Session 1 Scanner Magic: Innovative Uses for the Scanner.
Dr. Michels from Missouri State University showed examples of how her students scanned 3D objects. You can lay items on the scanner, cover with paper or material and scan to use in worksheets, brocures, web page images etc. This was a very different way to use the scanner and maybe our speech kids could try this on their persuaive speeches!
Session 2--Poster sessions by a variety of teachers.
Blogging, Podcasting, and Smart Boards--Oh My!
A half day kindergarten program are trying their luck with this using Kid Pics and recording their voice to make a podcast!
Kinesthetic Keyboarding: Hop Down from Secondary to Second Grade.
This teacher showed how she had used a shower curtain and drawn a huge keyboard on it. Kids could dance on it learning the keyboard.
Free-nology: Free Technology Resources for Educators.
A variety of free web sites were shown for teachers. To many to list here, but have a CD with all of them!
Untangling the Web for Elementary Mathematics.
Find all you need to untangle the Web for elementary mathematics at Coucnil Rock's one-stop Web site!
http://www.crsd.org/50338927131259/site/default.asp
Sessions 3: Make It Even Better: Windows Vista Tips and Tricks
This website is a wealth of tips for using Vista. Since I will have a mini lab in the library with vista and the new MS/HS lab also running Vista, I was particularly interested in this session!
Handouts from this session at http://speakwisdom.com/
brent@speakwisdom.com
http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/
Peeked my head in A Disruption is Absolutely Coming: Computers Disguised as Cellphones but it is full. There are polls that students are answering with cell phones. It is a matter of time before the cell phone is actually a pwowerful computer. Disruption is nigh!
Audio is Great! Video is Cool! Ipods Can Do More!
Tony Vincent, Learning in Hand
The final keynote speaker was Idit Harel Caperton, President and Founder of World Wide Workshop
http://www.worldwideworkshop.org/
Social Networks, Wikis and Blogs are changing the educational landscapes. She presented her recent invention in 1:1 computing--the Globaloria Networks
http://www.globaloria.org/
We finished the Texas experience eating in an authentic mexican restaurant and picked up some souveneirs. While shopping for souveneirs, notice one clerk looked familiar--she was one of the finalists in Big Brother!
We were unable to get a flight out that night, so got up at 4:00 Thursday and headed home!
Great conference!
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Tuesday Sessions July 1st!
Today started early! After having a bug crawl on me about 4:00, I was up for the day looking through the immense list of choices for sessions. Have found you have to get there early as they do fill up and you might not get in to what you want.
First Session: KeyNote Speaker
Jim Carleton and Mali Bickley are Canadian educators leveraging the collaborative power of technology to help their students help others worldwide.
Aided by the generous support of NBC's education division, Jim and Mali offer a multimedia-rich, onstage dialogue featuring their inspirational experiences and can-do insights on how they have transcended traditions in education to create dynamic, engaging learning environments. Jim and Mali will be interviewed by by prominent NBC journalist Lester Holt. Holt is the weekend anchor for NBC Nightly News, and is also co-anchor of the weekend edition of TODAY.
http://www.icue.com/ by NBC- website that students and teachers can sign up to gain access to NBC News archives On-demand along with many other items
Connecting globally is the big thing and the archives look fantastic as resources for teachers.
Second Session: Apple From A-Z
What a surprise to see ALI back up and running! Our teachers taking TTL in 2000-2001 posted lesson plans to the Apple Learning Interchange as part of their TTL class. At that time, Apple was working with SD and gave us access to their server for this.
They have now added itunes U and some fabulous blogs to download and listen to in itunes.
Third Session: Football Field of Exhibits 2
Lots of good sessions to sit through in the exhibit hall. I think the next technology purchase for our school should be some $300-$500 laptops for elementary. I have been demoing them and am impressed. They are small, but pretty powerful. There are quite a few versions of the smaller laptops.
"Intel has created an ultra-low-cost laptop for school children in emerging markets. The
"ClassMatePC" is available with Linux or Windows XP, comes with an "educational feature set," and is part of a program in which Intel plans to invest $1 billion over the next five years.
