Never Too Early!

Keynote Addresses, IL-TCE 2007

You can now link to the archived replays of the Keynote addresses. Use the link from the list to the right, or simply click on the link in this post.
The link is on the Conference home page as well. Enough options for you?

ICE - A New Look

DSCN2545.JPG
Originally uploaded by charlenechausis.

In case you haven't seen it yet, here is the new ICE logo, as featured at IL-TCE 2007. Look for it to start showing up on more and more ICE related items and sites.

An Education in Jokes - Pogue's Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog

An Education in Jokes - Pogue's Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog

Check out David Pogue's blog posting for today. I'm glad we teachers could learn him a thing or two. :) I am particularly inspired by comment #7 on his blog. The commentator clearly wasn't around IL-TCE last week to see the wonderful things that were going on!

Interestingly enough, we also had another PBKC moment in Pogue's digital photography workshop last Wednesday. David needed speakers so that we could adequately hear the audio on a video clip from his upcoming T.V. show. Being the geek that I am, I offered him my brand-new mini speakers that I had received from a recent Google workshop. I hadn't even tried them out myself. Much to my chagrin, these speakers appeared to not function, but a red shirted tech guy came to our rescue with "real" speakers. Back at my seat, I played with my new toy only to find that I needed to press the big button in the center of the device to turn it on. Oops. I was too embarrassed to point this out to an expert like David. A roomful of somewhat techie people and pressing the ON button eluded us!

Thanks Plus Global Goodies

Wow! What a conference! I thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and keynotes I attended. My favorite experience was David Pogue's preconference digital photography workshop. I don't think I've ever laughed so much while learning.

It was great getting to know some of this year's new volunteers as well as the veteran volunteers who loyally donate their time every year. Your professionalism and generosity is very much appreciated!

Finally, I've posted my preso from my session entitled Global Literacy for Today's Digital Learners here, along with documents relating to another presentation I gave at the NAIS conference in Denver on Saturday morning. Yes, I almost didn't make it to Denver; my plane was delayed five hours and I finally arrived there at 2 A.M. Whew!

Again, my thanks to everyone for provided such great learning opportunities!

Lucy Gray
IL-TCE Volunteer Coordinator

Flickr Group

The Conference photo group on Flickr is growing! As of today we have 427 photos in the group and 53 members who are able to upload to the group. If you have pictures from this year's conference, or from previous years, that you'd like to share, then be sure to join the IL-TCE Group and keep those pictures coming! Remember, Flickr is free to join.

The Best Experience You'll Have All Summer!

After all these cold and snowy days, it's hard to believe summer will ever get here.

On Thursday, I attended a session on the upcoming Summer Experience, a "Technology Paradise," presented by the Western Illinois University College of Education Staff on the campus of Western Illinois University July 25 and 26, 2007, for the "best Experience you'll have all Summer!"

(From: http://www.wiu.edu/otep/summerexperience/)
Summer Experience is two fun-filled, theme-oriented days of hands-on technology integration sessions geared toward K-12 teachers sponsored by the Office of Partnerships, Professional Development, and Technology in the College of Education and Human Services.

Attendees receive quality professional development on a variety of current and emerging technologies that can enhance student learning.

What this website doesn't yet say is that the folks from WIU will be taking their show on the road, and will be co-hosting a Summer Experience North on Thursday and Friday, August 2 and 3, at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire!!

We are still working on the details, but be sure to keep these summer dates open!!

thoughts from me about ILTCE07

This year, I presented a full day pre-conference session on Technology connections in Literacy*, attended Karen Thompson's Digital Tools Wednesday session (I am a return attendee to her sessions from past years) and spent Friday at the General Conference day. I was able to see the conference from many different sides. I am not trying to score any brownie points here with Brian (he is my ed tech director), but I honestly have to say that from every aspect - tech support, organization, content - the conference was first rate. Many hours of hard work went into the planning and implementation of this week and it showed. Kudos to all on the committee...

I hope that this blog keeps up as well as the flickr photo group, too. I would like to see educational technology in the classroom photos posted too! Thanks Luke for explaining how to group my photos...there is no stopping me now!

