It has been a week since NECC finished and I have been reflecting on whether the conference met my expectations and on what I found to be most valuable.

In some ways NECC met my expectations, while in other ways it did not.

The most important part of the conference to me was the people, the conversations, the personal contacts, and the connections. We hear often that teaching is an isolating profession. I agree, but in fact, there are hundreds of teachers in my school district and they have each other. They may choose to stay isolated but can also decide to support each other, collaborate, commiserate, and share the bond born of a common profession, working for the same employer. I, however, am the only Technology Director in my district. While I enjoy the company (and insights and collegiality) of the teachers and administrators with whom I work, I also really appreciate my local job-alike meetings and collaborating with those peers and serving on committees and boards. Not only do I find it personally rewarding and professionally invigorating, but I also place a high value on the relationships that are built around these activities and commitments.

NECC provides an even bigger forum for those connections. I met people whose work I have read and followed for quite a while and bloggers whose writing fills my google reader pages on a regular basis. I renewed acquaintances I made at previous conferences and I touched base with many other ISTE affiliate leaders. There were many exhibitors I needed to talk to, and I managed to get to them all (in one big room!) and I also got to enjoy some social time with several of the corporate attendees. I took advantage of opportunities to get to know new friends (from as far away as Australia) and to share ideas with educators from all over the states. Ironically enough, some of the best conversations were with folks from my own state and from around New England – people who I get to see fairly often, but usually within a tight timeframe with a packed agenda. Tending to this network of colleagues is like taking care of the garden – the rewards are reaped far into the future, as these connections form my personal learning network.

One way that NECC09 did not quite meet my expectations is that I was hoping to gather ideas to help me be a more disruptive educational leader in my district. I am still trying to develop ways to challenge the status quo more directly, with minimum tears and as gently as I can. I think it is a fine line I have to walk as a member of the administration who harbors, in my darkest recesses, the heart of a renegade, a rabble-rouser. If I am actively involved in driving technology use, then I am a change agent (like so many of you) and this may be more than a little scary to many people.

I attended two sessions that I had hoped would inspire me with ideas to support this goal. They were:
How 2 B a Disruptive Technology Leader!
and
Effective Leadership in an Era of Disruptive Innovation

Both sessions were good, but not on target for what I was looking for. I think that I must have read more into the titles and descriptions than what was there, only because of my existing agenda. Anyway, my goal for the next school year is to take on the challenge of being disruptive in a constructive and positive way. If any of you have suggestions of blogs or books I should read, classes I should take, or armor I should purchase, please let me know. I can use some help and would love to have company on this mission – if you are planning something similar, maybe you could share your own posts on the topic.

Every New England state has state ISTE affiliate organization, and together, we form NEISTE .

From our web site:

NEISTE is an organization representing the ISTE affiliates in the six New England States (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont). The goal is to provide a forum for coordination and support of state technology organizations through a regional effort.

Our NECC NEISTE reception was last night. It was well attended by educators from all of the New England states. At the reception, NEISTE announced a new partnership agreement between our organization and CDI computers. The agreement provides a 10% discount (from the already very low prices) for any school or government agency from New England purchasing CDI’s refurbished (off-lease) computers. The New England customers will also get a free extension of the typical three-year warranty to FIVE YEARS. Additionally (drum roll please) the offer extends to ALL of our educators and students! This is a wonderful agreement, sure to benefit teaching and learning in New England.

I am proud to be an active member of the NEISTE group. Go New England!

Tuesday at NECC 2009 I enjoyed the keynote address. It was in Oxford-style debate format, moderated by NPR’s Robert Siegel. The two sides argued the premise: Bricks and Mortar Schools are Detrimental to the Future of Education. For or against? The against side won (audience decision using response system) but they argued that education had to change substantially and that a hybrid of face to face and online was the key. Lots of fun.

See link below for more details:

http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/program/keynotes.php

The most memorable experience of the day was my participation in the Storm the Hill event. ISTE organized the event for hundreds of educators to meet key staff people from the offices of senators and congressional members. (See http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/glance/dc_hill_visits.php for details.)

I, along with about ten colleagues from Massachusetts, met with Bethany Little from Senator Kennedy’s office and with Nicholas Christiansen of Senator Kerry’s office. Then, we split into smaller groups to visit our region’s member of Congress.

Deb Donohue and I met with Lisa Salerno, a staffer in Jim McGovern’s office.

In every meeting, we talked about the following:

• the importance of funding the Enhancing Education Through Technology program (EETT)
• funding Preparing Teachers for Digital Age Learners, and
• simplifying Erate, fully funding erate, and supporting the bill to permanently exempt Erate from the Anti-Deficiency Act in order to prevent a repeat of the temporary shutdown that occurred.

Every staff person we met with was charming and welcoming, informed, and on board with our recommendations. I hope that this translates into some active support on the part of our senators and congressional members.

On a side note, it was so fun to walk through the halls of our government, armed with purpose, conviction, and appointments to make a difference. Thanks to ISTE for organizing!

Terrific conference day at NECC 2009.

We started the morning at a 7:30 breakfast hosted by Polyvision. Attendees got an advanced look at some of their new developments. I continue to be really impressed by the Eno board.

We raced right from the Grand Hyatt back to the convention center to attend a preparation session for our visit to Capitol Hill tomorrow. I look forward to meeting with staffers from the offices of: Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and James McGovern. We will be talking about the importance of technology in education, funding, erate, and 21^st century skills.

From the Storm the Hill session we went directly to a CoSN CTO Leadership Forum , How 2 B a Disruptive Technology Leader! This was an interesting session examining how web 2.0 tools are (and will be) disrupting schools.

