Profile Teachers at the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference

Report on the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference, December 1-3, 2009
(Tom C., Fitz, Jude L., Jennifer O, Kristy V, Courtney V-P)
We attended a number of various conferences and workshops, some of them on products we are already using (Smartboard, Ipod I touch, Google web tools) , others on new ones. Some of the most striking features of this year are:

1. Current trends:

- The convergence of tech tools, the way they begin to get really integrated and work together: social platforms, collaborative project tools (for “traditional” media such as text, presentations, pictures, as well as multimedia tools), communication (“traditional” such as email, skype, videoconferencing, and individual devices and virtual-reality based), Presentation tools for classroom (interactive whiteboards)

- The new flexibility of time and space, of participation and collaboration offered by these tools

- The personalization of the virtual environment

- The quantum leap in power and flexibility of new network models (see below)

- The fact that you get a lot more bang for your bucks today: see what a simple $400 notebook, a broadband connection, and some additional free shareware allow you to do. Throw in the classroom an interactive whiteboard and some individual device like either a notebook, a clicker, an ipod I touch, or a cell phone, and the connectivity between them all allows all sorts of modalities of participation, communication and collaboration

- The fact that every classroom has the means to go global: pairing with other classrooms anywhere in the world, attend presentations, visit places, museums, parks, cities, attend experiments, and interact, even create partnership, with anybody, anywhere.

- The fact that education is entering the “Google it” age: students, teachers, parents, administrators expect all the information they need and want to be just one click away.

One expression encapsulates this convergence of fun,learning, “hyperconnectedness” and production: empowered creativity.

To conclude on this general picture, one more thing I learned that completely blew my mind is the “cloud.” Just listen to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, then imagine Lucy is the power behind the Internet.

2. Specific products that got us interested in:

- Usync.com: social platform designed for the classroom: allows you to communicate ( email, IM, video…), store/share data, and work on projects, either individually or as a group. The teacher remains the moderator. You do not even need an email account to access it. Very intuitive and customizable. Even technophobic students get proficient in it in no time. Fee-based (~$100/year per teacher, no class limitation). Attractive design, too. (Jude)

- Intel tools: see Jude’s presentation at next faculty meeting. You can explore them at Intel tools

- Podcasting: A podcast is a recording (either audio or video) posted on the internet and available to anyone to listen to or watch. Youtube is an example of video podcast (kind of). To create a podcast, it’s so easy it’s not even funny. According to Apple, of course, and especially if you have a Mac. But in its immense generosity, Apple is also enlightening the rest of us here. (Jude)

- Self pacing responders for interactive whiteboards (Jennifer 0). The Promethean system is, for the moment, in advance on Smartboard (it’s a war out there) with a variety of responders allowing more diverse input from students than the current senteo clickers. One may expect smartboard to come up with… a response sometimes in the future. ( Promethean allows tests for each student that they take at their own pace and that will automatically differentiate from easy to hard or vs. versa as the students answer questions correctly, or not)(Jennifer)

- Nettrekker resources (Kristy V). There is so much stuff that I did not know!! We do need a teacher code to get into and use some of the features, such as being able to save searches, which students can then log on and access your saved searches. It also includes a web evaluation form so they can share why the website is a good source or not. (Kristy)

- Twitter and Tweetdeck: mini social platform. Share thoughts and data, keep in touch with people of similar interests, in very short format, called “tweets”. See all tweets together and even add feeds from other social networks such as Facebook and My space, in Tweetdeck. Educational value: TBD. (Jude)


- Etherpad. I would say that the big winner for me at the CMTC was the free, internet based collaborative writing tool Etherpad Like Google Docs or a Wikispace, it allows students to simultaneous work on a piece, but there is no lag or worry that you're writing over someone else's thoughts, since you are working together in real time. Students do NOT need an email address to make this work, so it can happen instantaneously. Students can each have their own color, so you can see who is writing what, and there is a chat space for writers to talk about what they want to write before putting it in the "final" document. The finished product can then be saved in a variety of formats for later use. Up to 15 students at a time can work on any one document for free, although the workshop I went to encouraged more small groups (2-5).
I picture using this is any classroom where collaborative work is taking place, whether the students are all working at the same time, or if they are working separately (in different places and times) on the same document. This is a great tool for critical thinking, editing and revision, and collaborative process- all important 21st century skills.
Having used all three of the above mentioned collaborative tools, I would definitely say this is the best! Check it out at www.etherpad.com. (Courtney)

- "Green screens" are becoming an option to put backdrops behind imovies. This is also possible with Moviemaker and Adobe Premiere. (Fitz)

-The presenters at the conference almost exclusively used Macs. Thanks to a grant, Macs will be deployed in the Middle School, in addition to those already in the science room. “The handwriting is on the wall that I should try to Mac convert.” (Fitz)

Wmware.com:“Enabling the power of the cloud in your network.” This is for techies, of course, but even a hybrid lifeform like me could understand what it does, without understanding at all how it does it, of course. Basically, the new generation of server software has accomplished a revolution in terms of cost reduction for the entire network, power, speed, security and versatility. I must confess that the very first time I saw it, my French visceral skepticism was screaming Alert! Alert!, but authorities in the field are concurring. This is the way to go. I am currently evaluating the possibility to deploy such a network in the Computer Instruction Lab.(Jude)