I joked with Brian and the other Technology Facilitators in my district that I planned on parking myself at the Apple Booth all day on Friday. I had found out the topics of hands-on sessions on Wednesday from Karen and knew that is where I wanted to be. (I was not able to attend Thursday, it was my son's 13th birthday (eeek) and I wanted to be available for the family, so I unfortunately missed Thursday's Apple Booth.) I not only was introduced to many new tools that I can share with my staff and use for my own professional development, I also met new tech friends, caught up with some that I have not seen in a while, and left this day feeling refreshed. So refreshed, I went home and registered for NECC! How I will pay for it, get to Atlanta, is another blog entry all together!

As a Technology Facilitator, I can understand my role in educational technology as one of coach, too, as Darlene blogged earlier. It is important that I am dedicated to my staff and students in providing opportunities for educational, meaningful, and curriculum based technology experiences. This conference and my membership in ICE & ISTE allows me to do that. I have made a late, but worthy New Year's resolution to get more involved in these powerful organizations.

My hope for all attendees, presenters, exhibitors...realize the impact you make in Educational Technology and keep your motor's running...

-Tracy
*My pre-conference session website: http://www.glenview34.org/ly/konnectedkidshome.html

It's about the learning and sharing

Each year after the end of the conference I reflect on how things went this past week. But first I take one night to unwind with my family, catch up on mail and laundry, watch those favorite TV shows I missed that were recorded on the DVDR, and sleep in on Saturday morning. So now after a day of relaxing, unpacking, and vegging out, I'm thinking about all the people I connected with, the new ideas that are spinning in my head to take back to my district, and how incredible the conference turned out thanks to so many wonderful volunteers and presenters. I still have blogs to read, digital handouts to view, podcasts to listen to and of course can't wait to read the compiled suggestions in the evaluations so we can make next year even better. The numbers don't lie, so I know which sessions were your favorites, but I'm glad we were able to provide a variety of sessions for everyone. So even those rooms where presenters only shared with a few, those few learned something new. It's all about the learning and sharing. I hope some of you that attended this year will consider submitting a proposal to present next year with the projects and ideas you will be taking back to your schools!! Thanks again to everyone who attended and everyone who worked to make IL-TCE 2007 the best ever. Let's keep this blog going for awhile to share all that we experienced. If everyone shares one new idea, website, or tip here on this blog, everyone will have learned and shared even more. Which session was your favorite and why?

infinitethinking, attaboys and keynotes in bed

---
Home and Dry downstate (where, sonofagun, it's still snowing here, too.)

A couple of "small story" things: Everyone was talking about how cool and hands on the Apple and Google Booths were, but for me one cool thing was watching Cristin Frodella from Google give up her tiny amount of free time to answer an attendee's question on Google Apps. The answer became a crowd gathering impromptu session in a corner of the Salons hall on both Google Apps and infinitethinking.

More than one attendee watched the keynotes from the comfort of their computers (at least one of which was still in bed because they overslept.) It was cool, and it was convenient, but we're not going to tell you what you missed. Ya' shoulda been there.

My thanks to Brian, Jordan, Chris, Joe, Mindy and Miss Judy and All of the other ICE Volunteers. All of your hard work paid off. It was smooth. It was educational. It was fun.
All of the ingredients for a tremendous event.

It's Over Too Soon

That was the headline in my Daily Herald this morning. I thought maybe they were talking about IL-TCE, but the picture of the sobbing basketball players told me different. People (usually fellow committee members and tech staff) often ask me what my job is with the conference and I am just as often tempted to answer "chief compliment collector." From the two keynoters, to the spotlighters, to the attendees and the vendors all I heard were wonderful things (except for the weather!) On a scale of 10 Dr. Larry Anderson gave us a 35 and one of his patented "It's aaaall goood!"
Planning has already begun for next year, but you can still reminisce or catch up on this year as soon as the podcasts, the archived videos, and classroom video contest winners are put up on the IL-TCE and ICE sites.
P.S. And a big congratulations to Tricia Fuglestad's 5th grade art students from Dryden School in Arlington Heights and Jessica Worst's 8th grade current events class from Barrington Middle School who won their grade levels in our video contest.

