National Educational Computing Conference

Topic: Professional Development / technology / all content areas

Intended Purpose: The purpose off the NECC Website is to house all details leading up to, during, and following the annual National Education Computing Website.

(but…. WAIT…. There is much HERE for those who are not able to attend the website)

(see below)

Intended Audience: Any educator interested in technology and learning

Justification: Three ways I found this website valuable were

1. Generating ideas about tech integration for educators (even if they can’t attend)
2. Access to handouts of workshops I wish I could have attended
3. Reading blogs and listening to podcast of sessions I wish I could have attended)

I was trying to convince our literacy coach to attend NECC to get more ideas about how technology integration could help with our READING initiative. She searched through the sessions offered using the sites convenient SEARCH features and soon became interested in the conference. Turns out that family matters prevented her from attending, but she got so excited about some of the ideas she saw presented that she signed up for my summer course in hopes of further exploring some of the ideas she was introduced to, simply by browsing the session titles and description.

In the FLAT world, you can experience many of the value of visiting a remote location without ever leaving your living room. NOW, I’m not saying it is the same… BUT for those who cannot attend NECC (or for those who can attend, but can’t attend all the wonderful sessions that caught your eye), the NECC Site offers a wealth of resources and ideas for educators about how to use technology in the classroom. Last year I was not able to attend NECC in Philadelphia, but I still found great ideas and resources when I browsed the workshop handouts, and presenter website, after the conference. How many times have you picked up an extra handout for a colleague. Go ahead and try it

http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2005/program/highlights.php#handouts

(Follow the directions to get a list of all the workshops that have handouts. Click on the workshops title and you will see the handouts listed for your perusing).

Finally, for those of you who got excited just checking out NECC, but can’t attend,
Web 2.0 tools (RSS, Blogging, Podcasting) give you some of the benefits offered by this incredible event from your living room. First let’s start by previewing all the lengthy list of educators who will be blogging and podcasting part of the event.

http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2006/glance/blogging_podcasting.php

The buzz around the NECC official and official bloggers is for all to use the tags NECC and NECC06 so that one can easily aggregate all related info using technologies such as Technocrati.. http://technorati.com/tag/necc

As a matter of fact, all these emerging technologies are breeding new technologies such as Hitchikr. In changing times, we need to raise our heads out of the water every once in a while, take a drink of kool-aid, network, learn, and energize. Yet, we can't always make it to the conferences we need to attend to mix with the people we need to see -- face-to-face. This is why Hitchhikr was invented, to provide you with a virtual space where, thanks to blogs, podcasts, and RSS, we can connect, share, respond, and grow knowledge out beyond the place and time of the event. Here are some tutorials on how to tap into the emerging technologies that make Hitchhikr possible: http://hitchhikr.com/