My First NECC: The big tech show still resonates for two first-timers

NECC, the big National Educational Computing Conference, has come and gone, but attendees, both in person and virtual, are still basking in the glow of all that sharing. School librarians Keisa Williams of Monarch Academy, a K–5 charter school in Oakland, CA, and Melissa Techman of Broadus Wood Elementary School in Albemarle Co., VA (pictured above), who met on Twitter, share their first-time impressions of NECC.— Kathy Ishizuka (@kishizuka, @sljournal on Twitter)

Keisa Williams (@keisawilliams): If not for my Twitter connections, I would not have made it to NECC. Melissa and I had only exchanged a few tweets when she asked if I would be attending the conference. But my district wasn’t funding out-of-state professional development. After Melissa offered to hold a bake sale to get me to DC, my principal was so moved that she offered to pay my fee. So I flew to Charlottesville, VA, Melissa’s hometown, in late June and together we drove up to NECC.

When I announced on Twitter that I would be attending the conference, librarian rockstar Joyce Valenza asked me to participate in the Library 2.0 Smackdown, a lively session for sharing best practices and Web 2.0 tools. I was honored to join the panel of accomplished library leaders Valenza, Cathy Jo Nelson, Karen Kliegman, and Wendy Stephens. Together, we planned the entire event via Skype and collaboratively populated a wiki with resources related to digital storytelling, reading promotion, information fluency, digital citizenship, and other great stuff. Each panelist had three minutes to share her best learning tool and then the audience members were invited to contribute. It was difficult to select my top choices, but I decided on a few that I thought could be implemented immediately. One idea was to create a Dial-A-Story line using the school's existing phone system, where students, parents, and teachers could record stories each day. I also introduced the Internet Archive as a way to get around broken links. What I loved about this session is that everyone was engaged and you could feel the energy in the room as my fellow teacher-librarians shared, learned, and exchanged ideas.

David V. Loertscher, professor at San Jose State School of Library and Information Science, concluded the session by asking "So What?" He's almost as well known for posing that question to get media specialists to think critically as he is for his landmark work on the importance of school libraries and his book, Ban Those Bird Units! Helping teachers and students use online tools is a necessary part of our job, but we need to consciously focus on student achievement as the goal. Many technology leaders at NECC talked about the need to not let the "wow" part of online tools be the topic; Loertscher has been ahead of the curve on this.

At NECC, I thought I’d learn new and exciting ways to use Web 2.0 tools with my students. Instead, I received something more valuable: the gift of time spent shoulder to shoulder with some of the best and brightest educators. I would love to attend NECC again. But I’d spend more time on the conference floor, browsing poster sessions and schmoozing at Tweet-ups. Life is too short to watch PowerPoints. I want to engage with people.

Melissa Techman (@mtechman): Keisa was not like her juggling avatar! She’s tall, elegant, and calmer than her “omni-capable” Twitter persona. Did you know that her school was the #1 National Distinguished Title I School last year for making the highest academic gains in her state?

Although we had nailed down a daily conference schedule, we walked out of many sessions as some weren't covering new ground for us. Meanwhile, other attendees, with little or no experience with online tools, were also frustrated by the programming, feeling left out or inadequate. ISTE is such an inclusive and supportive organization, I'm betting they'll address this. Follow up blog posts talked about how to make some sessions less daunting for beginners to teaching with technology. In the future, program descriptions and signage could indicate levels, and some of the helpful volunteer tutors could be attached to sessions, as well as stationed at the lounges or playgrounds. Sessions with wikis already set up really helped to get participants up to speed before they went to DC.

In our case, we felt the lure of conversations. We talked to librarians and tech-savvy educators at the Blogger’s Lounge, in the halls, at sessions and in bars for Tweet-ups! As Deven Black, Special Ed teacher at Middle School 127 in New York City, said, “With all these great conversations, you can’t help but learn!”

The SIGMS (Special Interest Group for Media Specialists) forum was inspiring. "Your students live in the cloud," said forum panelist Christopher Harris, coordinator of the school library system of the Genesee Valley (NY) BOCES. "We need to not commute to the cloud, we need to LIVE in the cloud." (For more on the topic, see "Go Higher With Cloud Computing.")

Another concept of Harris's: Find a Geek. Not your inner geek, but a geek partner who can help you create apps (like his Fish4Info, which has made his system's catalogs open to added content and images). Harris asked the audience, "How many have a college nearby?" and almost every hand went up. The he told us to seek out an engineering or computer science grad student and brainstorm joint projects. We can't afford them after they graduate, he said. Harris later told me of his latest dream: an app that would turn his library catalog into a game for cell phones.

Takeaways? The best resources and connections. And the conversations continue, on blogs, on Twitter, on wikis. We’ll keep meeting, talking, and remembering. NECC was perfectly tailored to the way school librarians like to find information and build understanding: collaboratively.

FREE resources too good to miss:

ArtJunction
Not just to share with art teachers! This site has great stuff for students and parents.

Authorstream
Online slideshow maker that retains all the video or audio effects when you insert.

C-SPAN Classroom
Free resources for teaching Civics and U.S. Government. Video clips and discussion guides are mainly for secondary.

Center for History and New Media
Tons of resources for Social Studies, with an emphasis on critical thinking.

FlikrStorm
Find images, save to a "tray" and then give students the URL for the tray. Great idea for research project tool, when you want to limit choices and omit risky image searches.

K12 Online Video Podcasts
Download these to watch and see useful technology rich lessons. PrimaryAcess was one featured site. Great to watch when you're stuck on a plane, said Keisa!

Learn to be Healthy
Award-winning K-12 interactive health education site. A great one to share with teachers. Site has lessons, games, resources, pre and post assessments.

PrimaryAccess
Digital storytelling using primary resource materials. Students can make their own short history documentary, using pre-loaded image banks.

Quietube
Removes ads, trailers and comments - all your class sees is the Youtube or Vimeo, etc. clip you want them to see.

Secret Builders
A safe, virtual world for children ages 6-14 emphasizing creativity, critical thinking, cultural literacy, and Internet safety using interactive quests .

Thinkfinity
From the merged MarcoPolo and Thinkfinity Literacy Network, this digital learning platform is easy to search by grade level or resource type. One-stop shopping for lessons, media, interactives and assessments.

Universal Design for Learning Tech Toolkit
Wiki full of tips, strategies and sites for helping Special Ed and other students. Check out the Free Text-to-Speech tools.

Yodio
Easy podcast maker, can take pictures and audio from cell phones.