing
Wesley Fryer - Educator, Author, Digital Storyteller, Change Agent, Director of Education Advocacy, AT&T
Blogs are being SAFELY used by classroom teachers around the world to help students develop and refine their abilities to write and communicate effectively. Learn about a variety of classroom blog examples, and how you can get started using blogs in your classroom with free, safe digital tools.

Engaging Brains with Games and Simulations
Bernie Dodge - PhD Professor of Educational Technology, San Diego State University
Want to find another way into the hearts and minds of your students? Give them the tools to create their own simulated worlds and systems. We'll demonstrate three free development platforms that provide a way to delve deeply into math, science, language arts or history for middle and high school and beyond.

The Accessible Mac: Yesterday and Tomorrow
Alan Brightman - Founder, Apple Computer's Worldwide Disability Solutions Group & Founder, AT&T Labs Teenage Division, Senior Policy Director, Yahoo!
Today the Macintosh is one of the most accessible personal computers on the planet. But it wasn't always that way. This session reviews the history of accessible design at Apple and looks at ways that the Macintosh has uniquely affected students with disabilities and students with serious illness.

Simple Podcasting on a Global Scale
Carol Anne McGuire - Teacher, Orange Unified School District Want to learn about podcasting and teach your students Global Awareness at the same time? Come learn about basic (and simple) podcasting techniques -using GarageBand and an iPod. Then share them with an authentic, worldwide audience!

The MegaVCR:  Media and More in Your Pocket
Hall Davidson - Director, Discovery Educator Network
Recent copyright interpretations enabled moving thousands of media titles onto the video iPod. Free (public domain) and fee (unitedstreaming) media transfer onto these machines. Podcasts, flash, PhotoStory, and more. Store PowerPoints (Windows, too!) as movies with embedded video. A media library in your pocket. Mounted classroom televisions gain new life as media display. Projectors connect, too! See the basics of why, how, and wow! Adobe, XP, QuickTimePro spoken here.

Comments

[Steve Burt]

David-
Thanks for posting about this. However, I'm curious to know if you got much out of attending this? I know you're a bright guy and up on much of the latest in educational technology and the synopses that you listed here seem to be right out of 2003 - webquests, internet safety, podcasting, etc. Is this yet another case of ed-tech being 2-3 years behind the world or am I misreading?

[Dave]

Good point Steve,
I am happy to see Apple once again including education in its MacWorld festival, but the topics are dated, albeit new to many of the folks in the audience. I came back from San Diego NECC awash in ideas from you, Tim and others but faced a wall of resistance. We have so many issues in my district that adopting open-source tools does not seem part of the menu.