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NECC 2007 - 6/24/07 - Keynote & Opening Reception June 24, 2007

Posted by lperez in : NECC2007 , add a comment

Today I arrived at Atlanta to participate in the 2007 National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in Atlanta, Georgia. NECC is the annual large conference hosted by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). As the incoming chair-elect of the Media Specialists SIG, I look forward to connecting with other school librarians at NECC. Also, since I am an avid user of the virtual reality environment “Second Life”, I look forward to connecting with colleagues there.

In the evening, I attended the ISTE Presidents Address provided by Trina J. Davis, PhD, the incoming ISTE President. Her speech was full of much information and a warm welcome for conference attendees. She issued three challenges to her audience - (1) Provide engaging and authentic learning experiences for our students, (2) embrace global learning, and (3) be a passionate, informed voice advocating for change as we support students participating in the digital age. She also informed the attendees about tomorrow’s exciting unveiling of the refreshed ISTE NETS Standards for Students. She culminated with a quote from Ghandi “We must become the change we want to see!”.

Dr. Davis introduced the opening keynote speaker and futurist, Andrew Zolli. He shared much humor and demographic information which shows the changes in our population - particulary in its multi-cultural growth and the aging of baby boomers coupled with a growth in the population of young persons. One important observation was that we cannot truly predict the nature of technology deep into the future, such as twenty years from now. He inspired us to amplify our creative energies and put our efforts in making the most of the coming changes.

After the keynote address, I hopped a bus over to the Georgia Aquarium, for the Opening Reception. The aquarium, which is the largest in the world, was packed by thousands of ISTE members and their families. I spent time in the large entry foyer at the Second Life exhibit. Here, a large flat-panel monitor and several lap-top stations where logged into the virtual reality environment “Second Life” (SL). Passersby could learn about SL and have some hands-on experience. Simultaneously, within SL, an virtual opening of the ISTE Aquarium was occurring. Avatars within SL could communicate with real-life attendees at the Georgia Aquarium and discuss their experiences in SL. See a picture of the virtual event at http://www.flickr.com/photos/elainetulip/617496326.

Posted by Lisa Perez

NECC 2007 Keynote address

Posted by Debbie Stafford in : NECC2007 , add a comment

The opening/keynote sessionw as well attended. First off we were treated to a preformance of the Atlanta Drum Line, and what a great performance it was!

The keynote speaker was Andrew Zolli (NECC program information)

He is involved in Pop!tech.org and zpluspartners.com

His keynote “” concened the change going on in the world fueled by technology. His opening question “Innovation and Change is imperative” what will it look like if we are successful? His answer, creativity, that everything we do can be done by a computer and even things we don’t know about yet, will later be done by computer leaving us with human creativity.

Not sure that I agree that this is a CHANGE. I feel that technology is being used as new technology has always been used, to ease work, fueling creativity. It is the pace of this change that is significant.

Mr. Zolli’s five areas of change (the two I felt most interesting are highlighted) ;

Demographic Trasnformation — lots of stats on how the world population will change and what that means.
Innovation by Nature — ecological innovation
Learning Places — making learning and innovation happen by creating places that fee the human need for social contact
Coping with Choice and complexity — we must learn to manage choice

Redefining literacy — students can bring to the test tools to take care of the facts and formulas as well as the whole world of information. So what should we be testing?

My rating — an ok keynote, food for thought but for a futurist not sure I saw anything new.

(posted by Deb Stafford)

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Sizing Up America’s School Libraries: The First Annual Report on the AASL Longitudinal Survey of School Library Media Centers

Posted by Floyd Pentlin in : ALA2007 , 1 comment so far

School Libraries Count! A national survey of school library

Keith Curry Lance gave an impressive overview of the preliminary findings of the first AASL longitudinal survey, School Libraries Count! In a well-attended session, Lance described the preliminary findings with the modifying reminder that the complete results will be presented at Reno this October at the national conference.

There were many questions from the audience about possible questions that weren’t asked or suggestions about how to get additional responses for the next survey. The information on the state of America’s school libraries will be collected each year and with each additional year the depth and validity of the information will be more solid. The point is that the only national information about school libraries is collected by the National Center for Educational Statistics and the problem is that their information is only collected every five years and it takes about five years to publish the data. AASL will be able to do better than that.

Results from the survey are reported at the 50 percentile, 75 percentile and 95 percentile levels. This information will tell the reader what half the schools, twenty-five percent of the schools, and five percent are doing in these categories.

Over 5,000 school library media specialists responded to the first-round survey that was an impressive number. Unfortunately, the percentage of schools that were selected specifically to ensure that there was an accurate representative sample came in significantly under the number needed to give a statistically accurate picture of the library situation, but the report is off to a great start. Also interesting was the number of school librarians who responded to the survey who were not AASL members – meaning perhaps that even thought SLMSs were not members of the national organization they perceived the work of this survey to be significant. A corollary would be that they perceive the support by AASL for the survey to be equally significant. Perhaps the ongoing nature of the survey and the publication of its results will filter down to the building-level person and help him/her understand the need for the financial and emotional involvement that comes with being part of an organization that is trying to globally address the issues of school library media centers.

Rather than go into the specifics of the survey results, rest assured that the survey will be posted within a week to the site http://aaslsurvey.org for anyone to download In addition there will an interactive component which will let users to use the data for their own presentations.

Posted by Floyd Pentlin