Intel describes the ClassMatePC as a rugged device with features similar to mainstream PCs. It's based on a mobile Celeron processor and is equipped with local (flash-based) storage and a built-in wireless network interface. Additionally, the unit sports a water-resistant keyboard and comes with a theft-control feature based on a network-issued digital certificate."
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4529910170.html
CSpan Bus was here. I went on and talked to them about bringing the CSPAN election bus to Garretson for our kids. Bob and I had seen the bus in Sioux Falls, so think his students might like to see it, especially with an election year! They also have a new resource for teachers.
http://c-spanclassroom.org/
This has downloadable and searchable videos, is standards based content and has a liberal copy right policy to allow educators to record and keep CSpan produce programming for classroom use. It's free and looks like a great resource for teachers!
Atomic Learning, Nettrekker are both here and showing what is new. Atomic learing has a desktop search which I will install for all desktops this fall to quickly find tutorials.
Supper with ProQuest
Ginny, Misty and I were invited to a supper with Proquest, a subscription database for online research resources. It took us 3 hours to get through all 6 of the courses.
Course 1: Appetizers--bacon wrapped quail legs, shrimp cocktail, crab pinchers, cold salmon, and escargot
Course 2: Soup--chilled passion fruit melon soup with pepper!
Course 3: Salad with balsamic vinaigrette and pine nuts
Course 4: To clense the palate Kiwi sorbet
Course 5: Main Course--choice of larger steak, smaller steak and shrimp (which I had), lamb chops, or salmon all served with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus
Course 6: Coffee and Dessert--I had the crème brulee but could have had cheesecake
Came back and sat in the hot tub, which wasn't very hot!
Great way to end the day!
First Session: KeyNote Speaker
Jim Carleton and Mali Bickley are Canadian educators leveraging the collaborative power of technology to help their students help others worldwide.
Aided by the generous support of NBC's education division, Jim and Mali offer a multimedia-rich, onstage dialogue featuring their inspirational experiences and can-do insights on how they have transcended traditions in education to create dynamic, engaging learning environments. Jim and Mali will be interviewed by by prominent NBC journalist Lester Holt. Holt is the weekend anchor for NBC Nightly News, and is also co-anchor of the weekend edition of TODAY.
http://www.icue.com/ by NBC- website that students and teachers can sign up to gain access to NBC News archives On-demand along with many other items
Connecting globally is the big thing and the archives look fantastic as resources for teachers.
Second Session: Apple From A-Z
What a surprise to see ALI back up and running! Our teachers taking TTL in 2000-2001 posted lesson plans to the Apple Learning Interchange as part of their TTL class. At that time, Apple was working with SD and gave us access to their server for this.
They have now added itunes U and some fabulous blogs to download and listen to in itunes.
Third Session: Football Field of Exhibits 2
Lots of good sessions to sit through in the exhibit hall. I think the next technology purchase for our school should be some $300-$500 laptops for elementary. I have been demoing them and am impressed. They are small, but pretty powerful. There are quite a few versions of the smaller laptops.
"Intel has created an ultra-low-cost laptop for school children in emerging markets. The
"ClassMatePC" is available with Linux or Windows XP, comes with an "educational feature set," and is part of a program in which Intel plans to invest $1 billion over the next five years.Intel describes the ClassMatePC as a rugged device with features similar to mainstream PCs. It's based on a mobile Celeron processor and is equipped with local (flash-based) storage and a built-in wireless network interface. Additionally, the unit sports a water-resistant keyboard and comes with a theft-control feature based on a network-issued digital certificate."
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4529910170.html
CSpan Bus was here. I went on and talked to them about bringing the CSPAN election bus to Garretson for our kids. Bob and I had seen the bus in Sioux Falls, so think his students might like to see it, especially with an election year! They also have a new resource for teachers.
http://c-spanclassroom.org/
This has downloadable and searchable videos, is standards based content and has a liberal copy right policy to allow educators to record and keep CSpan produce programming for classroom use. It's free and looks like a great resource for teachers!
