New Technologies that Are Changing Education

Tech Forum Long Beach, May 18

Listen and watch as a panel of ed tech gurus shares online tools and cutting-edge technologies that have the potential to change the way teachers teach, students learn and schools operate.  What’s hot today and what will be tomorrow's "killer apps" for schools?

INTROS

David, Hall and John, would you care to introduce yourselves to one another with a bit about your interest/background in emerging technologies? (David -- I know you've already done this for Orlando; aren't you glad for copy and paste?)

David Warlick:

I have been in the field of education for 31 years, starting as a middle school social studies teacher.  I am currently working as a consultant, writer, blogger, podcaster, programmer and public speaker -- doing business as The Landmark Project.  My current interests are 21st century literacy, understanding, and finding and inventing applications for Web 2.0 applications, and video games as learning engines.

Hall Davidson:

John Fleischman:

I've been an teacher and education program administrator for more than 25 years.  I am currently director of technology services at the Sacramento County Office of Education and am responsible for both IT and ed tech.  I really enjoy Web site development and am always building and enhancing.  Current efforts:

Outreach and Technical Assistance Network 

California Distance Learning Project 

English For All 

AdultEd Online 

HOT TOPICS/TECHNOLOGIES/PRODUCTS THAT YOU'D LIKE TO ADDRESS

Why don't you use this space to list all the things you might touch on if you were doing this session solo. I know there will be lots of overlap but once it's all written out here, I think it should be easy to divide up somehow.

David:   My 2¢ Worth?  Hot topics are:

• 21st Century Skills / 21s Century Literacy
• Blogging
• Wikis
• Podcasting
• RSS
• Video Games

 Hall:

John:

All of David's 2 cents worth plus:

• Virtual environments
• Personal digital devices
• High speed networks
• Course management systems

THOUGHTS ABOUT STRUCTURE

We can simply divide up the topics (one of you talking about blogs and podcasting, another about cell phones and xxx, etc.) or we can try something like Vicki suggests on the Chicago page -- with an introducer for each category or app and the chance for others to respond with examples from their own experience. Opinions?

Related to this is the question of breadth vs. depth. I should be embarrassed to admit this but I (Judy) am pushing for breadth because I think the audience is looking to you for a whole bunch of great ideas and inspiration from you -- including things they haven't even seen yet. I see the afternoon EduBloggerCon session as allowing participants to return to some of these technologies and share their own thoughts and experiences, which takes some of the pressure off of you to do as much as of the WHY as you would have otherwise. On the other hand, just doing the WHAT part could be superficial and sound like technology for technology's sake. So I guess the goal is a balance. Over to you:

I agree with you and Vicki here.  Why don't you, Judy, introduce each of us with a short paragraph.  We could even have a slide with our vita, and get right to the topics.  You through out the topic, and we each chime in with our angle and examples.  I suspect that we might each need to limit ourselves to a budgeted number of minutes. (dfw)