Future of Education

I am very fortunate to have one of the largest technology conferences in the US only 15 minutes from my front door. The unfortunate part is the lack of technology available at this conference. We have some of the best minds in the country keynote every year. This year Wes Fryer was the opening keynote speaker. He brought a great message of bringing change into the educational world. With thousands of educators in the audience he tweeted a message that he was going to have a back channel open using chazzy. As the introductions were made, he chatted with those of use that were in the chat room. WOW, chatting with the keynote speaker 2 minutes before he walked on stage, this is cool use of technology. This could have been a powerful conversation, but!

There is no wireless Internet at this conference. Ok, there is a coffee shop with one small hotspot. The only people in this conversation were those of us with smart phones (as if I needed a reason to love my iPhone, it gave me another). What about all the people in the audience who could have benefited from the conversation?

So what does this mean? Every negative has a lesson. The lessons I learned are:
•    Make sure you have the connectivity to support your audience. In schools, the wires, servers and other network hardware are more important than the computers. Feed your funds into the backbone of your network!
•    It is productive to have a digital background conversation during a lecture. I was engaged in the lecture (which is what a keynote really is). Our students can text, chat, IM during class and be productive. There need to be rules and guidelines though. I need to ponder this one a bit more.
•    Even the tech people evolve. A year ago I would have never said “let them use their cell phones I class.” This showed me as a learner how it can be done productively.

Those are lessons I have the ability to affect. One lesson I can’t affect is regarding eTech Ohio. I’ve been told for years about the dysfunction of eTech. This conference displays the dysfunction. Hopefully new leadership in the state of Ohio will bring new life to the governing body of technology in the state.

I love Animoto. It is a fun and easy way to create a short slide show video and share it with the world. It is now available on the iphone (and I assume the iPod touch). I created this video while waiting in the drive through line at Wendy’s (No I didn’t add eat healthier to my news years resolution list). It was that easy. By the time I finished eating, I opened the link and watched it. I give the app. 5 stars. It gave me a reason to take even more pictures with my iPhone. My first Animoto iPhone Video

Anyone have any great ideas on how to use this is a classroom?