The Techno Cheetah

I’ve been home for a little over a week now since the NECC conference in San Antonio and I’ve had some time to digest all the information.  First, I just could not get over how big the conference was.  It was amazing to me the number of people that are interested in educational technology and came from all over the globe to learn more about it. According to this article from the ISTE website there were:

12,654 registered attendees

577 international attendees from approximately 57 nations

88 registered journalists from around the globe attended NECC, plus hundreds of dedicated bloggers

The size of the vendor hall was also mind-blowing.  It was an amusement park atmosphere only without the rides and people are trying to sell you things   I tried to capture the size of the vendor hall but I don’t think the pictures really do a justice.

Again, from the ISTE article:

The largest educational technology event in the nation, spanning five and one half football fields, featured 1,340 booths and 479 companies displaying hardware, software, educational and technical publishing, and equipment/services emphasizing the use of technology by students and education professionals.

The Office of Media and Educational Technology has set up a blog where attendees from the Howard County school system wrote about what they learned at the conference.  You can read about two of the sessions I attended (here and here) as well as what others HCPSS employees learned at the conference.

I’m excited to use some of the ideas I came away with this upcoming year.

The NECC conference has been very busy but I did have some time to walk around San Antonio and take some pictures. I could just post the pictures I’ve taken on this blog.  But, I wanted to do some a little more unique . . .

A few months ago I came across a website called Animoto.  Animoto will automatically create a montage video of pictures you upload to their website with music (either from your computer or Animoto’s selection).  The final product will look like a professional music video.  Here’s my Animoto video of sites around San Antonio:

For more information about some of the sites in the video, click on the links below.

The Alamo

The Riverwalk

The Torch of Friendship

Tower of the Americas

On Friday, I arrived in San Antonio, Texas for a conference on education technology.  The National Education Computing Conference (NECC for short) is put on by the International Society for Technology in Education (or ISTE).  This is the first year I’ve attended the NECC conference and I’m very excited.  I hope to return with a lot of ideas for lessons and activities for next school year.