Atomic Learning, Nettrekker are both here and showing what is new. Atomic learing has a desktop search which I will install for all desktops this fall to quickly find tutorials.
Supper with ProQuest
Ginny, Misty and I were invited to a supper with Proquest, a subscription database for online research resources. It took us 3 hours to get through all 6 of the courses.
Course 1: Appetizers--bacon wrapped quail legs, shrimp cocktail, crab pinchers, cold salmon, and escargot
Course 2: Soup--chilled passion fruit melon soup with pepper!
Course 3: Salad with balsamic vinaigrette and pine nuts
Course 4: To clense the palate Kiwi sorbet
Course 5: Main Course--choice of larger steak, smaller steak and shrimp (which I had), lamb chops, or salmon all served with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus
Course 6: Coffee and Dessert--I had the crème brulee but could have had cheesecake
Came back and sat in the hot tub, which wasn't very hot!
Great way to end the day!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday--Sessions
Cool Tips and Tricks with Videos-- first session.
I have long been a "movie maker" and was interested in some tips to share with the staff. With all of our new technology I'm hoping some teachers will get inspired and try this in class! Some former students have gotten ahold of me to send them movies we made years ago.
First, set time limits. Students will have to decide what is important to narrow it down. No violence and martial arts. Is it what other people need and want to hear? Are you having fun?
Podcasts and slide shows. Think quality--do 3 slides in slideshows. Say you can do the project with one or two other students in class. Also, don't have to do the video, could do alternatives like posters.
http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/ some free sound affects.
http://www.podsafeaudio.com/ free music
http://www.jamendo.com/ free music
These are OK to use as long as you cite the site.
Audacity --free sound recording program PC or MAC and Garage Band (Mac)
Use save as in powerpoint to save them as jpegs for movies.
For screen shots can use earth or sketch up or piclens
In google earth can do a save as screen shot.
piclens is a plug in for your browser
http://piclens.com/ to create a picture wall for your movie. Looked GREAT!
http://search.creativecommons.org/ - site to get copyright free pictures
http://morguefile.com/ –site with pictures that real photographers have taken and uploaded that can be used as long as you cite.
Motion needs to have a purpose. Pans, faces, eyes
Macs—default Ken Burns Effect=bad
PCs Movie Maker options = limited.
PhotoStory does this nicely. Free download for pcs. Motion is easy to do. Can select music (import mp3 file_ or can create music (copyright friendly) Something that sort of works is fine and go on. Just do the motion in photostory. Bring it in to windows movie maker.
Moving Beyond Freebies. Macs—Final Cut Express and for PCs Adobe Premiere Elements. ($99). Should get to know imovie and windows movie maker first. Then take a step and use something reasonable for your abilities. http://bhphoto.com/best combination of price and service. More RAM and more processing power and a good video card and fundamental in making movies.
.http://www.audio-technica/ - wireless Lavalier microphone for camcorder
Reasons to do videos: another way to show learning. Appeals to all students--everyone seems to have fun and learn. Has an impact on their learning. They remember more about the topic by deciding what is important and it is something that is fun & memorable! Great Session!
Exhibit Hall
Got a start on the 5 football fields of exhibits! There are SO many exhibitors. Great mini sessions. I made a nose dive at one session--hurrying and stumbled only to dump my coffee! Now I need a good chiropractor! Dr. Bennett, can I beam you in? http://www.bodywisechiro.net/
Session 2: Roger Wagner, HyperStudio 5
We have Hyperstudio version 3, Mac and PC and it is a fabulous program. The new version allows for podcasting, sending to ipods, bringing in utube videos. Bob & I saw Roger in the early 80s in Minneapolis when he was just getting started with hyperstudio and we purchased his first version. Roger says, why use clip art—make it. The London Stocksyards use hyperstudio for maps. I had our students make a map of the school in our hyperstudio days and Bob had his students making many stacks. It is FAR superior to powerpoint and does so much more! Jeremy is interested in a program to animate some science things. This would be a great program for him to use. Students LOVE it and learn in a different, creative way.
