FETC Fall 2010 Virtual Conference

I enjoyed the FETC conference last year, so I knew it would be a good idea to participate again this year. In fact, I emailed all my co-workers in case they didn't know about it. :) It was a pretty hectic week. Therefore, I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the convenience of participating virtually right from my desktop and being able to catch up with my work at the same time.

I didn't get to attend as many sessions as I wanted to, but I did enjoy the two I selected to drop in on. Some key take aways included:

Mobile Learning in the K-12 Classroom: Get the Facts Straight from the Practioners
by Elliot Soloway, Lenny Schad, Kyle Menchhofer, Sue Tomko, Cathie Norris

1. MLD = mobile learning devices
2. Many K-12 schools were able to provide devices to students due to reasonable cost of this technology
3. Schools that piloted MLD turned off phone and text functions
4. Some schools were able to add computers to classrooms by integrating MLD, especially in remote areas with no infrastructure
5. Less technical challenges in comparison to maintaining computers
6. How you use and integrate MDL is important!

Professional Development in a Web 2.0 World
by Meg Ormiston

1. Twitter is a great tool for PD...don't feel guilty if you don't read through all your tweets. Use it to filter good tweets. Re-tweets are a good indicator.
2. Tweet Deck is a good mobile app to access and organize Twitter accounts. In fact, I downloaded it and love the interface so far.
3. Nancy Duarte's blog is a good one to follow, http://blog.duarte.com. Looking forward to reading her slideology book focusing on the science and art of great presentations.
4. Skype is a great tool to connect with other professionals synchronously. I never thought of that. I mainly use Skype to connect my almost 2-year old daughter with her aunty that lives in China and grandparents who live on the Big Island. :)
5. I was aware of Wordle, but never heard of Tagxedo. It's a twist on Wordle where you can even add some style to your word clouds.
6. I haven't been a heavy Twitter user, but I think I may need to rethink that after attending this session.