Thursday's Keynote

What a treat to attend the opening keynote in a ROBE!! It was a great presentation and thanks to ICE for making it happen. It was fun to see Joe, Charlene and Karen Thompson walking across the room. Of course, most special was 'being there' as Charlene accepted her well deserved award.

Marianne

Friday's Keynote Speaker .... A Tale well Spun!

Keynote speaker Dr. Ohler spun his tale well. His delivery was outstanding as he kept the audience's attention through a very animated presence. While keeping his act lively, he was able to deliver very pertinent content. He was more than entertainment on a stage to get people motivated.

My hope is that the attendees will pass Dr. Ohler's message along to all of our fellow educators. He hammered home the thought that Art is as important to our students as the 3 big R's. I don't want to pretend to be as eloquent as our keynote speaker, but basically the future requires our students to have skills that we might not consider important today. We can't just focus on the big 3.

To further discussion relating to Dr. Ohler's message, I highly recommend to my fellow tech educators to follow Scott McLeod's blog which is posted trough techlearning.com and his own site. His latest entryAssessing 21st Century Skills is very pertinent to all educators and especially those of us on the forefront of tech education.

Once again, thanks Dr. Ohler for a great beginning to our Friday. You were very thought provoking and you made an impact on my thoughts.

Scott Meech - smeech.net

Planting a Seed

Attending the ICE conference in St. Charles, IL and having a chance to talk with other educational technology educators I am even more convinced that we need to continue to plant seeds and water them. What does that mean? Rather than giving up when a new idea isn't embraced right away we need to think of how to get others thinking about a new idea, provide related information, relate it to best practices and look for other schools already implementing such an idea. I was a technology coordinator but now I am a technology coach. The difference is that I now concentrate on staff and students and not boxes and wires. We have other staff members who do that so I can focus on my passion of helping students and teachers discover how to use technology in meaningful ways to support learning. Schools need support staff to help with troubleshooting, managing servers, installing software and workstations. Schools also need technology coaches to assist staff members in using technology in meaningful ways once the hardware and software is ready to use. If you think this is important and want to plant that seed, Jamie McKenzie has a wonderful site discussing the coach.
http://fno.org/jan02/techcoach.html
Change can happen, we just need to approach it in a way that helps an idea grow. I hope more and more schools consider Technology Coaches too.

What a Great Day!

Today was the first IL-TCE general conference day and you could just feel the energy and excitement in the air ! We broke all attendance records today with 1600 attendees and an additional 350-400 exhibitors and volunteers -- 2000 people! It was wonderful - everywhere you went there were people talking excitedly about how great our keynote speaker, David Pogue, was. People were checking schedules for breakouts, visiting vendors (great idea to have cookies and coffee in the afternoon), and making plans to have lunch or dinner with colleagues perhaps not seen since last year.

Networking between colleagues is the best. I often see people at the conference who have moved to other parts of the state or left one job for another or who have retired but still enjoy attending the conference. I sense that I'm not alone in valuing the friendships that endure from one year to the next.

If you are attending the conference on Friday, take a few minutes to answer the ICE needs survey. So far we have 442 responses! Tables with laptops are setup in the Cyber Cafe, the registration area, the Atrium, and the area across from the elevators. Thanks to all attendees that took some time from their activities to respond. Remember that anyone who answers the survey will have their name entered in a drawing for a digital camera. You do not need to be present to win. Drawing is at the annual meeting at the closing session.

Tomorrow is going to be a great day! I am looking forward to hearing our keynote speaker, Jason Ohler. See you then,
Judy Satkiewicz, ICE President

Quality of Sessions

Congratulations to ICE for a great day of learning. It was fascinating to see all the excitement and discussion being thrown around by attendees. I witnessed some very excited members who were talking feverishly about new ideas they were going to incorporate into their classes.

Ken Tuley: Special Guest Star

During my presentation on Apple's Global Awareness initiative, I demonstrated how one can chat with people around the world using iChat. I used iChat and Ecamm's Conference Recorder to make a movie of this chat. Click on the title of this blog post to see the video !Thanks, Ken, for making a special appearance at our conference!

David Pogue - Outstanding

If you missed David Pogue... you missed a great kick off. Congratulations to the conference for a great start!