Session 3: David Warlick Our Students Our World
The world is flattening and not just economically. This session talked about three converging conditions that are redefining education and provided windows to the future. David examined and factored together three fundational disruptive conditions that are converging on our schools, each serving to disrupt schooling as we know it, yet also providing direction as we work towrd learning 2.0.
http://handouts.davidwarlick.com/
tweet s283 tag
blog tags: flat classrooms warlick n08n283
http://landmark.project.com/sl
Preparing work force—job is to prepare children for a future we can not describe. Unpredictable future.
We know the shape of the world is changing—FLAT
Mexico plans on having everyone connected in
Social Networks is how they learn. The learn in text type language.
Video games are learning engines.
Locuster tycoons. Build a roller coater. Then have friends come in to ride our ride.
Spore Start out as one cell creature.
Session 4 Second Life Demo
This is apparently where Web 3.0 comes in. I have been facinated with this and it was great to see some experts. ISTE has an island. I could have watched the keynote there the first night! There is SO much to learn!
Session 5 Apple Communications
Apple again did it with the one of the best sessions of the day! Using some great resources we were dazzled with all the things we could do and how easily! Got to work on a 24" Mac and it was GREAT! We did a google docs shared document, mapped from our home town to San Antonio in Google Earth, added some voice threads (http://voicethreads.org/)
From this site, links will take you to other Web 2.0 applications explored in this workshop:
Apple Learning Interchange (ALI - Visit this site, partcipate in the conversation in a group, and learn from the supporting collection for this Collaboration 2.0 workshop.
VoiceThread - Join the conversation about your city
Google Maps - Create a pin on the map
Google Apps - Learn Digitally - Google Apps gives everyone at your organization a custom email address, tools for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, a shared calendaring system and access to a flexible intranet system. Standalone security and compliance services are also available.
• Collaborative Spreadsheets with formulas and functions (Collaboration 2.0 Spreadsheet)
* Spreadsheets & Forms - Participate in a fun way to enter data in a spreadsheet through a form. (Cities: Compare-Contrast)
* Spreadsheets & Maps - Enter information into a spreadsheet and view the data on a map. (Where is Your Hometown?)
• Google Word Processing - a collaborative word processing document (Collaboration 2.0 Word Processing) Many other Web 2.0 tools are available for collaboration and conversation:
Del.icio.us - Bookmarks about collaboration and San Antonio
Wikis at Wikispaces - Learn about wikis - a new kind of web page
info taken from:
http://collaboration20.wikispaces.com/Collaboration+2.0
GREAT Session!
Session 6 Second Life Professors using this in their Classes!
This was an eye opener as some college professors explained how they use this in a health class and do labs. The science labs here are AMAZING! They emphased to just get an account set up and get in to learn this. Don't worry about getting the students in yet.
Scholastic and Apple hosted receptions we were invited to, so again Apple wowed everyone with all the colleges that are posting their material to itunes U and that it now has K-12 resources announced tonight! Lots of tasty desserts here!
iTunes U
What Is It?iTunes U includes presentations, performances, lectures, demonstrations, debates, tours, conference materials, lesson plan ideas and archival footage from higher education institutions throughout the country. Already, more than half of the nation's top 500 schools use iTunes U to distribute digital content. Addtionally, the Beyond Campus is the iTunes U area that features a broad spectrum of audio and video materials from sources other than colleges and universities, such as American Public Media, PBS, the Museum of Modern Art, and Smithsonian Global Sound.
Why Would I Want to Use It?iTunes U is transforming the way people learn on campus, off campus, and where there's no campus at all. For K-12, educators iTunes U is an ever expanding collection of free resources created at the top universities in the nation. Besides the great content from K-12 educators from America's top colleges, Beyond Campus of iTunes U has lots of great content for use in the K-12 classroom.
How Do I Use It?
