This morning, I was trying to remember how many times I have attended the Illinois Technology Conference for Educators (IL-TCE). I know that I attended at least six of them as a part of the Video Etc., Education Alliance, Advanced Technology Workgroup teams, plus twelve out of the last fifteen years that I have been here at North Shore. I am figuring that it is at least 18 or 19 years.
This year, however, will be special. I am participating as a Spotlight Speaker. My topics this year are “Personal Learning Networks - Engaging the Adult Members of Your Community” and “Cultivating Global Collaborations”. I both excited and nervous about the presentations. On Thursday, I am presenting in the Amphitheater Main Stage, where I have hung on the words of Will Richardson, Tim Wilson, Larry Anderson, and Steve Dembo in the past. I only hope that I am half as good at inspiring others as those whom I have seen there in the past. A challenge that I am looking forward to.
Twice a year, the IT Directors and the Technology Coordinators in the Independent Schools of the Lake Michigan Area (LMAIS), whose membership is schools in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, get together and meet. We hosted the last meeting in October and one of the items that we talked about was to create a workspace for other technology leaders in their schools to play around with. One of those spaces that we decided to test and try was ELGG.
Chris Butera, the Director of Technology at Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School offered to take the lead in this project. I ran into him at the Illinois Technology Conference for Educators (IL-TCE) last week and he acknowledged that we needed to get this up and started..
Imagine my surprise when I found he had created a community on Elgg.net and asked me to join. So, I am testing the blogging feature to make sure that this will attach to my blog site, so I can learn more about this new space.
We need to remember that we need to model life-long learning if we expect others in our learning communities to buy into the concept as well.
<What I have learned is that it currently seems to be a one way communication, from this blog to my elgg space. Guess I have to test and research more.>
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Yesterday, I spent the day traveling to the Illinois Technology Conference for Educators. While driving, I was trying to determine the number of times I have been to the conference. I came up with the number 20, as I was on the vendor floor for at least seven and as a school employed attendee the 13 of the past 14. I always enjoy my day at the conference, listening to wonderful presentations and catching up with friends, both new and old, in meet space.
Driving home last night, I was processing about all of the new information that I gathered. Each year, it ends up that there is a common theme which serendipitously emerges from the break out sessions that I choose to attend. Last year, it was wikis, blogs, podcasts, and social bookmarking tools, which I have begun to use and am beginning to gain momentum in getting the teachers in my school to begin using.
This year, the common thread was staff development and leadership. In other postings, you will read the notes I created from the presentations by Tim Wilson and Charlene Chausis. The thoughts and ideas that I am coming away with suggest that this will be the greatest area of growth for me in the upcoming year.
This year, I walked away from the conference with a more measured enthusiasm for the new ideas, compared to last year when I thought that my head was going to explode. Asking myself why this may be, I think it is because the ideas last year, while not new and while not completely off of my radar, were pushed to the forefront in ways that I could no longer ignore them. While I cannot ignore the need to be a better leader for technology and provide better, more efficient learning opportunities for all, students, teachers, staff, and parents, I realize that this will require the efforts of others to buy in which will take more time to happen, rather than last year’s revelation that, man, it is time for you to incorporate these new technologies.
I look forward to tackling these new challenges and look forward to sharing them with you via this medium.
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David Pogue,New York Times Technology Writer
Featured Speaker
Illinois Technology Conference for Educators
<These are notes from the presentation and are not the reflections and ruminations. These, I will post within the week>
These are five broader technologies which will cause serious societal shifts.
Voice Over IP (VOIP)
Internet Telephone.
Phone Company not involved - $20 per month for calls anywhere
Need Broadband connection
No taxes or fees. Federal Government hasn’t found out
Carry your number. It doesn’t matter where you are. Geography does not matter. Will give you second number in area code that you want.
Every feature know to man
Dial tone is fake, for user perception.
Caller ID, call forward, etc. multiple ring, three way calling, etc.
