Thanks to the many of you who stopped and talked to me last week at NECC. I know that many are just coming up for air after the long holiday weekend. If you are visiting this blog to find some of the links mentioned, check out the sidebar links under “Span the Gaps” to find the collaborative pilot project we are conducting (Building Learners Project– some spaces still left!), the step by step Wiki Walk-Through, the TeachersFirst Edge reviews of web 2.0 tools, and more. If you teach technology training or teacher ed classes, feel free to share the downloadable handouts, but please email me [cshively (at)sflinc.org] to request permission to copy. We will immediately grant permission for such use. We just like to know where the handouts are going. As a small on-profit, we use those stats to help us obtain grants.

In case you were wondering, the other person with me at the presentation (in the TeachersFirst Tshirt) was Boni Hamilton of the Littleton, Colorado schools. Boni is an ISTE author and member of TeachersFirst’s advisory board. She graciously volunteered to help me out with the session. Boni is an influential technology leader and now a doctoral candidate on sabbatical from her schools.

Thanks again for coming by our presentation. We enjoyed talking with all of you.

See you Wednesday. I hope you will comment here about what you saw and heard when we meet.

It’s at the printer! This is the visual you will see on the huge bulletin board behind the table for our presentation. I have the handouts almost ready, so this blog should have everything our visitors need as supplements to actually talking to Boni Hamilton and me. I can’t wait.

The only thing that saves me is the fact that electronic “stuff” does not trip me or get chewed by my dog as I spread it around looking for the best ways to arrange it for a poster session. I wish I had my “invention” for the four by eight foot bulletin board I will be using: an IP-addressable “frame” that can display anything I send to it from any computer that “knows” the IP address. I could “send” the entire mess (organized, of course) without dealing with airline surcharges, printers in distant cities, or deadlines. I could change it any time. Sure would be nice.

But reality rules for this presentation just as it does for teachers in the classroom every day. I need to deal with the possible barriers, the possibility that someone will “mess up” my stuff, the chance that technology won’t work, and the nightmare scenarios of troublesome and distracting questions (Not from a NECC attendee, for sure!), tight scheduling, etc.  What an appropriate way for me to share the gap between web 2.0 fantasy scenario and classroom reality. I hope you will join me when I get there and hang out here afterwords long enough to tell me what you REALLY thought of it.