1. Go to Applications or the Dock on your Mac and launch iTunes
2. Go to the iTunes Store
3. Click on Power Search from the top left area of the Store window
4. Choose iTunes U from Power Search drop down menu
5. Type in an appropriate keyword in Description (i.e. - K-12). Additional keyword separated by commas improve search results.
6. To use a favorites iTunes U podcast or media asset, subscribe it by clicking its Subscribe button. This will download the podcast or media files to iTunes for you automatically.
7. If you want to "bookmark" an iTunes U podcast or media asset for sharing with others, simply drag its album art to your Desktop. This will create a .webloc file that will open Safari and then auto launch iTunes, bringing you right back to this area of the iTunes Store automatically!
info about itunes from: Free Learning From A-Z
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=15591&version=4125&pageID=10192
It was about 8:00, but went to River Walk and did a boat ride!
Another great day at the conference! :)
I have long been a "movie maker" and was interested in some tips to share with the staff. With all of our new technology I'm hoping some teachers will get inspired and try this in class! Some former students have gotten ahold of me to send them movies we made years ago.
First, set time limits. Students will have to decide what is important to narrow it down. No violence and martial arts. Is it what other people need and want to hear? Are you having fun?
Podcasts and slide shows. Think quality--do 3 slides in slideshows. Say you can do the project with one or two other students in class. Also, don't have to do the video, could do alternatives like posters.
http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/ some free sound affects.
http://www.podsafeaudio.com/ free music
http://www.jamendo.com/ free music
These are OK to use as long as you cite the site.
Audacity --free sound recording program PC or MAC and Garage Band (Mac)
Use save as in powerpoint to save them as jpegs for movies.
For screen shots can use earth or sketch up or piclens
In google earth can do a save as screen shot.
piclens is a plug in for your browser
http://piclens.com/ to create a picture wall for your movie. Looked GREAT!
http://search.creativecommons.org/ - site to get copyright free pictures
http://morguefile.com/ –site with pictures that real photographers have taken and uploaded that can be used as long as you cite.
Motion needs to have a purpose. Pans, faces, eyes
Macs—default Ken Burns Effect=bad
PCs Movie Maker options = limited.
PhotoStory does this nicely. Free download for pcs. Motion is easy to do. Can select music (import mp3 file_ or can create music (copyright friendly) Something that sort of works is fine and go on. Just do the motion in photostory. Bring it in to windows movie maker.
Moving Beyond Freebies. Macs—Final Cut Express and for PCs Adobe Premiere Elements. ($99). Should get to know imovie and windows movie maker first. Then take a step and use something reasonable for your abilities. http://bhphoto.com/best combination of price and service. More RAM and more processing power and a good video card and fundamental in making movies.
.http://www.audio-technica/ - wireless Lavalier microphone for camcorder
Reasons to do videos: another way to show learning. Appeals to all students--everyone seems to have fun and learn. Has an impact on their learning. They remember more about the topic by deciding what is important and it is something that is fun & memorable! Great Session!
Exhibit Hall
Got a start on the 5 football fields of exhibits! There are SO many exhibitors. Great mini sessions. I made a nose dive at one session--hurrying and stumbled only to dump my coffee! Now I need a good chiropractor! Dr. Bennett, can I beam you in? http://www.bodywisechiro.net/
Session 2: Roger Wagner, HyperStudio 5
We have Hyperstudio version 3, Mac and PC and it is a fabulous program. The new version allows for podcasting, sending to ipods, bringing in utube videos. Bob & I saw Roger in the early 80s in Minneapolis when he was just getting started with hyperstudio and we purchased his first version. Roger says, why use clip art—make it. The London Stocksyards use hyperstudio for maps. I had our students make a map of the school in our hyperstudio days and Bob had his students making many stacks. It is FAR superior to powerpoint and does so much more! Jeremy is interested in a program to animate some science things. This would be a great program for him to use. Students LOVE it and learn in a different, creative way.
