Kurt wants us to take action in three areas:

• 21st Century Skills
• Robust support systems that function “just in time.”
• Innovative teaching and learning to keep pace in an increasingly digital world.

Kurt visited Minnesota a couple weeks before his keynote (something I’ve never seen before) and stopped to visit some schools.

• He saw the 1-to-1 program at Oak-Land Junior High School in Stillwater.
• Andy Weaver at using technology to study falcons.
• American Indian Magnet School and World Cultures Magnet School in St. Paul.
• New Country School
• Scot Hovan, Kate Noreen, and Patrick Crothers at Mahtomedi High School
• Dave Casey at Buffalo Community Middle School who is doing amazing things with his social studies students
• Edina Public Schools
• Northrop Urban Environmental Learning Center in Minneapolis

What trends did he see?

• Relentless, intense passion
• Support system (technical and teching and learning)
• More school-wide integration

Kurt observed some transitions underway in Minnesota and elsewhere:

• From purchased licenses to Web 2.0 and open source
• Application-based to Web-based and mobile learning
• Isolated and offline to collaborative and online
• Copyrighted content to shared content
• Submitting reports to blogs and web publishing

What is the future of technology in education? It’s already here, it’s just not in every school yet.

How can we move forward?

• Step 1: Where are we?
• Step 2: Reach a broad consensus on a clear message (vision or goal).
• Step 3: Meet them where they are and use your “bag of tricks” to move resources toward achieving the vision.

Kurt talked about how to advocate for your vision. Prepare a “One-pager” that you can give to key decision makers. Include the following things and customize your one-pager for each audience.

• Name
• Compelling vision
• Brief overview of history
• Rationale (why is this essential)
• Funding request (include recurring and non-recurring costs)
• Research base

Also, develop an “elevator pitch” that you can deliver to a decision maker in 30 seconds in any setting. One of Kurt’s recommendations: “Make your friends before you need them.”

Podcast examples

• Radio WillowWeb
• Grammar Girl

Equipment

• Rode Podcaster microphone
• M-Audio MicroTrack
• Marantz PMD-670

Copyright

• Creative Commons and ccMixter
• Freeplaymusic.com

I’ll update some more after this afternoon’s session.

If you can’t make it to NECC, or even if you want to expand your NECC experience, you can subscribe to Conference Connections in iTunes by clicking here.

Spread the word. Tell your friends. Heck, you can even tell people you don’t like all that much.

NECC is back and in Atlanta this year. I’ll be doing two identical half-day workshops (Podcasting—The New Voice for Learners) with a fellow ADE and all-around cool guy Joe Morelock from Oregon. In addition, I’m leading a team of Apple Distinguished Educators who will be producing the official NECC podcast channel on behalf of ISTE.

I’m really looking forward to NECC this year. Every year there are more friends to meet and greet. I’m very impressed with how ISTE continues to embrace blogging, podcasting, and other forms of web publishing. ISTE is really way out in front on this stuff compared to any other conference I’ve attended in the last couple years. They’re even getting on board with a systematic approach to Technorati tagging courtesy of Steve Hargadon.

See you there.

The Conference Connections page at ALI has all the information about the channel including a chance to rate each episode and leave comments. Our goal is to capture some of the best content from ed tech conference throughout the year. I’m thinking of it as IT Conversations for the ed tech market.

Here’s the RSS URL for the podcast. Click here to see the podcast info and subscribe in iTunes. I hope you’ll give the podcast a listen and that you’ll find something really interesting.

*Visit ISTE on MySpace*

Known to most people as the premier social networking site, MySpace is home to tens of millions of users. People of all ages use this free service to communicate with one another through pictures, videos, blogs, and discussion groups.

ISTE recently established its own MySpace presence. Check out our profile at www.myspace.com/iste_org and then stay tuned as we populate our blog (be sure to subscribe), send out useful resources through bulletins, and create groups to better serve our members. We look forward to seeing you there!

*ISTE Establishes Headquarters in Second Life*

Second Life, a multi‑user virtual environment (MUVE), is becoming a popular venue for online learning. Along with 18 other educational entities, ISTE recently built its Second Life headquarters on EduIsland, which provides a space for educators to network, collaborate, and learn about education opportunities and best practices in Second Life.

I’m not really sure what to make of this. ISTE is either really pushing the envelope here or quite out of touch with the average ISTE member…or both. I haven’t logged in to Second Life in several months, but maybe I’ll pay EduIsland a visit.

iste, myspace, secondlife

I was talking to Scott on the phone recently asking him about which professional organizations were doing good work on behalf of people like me—tech directors in medium-sized schools. It doesn’t sound like there’s much out there. ISTE is heavy on the instructional side and CoSN seems to cater to really big districts. I’d be curious to know what professional organizations that other ed tech leaders find useful.

• Introducing the Read/Write Web: Challenges, Opportunities, and Implications, July 5, 2:00–3:00, Room 6D
• Learning To Go: The iPod in Education (workshop), July 6, 8:30–11:30, Room 15B
• Savvy Technologist Podcast, July 6, 5:00–6:00, Room 31B
• Making Podcasts in the Classroom, every day, Apple booth

I doubt I’ll be making it to many other sessions this year. Stop by and say hello.

necc, necc2006, apple, ipod

The Hopkins Instructional Technology Standards (HITS) were developed by the Hopkins School District to define a set of technology skill expectations for all K–6 students. The HITS were developed and refined by many Hopkins educators over a number of years and reflect the Hopkins curriculum, portions of ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S), and the technology integration work that has been done in Hopkins over the past few years.

Each grade level standard includes a description of the skills and a checklist. Items from the HITS appear on student report cards and are assessed on a completed/not completed basis. Work on standards beyond the 6th grade are underway and will be included here once they are completed and approved.

The bulk of the standards were developed before I started working in Hopkins, but it’s been my pleasure to help with some refinements. I’m especially glad that our district’s leadership has decided to make this work available to all under Creative Commons licensing. Although it’s not required by the license, I’d love to hear from anyone who finds these standards useful enough to incorporate into their own district’s work.