Presentation at EduComm2006

So there I was sitting on a balcony over looking the Florida coastline.  I look at my watch 1:45 AM…. Ouch, I present in 7 hours.  Back to the computer I send my concentration.  Flipping between a keynote presentation and google earth.  What a great way to show everyone where we actually live.  Here is what I ended up with.

[QUICKTIME http://www.bbryson.com/movies/fla_bssd.mp4 320 260]

After heading to bed at a little after 2:00 A.M., Chick began to snore. I was already a bit wired, and was having difficulties falling asleep.  So I got up and went back out on the balcony and fell sound asleep on the swing out there listening to the waves crash on the beach.

At 5:00 AM, chick got up and came out to check email.  I got up and took a shower hoping to be revived for the day to come.  John, Chick, Mia, and myself piled into the car at 7:00 and headed to the convention center just outside of Orlando.  We were of course in the middle of rush hour traffic, so it took us quite some time to get there.

Mia and I presented at 9:00 A.M.  The presentation went really well.  Mia counted 30 participants in the session.  We talked about our student broadcasting team, and all the hard work they do.  Then talked about audio and video podcasting how it can be done in the classroom as an alternate assessment incorporating differentiated instruction.  We then talked about how podcasting could be used as a powerful staff development tool to push out pdf documents, or examples on how things should be taught, filled out, or interpreted.

The session ended up taking the whole hour.  We showed them some clips from a couple of the broadcast as well as some footage from the Iditarod coverage the kids worked on.  At the end of the presentation we had quite a few people come up and tell us how much they enjoyed the presentation.  So that was nice to hear.  We had some good questions about some of the procedures we have for creating the podcasts, and what we do about liability.  I think we may have even made a few contacts for next year.  Cross your fingers.  I am really hoping to start up a national student news broadcast next year.  It would be pretty revolutionary.

So after our session was finished we went down to the exhibit floor to wander around all the booths.  It looked like there were quite a bit more booths than were represented at MacWorld this year.  And the booths were huge. Everyone had gigantic projector screens and flat panel TVs and staff.  Vendors must have spent a fortune to be part of this conference.

We did find something really cool.  Tanburg is selling a “portable” dish system for video conferencing on the road.  We are interested in getting one we could use for next years Iditarod coverage.  It would allow us to do live broadcasting from the trail. This dish collapsed down into its own box, and can auto set up in 90 seconds.  If we find the money for this unit, we would ditch the trailer, because how many roads do we have around us any way, and put it on a sled system, so we could pull it behind a snowmachine, or a dog team.  We would really get the Iditarod Trail Committee excited if we were able to pull that off.  They were already not too impressed with what our students were able to produce this year.  They feel that is cuts into the profits they should be making off of the event.  Heaven forbid our students learn while attending an event that goes right though their villages.

After walking around the exhibit hall for a while, and talking to the different vendors, it was moving towards the time for John to present.  So we headed up to the room he would be presenting from.  He started up at around 3:40 and went for an hour.  His crew was a little more subdued than the ones Mia and I had.  He would ask if anyone had any questions, and they would just sit there.  Pretty lame.  I think John did a great job presenting, and the information was very valuable.  I hope they were able to see how relevant it is for what they are doing in their schools.

After he was finished up we decided to head back to the condo.  On the way out there was a new conference getting started that had reserved the same convention center for the evening.  There were some interesting people they were paying t great people at the door.  Chick shot this photo, and I figured I’d share it with you all so you can see how crazy these big cities can get.

That’s right a lycra body suite.  Who wares something like that?  Better yet, who picks that out and says hey we should get some girls to wear these at our next conference to be greeters at the doors.  Pretty crazy.

We were stuck in rush hour traffic on the way back to the condo as well.  So by the time we made it back it was almost 7:00 P.M.  We went out to a sea food restaurant for dinner.  The food was tasty, but wiped me out since I was short on sleep.

Sounds like tomorrow we will be doing some more work.  I fly back to MN on Saturday.  I don’t know if I’ll get to do anymore fishing before I leave.  I will have to take off before we would have the chance to get out, and I don’t want to stop a fishing trip in the middle of it so I can catch a plane.

All for now…. Time to hit the sack.