Session 3: David Warlick Our Students Our World
The world is flattening and not just economically. This session talked about three converging conditions that are redefining education and provided windows to the future. David examined and factored together three fundational disruptive conditions that are converging on our schools, each serving to disrupt schooling as we know it, yet also providing direction as we work towrd learning 2.0.
http://handouts.davidwarlick.com/
tweet s283 tag
blog tags: flat classrooms warlick n08n283
http://landmark.project.com/sl
Preparing work force—job is to prepare children for a future we can not describe. Unpredictable future.
We know the shape of the world is changing—FLAT
Mexico plans on having everyone connected in
Social Networks is how they learn. The learn in text type language.
Video games are learning engines.
Locuster tycoons. Build a roller coater. Then have friends come in to ride our ride.
Spore Start out as one cell creature.
Session 4 Second Life Demo
This is apparently where Web 3.0 comes in. I have been facinated with this and it was great to see some experts. ISTE has an island. I could have watched the keynote there the first night! There is SO much to learn!
Session 5 Apple Communications
Apple again did it with the one of the best sessions of the day! Using some great resources we were dazzled with all the things we could do and how easily! Got to work on a 24" Mac and it was GREAT! We did a google docs shared document, mapped from our home town to San Antonio in Google Earth, added some voice threads (http://voicethreads.org/)
From this site, links will take you to other Web 2.0 applications explored in this workshop:
Apple Learning Interchange (ALI - Visit this site, partcipate in the conversation in a group, and learn from the supporting collection for this Collaboration 2.0 workshop.
VoiceThread - Join the conversation about your city
Google Maps - Create a pin on the map
Google Apps - Learn Digitally - Google Apps gives everyone at your organization a custom email address, tools for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, a shared calendaring system and access to a flexible intranet system. Standalone security and compliance services are also available.
• Collaborative Spreadsheets with formulas and functions (Collaboration 2.0 Spreadsheet)
* Spreadsheets & Forms - Participate in a fun way to enter data in a spreadsheet through a form. (Cities: Compare-Contrast)
* Spreadsheets & Maps - Enter information into a spreadsheet and view the data on a map. (Where is Your Hometown?)
• Google Word Processing - a collaborative word processing document (Collaboration 2.0 Word Processing) Many other Web 2.0 tools are available for collaboration and conversation:
Del.icio.us - Bookmarks about collaboration and San Antonio
Wikis at Wikispaces - Learn about wikis - a new kind of web page
info taken from:
http://collaboration20.wikispaces.com/Collaboration+2.0
GREAT Session!
Session 6 Second Life Professors using this in their Classes!
This was an eye opener as some college professors explained how they use this in a health class and do labs. The science labs here are AMAZING! They emphased to just get an account set up and get in to learn this. Don't worry about getting the students in yet.
Scholastic and Apple hosted receptions we were invited to, so again Apple wowed everyone with all the colleges that are posting their material to itunes U and that it now has K-12 resources announced tonight! Lots of tasty desserts here!
iTunes U
What Is It?iTunes U includes presentations, performances, lectures, demonstrations, debates, tours, conference materials, lesson plan ideas and archival footage from higher education institutions throughout the country. Already, more than half of the nation's top 500 schools use iTunes U to distribute digital content. Addtionally, the Beyond Campus is the iTunes U area that features a broad spectrum of audio and video materials from sources other than colleges and universities, such as American Public Media, PBS, the Museum of Modern Art, and Smithsonian Global Sound.
Why Would I Want to Use It?iTunes U is transforming the way people learn on campus, off campus, and where there's no campus at all. For K-12, educators iTunes U is an ever expanding collection of free resources created at the top universities in the nation. Besides the great content from K-12 educators from America's top colleges, Beyond Campus of iTunes U has lots of great content for use in the K-12 classroom.
How Do I Use It?
1. Go to Applications or the Dock on your Mac and launch iTunes
2. Go to the iTunes Store
3. Click on Power Search from the top left area of the Store window
4. Choose iTunes U from Power Search drop down menu
5. Type in an appropriate keyword in Description (i.e. - K-12). Additional keyword separated by commas improve search results.
