Technology Wonderings

I love how one thing leads to another…After receiving an e-mail about Course Management Alternatives at universities in the Boston area I looked that the pps that was attached to the e-mail.  In the pps, I saw a screenshot of a wiki (which is hosted at Tufts) from the Bureau of Study Council and Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard called Millennial Students:  A conversation.  There are some great links on this wiki-resources from the PBS and PEW project and EDUCAUSE.  One that resource that particularly spoke to me was this video from Michael Wesch and his students at KSU.  I wonder if information like this has been presented in this format to my faculty before…I wonder if hearing from students how disconnected their lives are from their education would make a difference to my faculty… 

I’ve been given the task of finding valuable and inspirational staff development opportunities for my colleagues and I.  I could spout off a bunch of good k-12 technology conferences but being new to higher ed (see below http://scheney.edublogs.org/2008/02/15/transition/), I’m not sure what to say.  So far I’ve come up with:
-EDUCause 2008:  Interaction, Ideas, Inspiration in Orlando, FL from October 28-31.  They don’t have session descriptions posted but looking at last year’s program, I think it would be a good fit for us.  Plus it’s in Orlando…in October…that would be nice.

-ASTD 2008:  This training and development conference is in San Diego, CA from June 1-4 (coming right up) and tracks include designing and delivering learning and facilitating organizational change.  The problem is that it isn’t specifically targeted to Higher Ed but a bonus is that Malcolm Gladwell is a keynote speaker…check out his TED talk. So, any other suggestions.  Conferences that you find so inspirational and worthwhile that you attend every year?!  Please share. 

A colleague passed along this great document by Ben Wilkoff  a middle school teacher in Colorado.  It includes web applications, computer applications, teaching resources, and technology resources that facilitate technology integration and authentic learning.  101resources.pdf