Adobe Breakfast July 11, 2006
Posted by lrjohnson in : NECC2006 , add a commentNo conference is complete without going to presentations by vendors. It is a great opportunity to help out on the food budget and at the same time network with your table. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I had attended the Adobe presentation at FETC but they did it right this time!
Three different educators shared what they were using Adobe for. I need to follow up with Adobe Breeze. You first put together a PowerPoint presentation and then put it in Adobe Breeze. This allows you to take PowerPoint up to another level and include handouts for tutorials or assignments.
A media specialist from Florida gave a great presentation on how she uses Adobe Photoshop with the students for visual literacy projects. Students worked together to create the images that would tell the story. With the students creating their own book covers using the program the potential for sharing book hooks is tremendous. Half of the screen is an intro to the book and the other half the cover they created. Gave me lots of ideas and she will be presenting at FAME in November!
The last one was a film and design class from Bellarmine HS. Unfortunately I did not catch where they were from and thinking it was a unique name I planned to go on their web page but there are a lot of Bellarmine High Schools! The teacher showed the awesome projects the students did for their film and design class with the purpose to taek them from Academic to Industry. They actually did designs for companies. With the expanded venue for viewing the students took great pride in their work and it showed in all their products. They did logos, CD covers, posters, trailers…
Keynote: DeWitt Jones
Posted by lrjohnson in : NECC2006 , add a commentImmediately get the video online of his presentation. The web site is http://www.DewittJones.com The beauty of his photography behind him as he presented was awesome! What he had to say was very inspiring. Before he spoke they used Turning Point, an immediate response system that polled the audience on what we thought was needed for the transformation of education to meet the needs of the digital generation and almost half said Visionary Leadership.
Jones was a great follow up for that! He spoke of having a vision, passion, creativity and a dream. He himself read National Geographic by flashlight as a kid. He had a dream and he persisted in spite of the family push for business through acceptance at Harvard. He spoke of National Geographic’s passion for sharing what is right with the world. (Don’t we need to change our focus in the news?) He spoke of hearing Robert Frost’s poems and the impact the words had on him.
One thing that really hit home was discipline and commitment are non-issues when you have passion. He spoke of the view we have, is it seeing the possibilities? The stone chipper vs the cathedral builder?
He talked about in photography there is more than one right answer. Nature is beauty and possibility. We need to be willing to take a risk. Open ourselves to the possibilities and remember that is is not what will I take but what will I be given.
Celebrate our journey in life with gratitude and grace. He ended it with know our purpose, have passion, vision and values!
What a perfect opening session!