Fri Mar 9, 2012

Well I did not have much success in keeping daily updates going.The conference is finished. It was a great experience, one I would recommend highly!

Something of interest: This conference is as much about teacher education as it is about the use of information technology in education. I find it interesting that many of the teacher educators are concerned with many of the same things we are in MET. They are concerned about good pedagogy and good technological tools, and the issues they are concerned with, like BYOD, cell phones, and students being distracted by the technology are similar to ones we have raised. What is interesting is that most of their concerns are with their students, the teacher candidates themselves, not with the schools and school age learners the teacher candidates work with.

Thursday Mar 8, 2012

Keynote by Mark Milliron was spot on. He talked about the changing technologies and diverse students and the diversity of students knowledge and skills. He wondered how long post secondary institutes will be able to remain viable keepers of knowledge and about challenges of having students who are experts in a particular area in our classrooms, all brought about because the source of knowledge is no longer solely in the hands of the universities.

Mon Mar 5, 2012

A 14 hour day. Wow. I think my brain is full.

Great keynote from Jim Bower on his Whyville virtual world and on a technology that hinders learning – the textbook.

Dr. Thomas Winkier, from Germany, told us the economy is booming in Germany (perhaps the strongest in the world) but schools are deteriorating and are not getting the funding needed even for basic maintenance. So your budget woes are not necessarily directly tied to economic conditions!  He also showed a video on the interactive wall project he has worked on. Big (40″ by my estimate) touch screen computers (at least 4)  in a school lobby! Wow! Great placement for sharing a limited resource!

In response to Will Richardson (2011)‘s  Different Path Blog post, John Cuthell, from England, said we still need post secondary degrees for job security. But Bower in his keynote said in North America at least, non professional degree granting institutes do not actually prepare students for jobs. So what is the purpose of “Higher Education”? Why does so much emphasis get put on “Higher Education” in high school?

There are a considerable number of (pre-service) teacher educators at this conference.  I think they are all hearing the same message: They are not doing enough to ensure teachers are familiar with constructivism and educational technology as they should be.

If tomorrow is as dynamic and interesting as today, I will say SITE 2012 exceeded my expectations, despite no record of my room reservation!

Sat March 3, 2012

I am attending (and presenting) at SITE 2012,  SITE‘s conference on Information Technology and Teacher Education, Mar 5-9 2012.

If I am not too overwhelmed I will post, almost daily, highlights and reflections on the experience. Right now I am looking forward to keynotes by Larry Johnson and James Bower, a round table discussion on Teachers, Technology and Change, a symposiums on TPACK, a Panel on Digital Citizenship, as well as presentations of numerous papers.

SITE is part of AACE, the Association for Advancement of  Computers in Education.