Monday at NECC

This morning came really early after a very packed day of learning and fun on Sunday. I headed out for my first session. All about Moodles. Unfortunately, when I arrived, the session was already full. I will have to get there earlier tomorrow morning. So, I regrouped and went to breakfast and then sat down to reread the schedule and make some back up plans in case the same thing happened again. I was sitting on the floor in a very air conditioned spot while hoards of people waited for the gates to be opened and the exhibits to begin. After the initial hoards passed, I moved in to take a quick over view of the exhibits. WOW!!!! I could spend the rest of the convention just exploring and learning in the exhibit hall. (But I really do plan to go to sessions too...;) I begin to fill my schwag bag with pens, flash drives, t-shirts, demo software and foldable frisbees. Without a plan, I was really just turning in circles. After a little while in that very overwhelming environment, I decided to come back when I had a plan. I sat in on a great session on podcasting with lots of practical tips. I then enjoyed David Warlick's presentation about preparing students for a new world. I had heard or read a lot of what he was saying but it was great to solidify some things in my head about what kind of atmosphere we need to provide for our students. In the afternoon, I sat on a panel discussing a new product Scholastic is looking to launch. It was neat to be in a group with other DEN members and Twitters. This was not planned, it just happened that way. Then it was back to the exhibit hall. This time with a little more of a plan. At 5:00 I went to a drawing for an inFocus projector. Believe it or not, my name was called! I won a projector! One really cool thing about that was that a lady who was also waiting got all excited when she heard my name. She was the sister of Tim Fahlberg. He and I have collaborated on several presentations and activities involving mathcasts. His sister Linda teaches in Macedonia. Tim now lives in Wisconsin. He will be presenting about Mathcasts and VoiceThread on Wednesday. He actually included me as one of the presenters even though he forgot to ask me if that was ok. Linda took me to the VoiceThread booth where I saw Tim and had a great conversation with him and did a bit of planning for his presentation in which I will give the elementary version of the presentation. I also had the chance to meet with the creators of VoiceThread and have a great conversation about the power of their product. I shared with them our Landmarks and Food Miles Voice Threads. They shared a great idea for using Voice Threads for teacher training. Video clips of teachers, teaching lessons. PLN comments on the strengths, weaknesses and ideas for improvement of the lesson. Very cool. Pin It Now!