Keynote: Sir Ken Robinson
Sir Ken gave a very entertaining talk, reiterating much of what had been previously expressed by Catlin Tucker. What I thought was salient about his keynote was his reminder to focus on preparing students for an unknown future. We don't know what the social, economic, or technological circumstances will be when our students are adults; the best thing we can do is to prepare them with skills to adjust to change.
After the keynote, I spent some time in the exhibit hall; I'll write about that in the next post.
Edtech Costs
Andrew Schwab has been both an IT director and a classroom teacher, so his presentation on "hidden" educational technology costs included both perspectives. He examined not only the up-front costs of desktops, laptops, netbooks, and tablets, but also the ongoing costs of support and maintenance.
Is BYOD a good idea for my school?
This was the best session I attended on Friday. As we begin to think about expanding Bring-Your-Own-Device in our district, I was looking for sessions about implementing BYOD. Dennis Grice teaches at a private school that requires students to bring an internet-enabled device. He went through several conditions that he thought necessary for a successful BYOD, including cloud-based tools; solid wireless connections; training for teachers, students, and parents; and clearly stated technical requirements for student devices. We are well situated for all of those; not everything is complete, but we're working on all of them.
Dennis's presentation is available online here.
