Final Day

The long over due BLC09 final day post.

First session of the day was with Brian Mull and was on Google Tools.

He presented so many things that rather than list everything you can get a rundown over at his website here.

Somethings definitely worth mentioning though are two disposable e-mail address services that I had not played with yet Mailcatch and Mailinator. The way services like this work are when you are signing up for a service on a site and are not sure whether it is a completely honest site and do not want them to SPAM you just set up a quick one time e-mail address at either of these sites and you can get the registration/activation e-mail and then not worry about it again.

While going over some things with Google Docs he mentioned that although documents can be worked on simultaneously it can be messy at times. Although not mentioned in the session Google is working on a new service called Google Wave that may help with this situation. It is not currently available but on the site is a video demo of the service.

Another thing that was mentioned that was new to me was the ability to create forms using Google Docs. Which can be helpful with quick little quizzes and information forms online. However you can not limit the amount of times each user can fill in the form. For a service that allows you to do this check out Survey Monkey

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Next up was David Weinberger's keynote

For the Twitter chat stream and podcast go here.

This was a very good presentation on how the Internet is changing the way we get information and knowledge. He spoke about how paper and book style encyclopedias limit your ability to fully learn and explore a topic. On the web when looking at a topic you usually will have lots of different sites with many links to other sources of information where you can continually explore the subject and also get information that is more current than what you can find in book form.

BLC Day 2

I did not have much time in between sessions today to do some write ups. So here is what I got from the sessions today.

Session: Safe Schools in a Web 2.0 World

It ended up being really a sales pitch for Lightspeed Systems Content Filtering system. Which is actually not all bad. It seems like a decent system and it looks to do what they say it does. One of the little tidbits of information that I got from the session was learning the being CIPA compliant basically means trying to protect students from anything that might be considered adult or hate material.

Next up the HTC team had a meeting with Alan November

He had many different ideas that I thought were great. Here are a few:

Teachers should bring two students with them to technology trainings so that they can learn as well.
A team of students should write up a code of ethics for web use
A DVD should be created and given out to new students as an introduction to our district
A teacher should come up with a list of the 10 most difficult concepts to learn and present them to students to see what they come up with for ways of teaching the concept.

The next session was Beyond E-mail with Jeff Utecht

Some decent ideas here about communicating school information rather than through monthly type newsletters by online video, social networking sites, texting, and just the web in general.
He also gave a good reason for using a blog over a wiki and that is that a blog is more linear, the new material is always on top you do not have to look through the entire page to find the edits.
He also talked about using Google Analytics for tracking visitors to your site.

Then their was a special Keynote done by David Kirkpatrick

It was a really interesting presentation on the development of technology and how it is affecting the entertainment industry and really people in general. He had plenty of interesting statistics but here are a couple that stuck out to me:

75% of college graduates will never finish another book but will start many

In 2000 46% adults used Internet /, 73% of kids 12-17 years old Now : adults 76 %, kids 93%

Beyond the Great Crash

Today's keynote was done by Professor Stephen Heppell. There were a few website that were mentioned that I think it definitely be beneficial as resources for the classroom. One being Teachers.tv. It is a site that in many ways is similar to teachertube by putting many classroom appropriate videos available online. Another thing that was just mentioned in passing really was 3D printers. I have heard a few things about them but have never looked at that too much. They really can be quite amazing. Here is a video demonstrating one. Some other unique and interesting ideas that were presented were:

The use of Nintendo DS's and Brain Age in class
Closing staff rooms in favor of a cafe type room for both students and faculty
Going shoeless in class, "You take your shoe's off at home why not in school"
Having students plan professional developments

Over at http://innovation3.edublogs.org/ you will find a archived copy of the twitter conversations that were going on during both Stephen and and Benjamin's keynotes.

The P.O.D.'s are coming

This session was pretty good. What I found most interesting were some of the tools that he used in his presentation, particularly Etherpad. It is an online note taking tool where people can collaborate in real time. As an example here is the pad that was used in the session. The presenter was very informative and did a great job incorporating the audience and presenting the material. For a look at his presentation go here. Also for more information on David you can check out his blog and follow him on Twitter.

Untethered Education

Some alright information here although it did end up being more of a sales pitch. But the presenter did alright and it is a possible wireless solution to look to maybe in the future. For more information check out Xirrus

Online Safety in a Connected World

I attended this session last year and thought that it was very informative. Brian Mull is a great presenter and gives out plenty of resources and different tools that can be used on the web. He also has all of his notes and links online for easy access. So rather than try to list the many things that he presented go here and check it out.

Keynote - Benjamin Zander

They started the first day of the conference off with quite a bang. It was probably one of best keynotes that I have seen. The topic was interesting and relevant. It had all of the items needed to make a great presentation. A great speaker, audience participation and involvement. He had many great ideas that can be applied in many aspects of life. Some of which are:

Thinking outside of the box (Demonstrated by the 9 Dots puzzle)
When not happy with an outcome there are three possible reactions: Resignation, Anger and Possibility. Live in possibility.
The only way to learn is by making mistakes, when you make a mistake celebrate it
Invent something that lights up your life and the lives of others
Don't take yourself so seriously "Rule Number 6"
Never say anything that would not stand as the last thing you say in your life

For more information on Ben check out his website here and his book The Art of Possibility.

Next up Online Safety in a Connected World