TEXAS my state!

NECC 2008 Expectations

As I mentioned in the previous blog post, I’m trying to round-up folks
to attend NECC 2008 from my District. The main challenge is that this is
the mandated vacation week for district staff…so, these folks are
giving up their only summer vacation to attend NECC 2008. It seems like
a great trade-off to me–although my District isn’t paying for me to
attend at this time.

However, one of the requirements of paying for folks to attend NECC 2008
using federal funds is that there has to be some expectation. A few
years ago, one of my supervisors came up with the idea of "give back."
Given the task of coming up with some last minute expectations, I put
the following together. However, I would love to hear what expectations
you folks have for your own folks who are attending conferences at
District expense.

Howdy! Thank you for your interest in attending the NECC 2008 Conference
taking place June 30-July 2, 2008. This will be an exciting event. You
can find more information out online about the Conference–including
planning what workshop sessions you’ll be attending–at http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/

This
is confirmation that Instructional Technology Services is working to
register you for the NECC 2008 Conference. You may receive additional
confirmations as IT works to register you for the NECC 2008 Conference
from ISTE NECC registrations.

Give Back Expectation
As
shared in the invitational email sent earlier, there are certain
expectations for giving back. Participants at NECC 2008 will be expected
to deliver 2, two-hour presentations about what they learned at NECC
2008 and submit a short form sharing how they are going to implement
that learning at their campus for the 2008-2009 school year. Give back
completion must be recorded by December, 2008.

Please report your
Give Back via this web page: [link removed - link pointed to online
dbase]

Each presentation–which you are encouraged to organize by
creating a blog, a wiki, a Powerpoint or Word document–should address
how you in your position as "Chief Learner-in-Charge" and as facilitator
of learning for others are becoming more technologically literate.

Technology
literacy is the ability to responsibly, creatively, and effectively use
appropriate technology to:

* communicate;
* access, collect,
manage, integrate, and evaluate information;
* solve problems and
create solutions;
* build and share knowledge; and
* improve and
enhance learning in all subject areas and experiences.

Questions
you might consider as you attend the Conference:
1. How are you
integrating technology into your campus improvement plans, lesson plans
and sharing expectations for building technology literacy with students
and staff?
2. What should those expectations be?
3. How can you
ensure you and your campus are addressing national education technology
standards for students and teachers?

You can find a list of
recommended sessions below.

I encourage you to select one or
two aspects of what you learn at NECC 2008 regarding these subjects to
share back with your campus. Thank you and I look forward to seeing you
at NECC 2008!

As I review this email–which I cranked out pretty quickly to send to
folks attending NECC 2008–I know I didn’t do as good a job as I could
have. I would love to read about how you’ve accomplished this, and I’m
open to suggestions.