Rookie at NECC
I used to always tell my math students before taking one of my tests to grab as many jacks as you can. That, and of course to use good “Mathish”. The reason I say that about the jacks is because I would say that I’m throwing 45 jacks on the ground. Pick up as many as you can! If you’re stuck on something, don’t waste too much time, move on & get other points.
I felt that way with NECC. There were thousands of jacks thrown out there…….I may have picked up 20-30!
On Twitter I talked about my ‘rookie’ mistakes and others like Jon Becker helped me see that I’ve made plenty more…..didn’t get to vendors to get free stuff (especially for the family!), never really made connections with other Twits or Bloggers, bought family items at Airport, and didn’t bring enough shorts for San Antonio in July!
Some of the things I did get out I’ll link below and continue to add onto. I was able to meet Dean Shareski, and shook hands with Lisa Parisi, Brian Crosby (who teamed to take second in a collaborative effort this year and were recognized by ISTE at Tuesday’s Keynote), as well as David Jakes and Wes Fryer. Said hi to many others that I knew like Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and a few friends of CA BOCES co-workers.
Resources and links to check out later:
David Jakes Wiki for presentations and here is his PowerPoint presentation he did with Dean Shareski.
Liz Kolb and CellPhonesinLearning Wiki.
Our Students Our World by David Warlick.
Kathy Schrock presented on MUVE.
Alan November used Promethean clickers to talk about some Google search tips and uses of technology in education.
Chris Lehmann impressed me with his incredible enthusiasm with his Progressive Pedagogy presentation.
Many of these have other tools linked inside to check out. Overwhelming experience. Can’t wait for NECC 2009 in DC.
July 4th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Just like learning online, you will never take it all in. Going in with some goals always helps me. I set out this week to connect with a few more people who challenge my thinking as well as to try to understand further where a lot of this connecting is going. I was fortunate enough to attend both EdubloggerCon and the Constructivist Celebration on consecutive days. These two events host two important concepts for me at this time… connecting and constructivist learning. I’m currently wrestling with the bridge between the two (as well as some other folks from NECC 2008). I’ll be posting on my blog soon about these… need more time to “construct” and “connect” my thoughts. Glad you enjoyed the conference!
July 4th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Brian, I, of course, always appreciate your thoughts. Rick Weinberg went in with specific goals (one was cellphone use in the classroom) and I know he felt much better about this NECC then other ones he’s been to. I think next year I need to get into EdubloggerCon and the Constuctivist Celebration like you said. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say on your blog.
July 7th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Mark, going to a conference like NECC is sort of like going to Disney. There is SO MUCH TO SEE, and you’ll never get to it all in the short span of time you have to spend there. Like Brian said, it’s good to have goals when you go. I knew there were certain things I wanted to do (getting T-shirts is a nice “extra,” but not my priority at all).
I feel like I never saw you while we were there, and unless you were sluffing off and snoozing in your hotel room, I’m sure you were bouncing around the event center like a ping pong ball!
If you walked away with 20-30 jacks (or take-aways), then that’s 20-30 more jacks than the districts we serviced had before.