Web statement is “live”, can connect to calls in list.
The fine print, no power, no phone
The area code issue, occasional audio glitches, and 411 and 911 calling issues, due to lack of location issues. Have installed software to deal with this.
Examples are Vonage, and computer to computer (skype).
With new phones, can connect to wifi and make free calls.
Radio Frequency ID Tag
No power to run
18 thousand trillon ID numbers
Costs 7 cents each
Detailed information.
Used in library books
EZ Pass
Pets
Cattle
talking perscriptions
building security
pallet tracking
clothing stores
tires
Ohio Prisoner Tracking
Controversy:
Future phone - free international phone calls. Loop hole in FCC guidelines. Government would subsidize calls into rural areas and a person took advantage of loop hole to allow people to call Iowa and then dial out.
Chips remain alive forever.
You may not be aware
Can be compared against credit card in garbage. Gillette and Max Factor had this blow up in your face to show user’s patterns. RFID in passports, but potential problems. Some concern about regulation, no laws currently. Self-Regulation
Untethered TV, A La Carte Television
iTunes to buy
Tivo
Shared experience of sitting down together almost a thing of the past.
Frees scheduling of time.
iTunes - $2 per show, no ads.
Akimbo story - set top box, put old TV shows on Internet, pay $2, and watch. Shows back to the 1950s. Akimbo had to settle for what people would put, because TV executives were fearful of the Internet.
Google TV - Audience supplied, you can put your stuff on and charge for it. Example, a skilled craftsman, someone who shoes horses, can post and make an income based upon a specialized skills grow.
Rever is a popular choice. Will pay $5 per 1000 views.
(I read about an interesting use of San Diego Padres using video iPod for storage of pitch by pitch retreval.)
Digital Cameras 2.0
90% of camera sales are digtial
20% annual decline in film sales
Cutbacks in R&D
Kodak, Konica, Minolta are out of business. Nikon is only making two old versons. Going up 100% per year.
Digital SLR sales up 100% per year.
The Most Emailed indicator
The most compelling race is now the MegaPixel race. You can have the same 10 million dots that take a crappy picture. Most important part, sensor and lens. Large Megapixel can decrease picture quality, so dot are closer together which increases heat, which causes noise. Only light directly on top make it through.
New designs, better pictures. No longer need to look like film cameras, they are computer devices.
Movie taking quality getting better. Higher res than TV. They are becoming wireless. Canon working on face recognition software, SD800, developing blink shot and smile shot.
Camera phone 900 million per year. Causing huge upheavals.
Challenges:
Privacy. How do we protect
Storage problem, how do we save. Each medium has a shelf life of about 8 years. Have to vigilant to update your memories. Problem with online storage.
High Definition TV
Analog TV was supposed to end in 2006, then 2007, now 2009. Can squeeze more info in a smaller swatch of the frequency. Spectrum is now crammed full, new ideas with no available spectrum. Huge opportunity to auction the spectrum, new innovative ways to communicate.
Digital does not mean High Definition TV. Wide screen, different aspect ratios. One day, turn off all analog Television (pre-1990) will not work.
HDTV Formats - multiple types
Not just TVs, but camcorders, DVD players, and tapes.
10 years from now, everything will be Hi Def.
DVDs not hi def, there is a HD DVD - Blu-ray disc format war now.
New Netflix. Watch live, purchase by hours per month, now will have movie surfing.
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After years of attending conferences, armed with an open mind, a blank notebook, and a good pen, because I did not want the technology to get in way of the thinking and pondering I would often do during presentations, I have become the person who sits with laptop balanced precariously on my lap, with my iRiver t10 recorder around my neck capturing the precious thoughts, blogging the notes for all to have access to. I am now sitting and waiting for David Pogue to talk about the five technologies for the next five years at the Illinois Technology Conference for Educators.
It will be interesting to see if I am able to have the same ah-hah moments. I am sure that I will, but it will be interesting to see.