After a quick lunch I picked up my advocacy packet and t-shirt (to wear to the hill) and then visited the exhibitor’s floor. It is so big I was overwhelmed. Every exhibit I visited had something interesting to share.

At 2 pm, I attended Leslie Fisher’s Gadget Class: Now with Web 2.0 Freshness! I saw more new software tools, useful web 2.0 sites, and cool hardware in ONE hour than I could have researched and found in weeks. Favorite things I learned? The turntable with the USB port (digitizing your old vinyl); jott.com; smugmug.com; and iPhone apps like Shazam, SmugMug, Yelp, and AroundMe. BONUS – it was lots of fun. Go Leslie!

From there I went to Scott McLeod’s session, Effective Leadership in an Era of Disruptive Innovation. I thoroughly enjoyed Scott’s interpretation of Clay Christensen’s work. Check out his writing on this at bit.ly/neccmcleod1 .

After such a busy day spent taking in new ideas and racing from one thing to the next, it was nice to visit School Wires reception and then to have dinner with a couple of MassCUE friends, Tom and Annamaria.

Tomorrow looks to be just as jam-packed, starting with a 7:30 am breakfast presentation. <yawn. . must sleep>

]]> http://K12EduBuzz.com/monday-at-necc-2009/feed/ 0 http://K12EduBuzz.com/sedta-meeting-at-necc-2009/ http://K12EduBuzz.com/sedta-meeting-at-necc-2009/#comments Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:18:58 +0000 Jean Tower http://K12EduBuzz.com/?p=279

This evening one of the events I attended was the SEDTA “Turning the Tables” state member set up . Each participating state technology director sets up a table displaying materials that tell what that state is doing with technology in education. One of the agenda items was the Virginia’s Innovative Application Contest Winners Award Ceremony. Todd Bowden won for a really cool educational app, Number Line. Number Line is available free from the iTunes store (under apps).

After the award was presented, the featured guest speakers were Aneesh Chopra (Obama Administration, Chief Technology Officer and Associate Director for Technology, Office of Science and Technology Policy) and Jim Shelton (US DOE, Assistant Deputy, Secretary, Office of Innovation and Improvement). They were both interesting and spoke with great conviction of the importance of technology as a key factor in improving schools and in rebounding the economy.

I have tried to capture here, a few of the salient points.
Aneesh Chopra:
The Obama administration does not see technology as a separate entity or program with technology centered goals. Rather, the thinking is more like “how do I bring technology innovation to the entire portfolio of projects I want to accomplish.”
My Comment: This is exactly the kind of shift in thinking I wish for my colleagues in education. Rather than ask me what is the latest and greatest gadget, I would like to have educational administrators think about how we can apply technology to core curriculum issues and to all of our strategic plans and goals.

Jim Shelton:
In talking about the role of technology directors, Jim explained how technology was becoming an ever more vital piece in the solution to many problems. “People are about to figure out how important you really are” and “expect to be pulled into conversations in many realms” he said.

“The details of The Race to the Top are not yet public” but he did add a note about technology being an important component of many solutions.

Jim said that one important goal of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was to improve the infrastructure and specifically, to ensure that broadband becomes fully deployed.

More than once, he said that our educational standards must be “fewer, higher, and clearer” and that we must use ARRA funds for “more impactful outcomes.” He said that this was the biggest one time investment in education and that we will all be disappointed if five years from now we have spent it and don’t see real impact.

ISTE CEO Don Knezek asked about an “expanded accountability system” that would assess students all up and down the spectrum and that would not be targeted at measuring against some lowest minimum standard. Neither Jim nor Aneesh brought clarity or new thinking about this topic, but they also did not come to the defense of “the test.”

In response to a question about the tension between “locked down” networks and the creativity of teachers and students wanting more freedom on computers in schools, Jim Shelton said that to make teachers really effective users of technology they had to have the following:
“Just in Time, Real Time, Support, and Professional Development”
My Comment:

Hard to argue with that!
Aneesh Chopra had a response that really resonated with me. He said that schools had to think about the requirements of the organization and “the profile of the individual who will bring technology innovation to the front office and not just do what is comfortable to the back office.”
My Comment: This is an excellent point and reflects the thinking of the CoSN committee I have been working with on school technology administrator requirements and have certification criteria. When I approached Mr. Chopra afterwards, I introduced myself and then complimented him on his insightful comment. I explained that we were working toward a certification for technology administrators, much the way other school administrators have certification. At first he suggested that he thought that two people were required, a technology administrator who understands the “techie” side of the house, and someone else who understands what to do with technology in education. I hope I made my point that the CTO must understand the business of education and that the better solution is to have a fully certified CTO who has a strong and informed network administrator (and technical team) working for her or him.

I’m so glad our state Technology Director, Connie Louie, invited us to this event. It was worth attending just to hear some of the current thinking in the Obama administration about technology in education.

MassCUE is an affiliate organization to ISTE . I am (as I type) in a large conference room with leaders from affiliates from all across the country, as well as some folks from as far away as Australia. We are all sharing best practices at NECC 2009 .

The information, strategies, and aggregate energy in the room is amazing. I’ve taken some notes about what other affiliates do and hope to follow up with them for details.

I want to learn more about those chapters that have

• managed to hire an executive director;
• increased their conference attendance;
• make an impact in their state advocating for technology in education;
• "Master Digital Educators" certification;
• Google partnerships;
• Administrative Technology Acadamies; and
• Administrative Leadership Summits in the summer.

Lots of good work furthering the understanding of technology in education.