6. To use a favorites iTunes U podcast or media asset, subscribe it by clicking its Subscribe button. This will download the podcast or media files to iTunes for you automatically.
7. If you want to "bookmark" an iTunes U podcast or media asset for sharing with others, simply drag its album art to your Desktop. This will create a .webloc file that will open Safari and then auto launch iTunes, bringing you right back to this area of the iTunes Store automatically!
info about itunes from: Free Learning From A-Z
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=15591&version=4125&pageID=10192
It was about 8:00, but went to River Walk and did a boat ride!
Another great day at the conference! :)
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Sunday--Checking In!
Ginny, Misty and I got up bright and early and headed to the convention center for check-in. This is such a large conference our first session was how to get the most out of NECC 2008!
A comedian entertained us telling us all about the convention. With 5 football fields size full of exhibitors and over 500 sessions to choose from, this should be quite an experience!
Tonight is the key note and sneaky snacks as well as entertainment. Misty, Ginny and I forgot our cowboy boots, so we can't enter the contest, but will enjoy the speaker and the snacks! The opening keynote speaker for the conference was James Surowiecki, author of "The Wisdom of Crowds" and staff writer for the New Yorker. His keynote was about the power of crowds and collective intelligence. Crowds are more accurate and intelligent than any one member of that group. It was a very different spin on group work in the educational setting. Topics such as diversity and independence within a group were expanded on.
It has been about 97 degrees and humid here! We have discovered the River Walk and wandered there a little! Also took a quick trip to the Alamo which is actually in town! Walking distance from our hotel!
Also, today at breakfast, we ran into Karen and Jim Parry, and ran into Jerry Klumper and his wife (tech co from Elk Point) on the River Walk!
More later!
A comedian entertained us telling us all about the convention. With 5 football fields size full of exhibitors and over 500 sessions to choose from, this should be quite an experience!
Tonight is the key note and sneaky snacks as well as entertainment. Misty, Ginny and I forgot our cowboy boots, so we can't enter the contest, but will enjoy the speaker and the snacks! The opening keynote speaker for the conference was James Surowiecki, author of "The Wisdom of Crowds" and staff writer for the New Yorker. His keynote was about the power of crowds and collective intelligence. Crowds are more accurate and intelligent than any one member of that group. It was a very different spin on group work in the educational setting. Topics such as diversity and independence within a group were expanded on.
It has been about 97 degrees and humid here! We have discovered the River Walk and wandered there a little! Also took a quick trip to the Alamo which is actually in town! Walking distance from our hotel!
Also, today at breakfast, we ran into Karen and Jim Parry, and ran into Jerry Klumper and his wife (tech co from Elk Point) on the River Walk!
More later!
Saturday--The Start!
Well, I left Garretson at 5:30 am. Bob took me to Sioux Falls. My original flight should have left at 9:00, but they changed to 7:00 departure. More quality time at the Minneapolis Airport! Got into Minneapolis, and killed 4 hours, only to have the flight to San Antonio departure changed 1 hour due to the plane change. We were to leave at 3:30, but once all passengers were on the plane, they decided to change the tires. We sat for 45 minutes for the tire change.
Next--Six Flags early! The flight was one of the roughest I have experienced! My Six Flags roller coaster experience. We arrived about 8:00 PM. Figured out how to take the airport shuttle which our dude overloaded and we were 3 to every 2 seats. Once at the hotel, my smoke free room had been given away and I had a wonderful smoke room. The sink was plugged, air didn't work and it smelled. Today they ran a machine to help with the odor!
Next--Six Flags early! The flight was one of the roughest I have experienced! My Six Flags roller coaster experience. We arrived about 8:00 PM. Figured out how to take the airport shuttle which our dude overloaded and we were 3 to every 2 seats. Once at the hotel, my smoke free room had been given away and I had a wonderful smoke room. The sink was plugged, air didn't work and it smelled. Today they ran a machine to help with the odor!
Monday, June 23, 2008
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