08.23.06
Posted in future paradigms at 12:25 pm by sbetts
As most of the teachers in MSAD52 (Turner, Greene and Leeds, Maine) know, they are receiving laptops during the first month of school. These machines are Windows based with “oodles” of software for supporting teaching and learning. I would like to hear from teachers with and without laptops — what do you expect? what do you use your laptop for? has it improved or made your teaching easier? etc.
Technorati Tags: laptops, teacher laptops
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08.22.06
Posted in future paradigms at 2:46 pm by sbetts
Lexxe is a new type of search engine — a web 2.0 engine. Just enter your question and wait for the clustered results. Although in alpha, this is a great new tool for students and laymen alike.
Lexxe is designed to extract short answers quickly, instead of finding the page on which the answer might be located. It emphasizes the processing of language rather than symbols - using the level of words and the meanings associated with them. I am a crossword puzzle buff and Lexxe is my last resort to solve those testy New York Times Sunday editions.
There are other new social searches — I have Swiki on on one of my Blog pages. Haven’t tried, but have heard much ado about: Rollyo and Clusty
Linguistic searches, collaboratives searches — pretty soon, the web will be asking me the questions before I know I want the answers.
technorati tags:search, web2.0
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08.16.06
Posted in NECC, NECC06 at 1:28 pm by sbetts
Beautiful weather, great sessions, and excitement in the air – NECC 2006 was a fantastic way to spend the 4th of July. Although this wasn’t my first time to attend NECC, it was the most memorable as I was privileged to participate wearing several hats:
- And most importantly, represented ACTEM at several regional meetings.
We may at times feel that Maine is a bit removed from the rest of the states. I can assure you Maine educators are known and respected as innovators in Educational Technology. Teachers across the nation are very interested (and even a bit jealous) of our position in one-to-one technology, our statewide ATM project and our “independent” way of thinking. Maine was mentioned in Nicholas Negroponte’s keynote address and David Trask’s name was referenced during several presentations in the Open Source lab. Although I am really ‘from away’, I was proud to wear the Maine label on my name-tag.
One meeting was very important to the membership of ACTEM. The New England Regional meeting of ISTE affiliates produced some lofty goals. It was attended by representatives from MA, NH, RI, CT, and ME. There were many ideas for sharing and collaboration brainstormed. Such as:
- Sharing Conferences
- Keynote feedback
- Summer Institutes
- Links to each others site
- Political Regional Advocacy Group — white papers, letters etc.
- Group Buying Power
- Sharing the information about other state situations.
The most exciting result was the beginning of a Regional Affiliate Group to address some of these ideas. The first Regional meeting, with requested attendance from officers of all state affiliates, will be held at the Nashua Sheraton with arrival Friday evening and meeting on Saturday October 6 – 7, 2006. This is a very enthusiastic group which has the support of ISTE and the desire to combine resources and ideas to improve technology education in the northeast. Dennis Crowe was also present at this meeting and I believe we can both support sending as many representatives as possible to this organizational meeting. If we hope to continue to make a difference, collaboration across New England is a step in the right direction.
As a point of information, the Regional Technology Conferences from this group are:
- NH - week after Thanksgiving 2000 “daily attendees” Christa McAuliffe Nashua, NH
- Mass Cue mid November Sturbridge, MA
- CECA on October 23rd at Crowne Plaza Cromwell, Connecticut. www.ceca-ct.org for information Conference this year will focus on communications. All attendees will receive an i-Pod with registration. Expecting @ 750 – 800.
- ACTEM October 12 - 13, 2006 Augusta Civic Center evening and a day
- RIEMA - April 300 people one day–Crowne Plaza; Warwick, RI
- RISTE - Currently does not have a conference.
One of the suggestions was to attend each others conferences (at a reduced rate) when possible.
I thank ACTEM for supporting me in my NECC experience and hope that many more members can travel to Atlanta in 2007. If you were unable to make the trip to San Diego this year, the links provided at the top may enable you to review and peruse some of the exciting events. If you were there, I hope you enjoyed the trip and came back to Maine renewed and motivated for the next tech adventure in education.
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08.08.06
Posted in Blogs, future paradigms at 2:30 pm by sbetts
Just downloaded Flock - it looks like a winner based on Firefox; built in blog posting; rss reader and photo uploader. So, I just have to attempt the blog first. Wondering what other fascinating new gems the techies out there found this summer.
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