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.

Fishing in Florida

Today was quite the day. After getting into Johns condo at 1:15 AM last night. We stayed up talking until three in the morning. We were up at 7:00 AM the next day heading out the door for a day of fishing. We got the boat put in the water,

fueled up, and out to sea we headed. We went about 30 miles off shore, and started fishing. On our way out we came across a few schools of flying fish. It was really cool. I tried to get a picture of them, but wasn’t successful. It is amazing to see these fish fly out of the water and cruise about a foot above the surface of the water for longer than seems natural. I had seen pictures of flying fish, but seeing them in person was really a treat.

Fishing in Florida is a little different than other fishing that I have done. Fishing down here you use out-riggers to help keep the lines from getting tangled. When you are salmon fishing you need to use a downrigger or a pink lady. When you are fishing in Florida you don’t use either. The lure skims across the top of the water. The fish that you are catching come up to the surface when they take the bait. Sometimes they even come flying out of the water when they strike. We had four lines out at once. When a fish hit, Chick and I would take turns reeling them in. Chick went first and caught a Bonito Tuna, which were about 8 pounds.

They are really interesting fish. They are very solid. When you grab a salmon it has some squeeze to it, but that is not the case with tuna they are like a brick. The next fish on the line I took and it turned out to be a Barracuda, which we don’t eat, so we threw it back. It had really long razor sharp teeth. The next fish on was a huge Mahi Mahi. Chick fought it for a while, and then passed the pole off to me. I fought it into the boat, but at the last second it dove under the motors and the line broke. 🙁 We fished until 2:30 P.M. when the ocean started to have some bigger waves, and a few storms were starting to pop up. When we headed in, Chick and I had each caught a King Mackerel, and a Bonito Tuna.

When we got back to the marina we had the boat lifted back out of the water and put back in its storage place in the boat yard. We did a quick job of cleaning up the boat because the marina was closing and we didn’t want to get locked in.

Back at the condo we hopped in the pool to wash off the salt from the ocean. We interspersed that with a little hot tubbing and then went out to dinner.We ate at a place called “The Sandy Grill” Its a little hole in the wall place down by the beach. They had 35 cent oysters and shrimp since it was a Tuesday night. I ended up getting a Baja Bowl which is like a taco salad, except it has rice, black beans, chicken, sour cream, and guacamole. It was pretty tasty… I also stole a couple of Rebeccas oysters.

It is now 10:00 at night, and I am wiped out. I think I am going to head to bed and see what tomorrow brings. To see more pictrues of the trip check out the Florida section of the gallery.

Quick Post

After a fast 6 days in Cook, I am sitting in the Hibbing Airport, which is now one of my favorite airports due to its extremely fast free internet connection.  I am on my way to Florida for the week. John, Chick, Mia, and I will be presenting at Educomm 2006.  I have worked up a little flyer for the session Mia and I are doing.

Today before I left the lake, I hopped on line and bought my Florida fishing liscense.  We are going fishing early tomorrow morning.  John said that we may be able to catch  mahi mahi, sailfish, wahoo, marlin, and whatever else might be swimming off of the Florida cost.

Erin and I celebrated our first annaversery yesterday.  Crazy that a year ago today we were flying out to Hawaii for our honeymoon.  It has been a really quick year.  We spent the day out on the lake tubing and getting some sun.  I got a bit of a burn.  Trisha asked me if I ever get a tan, or if I only turn red.  I am starting to wonder myself.  We’ll see how that all works out this summer.

Well, Im going to work on a little keynote for the presentation on Thursday.

Nearing the end….

Today went pretty well.  It’s nice having people over.  With Erin gone it would really be terrible to be here by myself without anyone to hang out with.  The Holts and the Johnsons have been kind enough to have me over quite a bit.

Tonight we had a little barbecue outside the 14 plex.  Jason cooked hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill, and there were quite a few people over.  It was a good time.

I had a really cool website I was going to show you, but I lost the link.  I’ll see if I can find it tomorrow.  🙁

I have to be at work at 8:00 tomorrow, and since it is almost 1:30 AM, I figure it’s time for me to hit the sack.

CASC

Today is the first day of CASC which stands for content area standing committee.  A few teachers from across the district are here in Unalakleet to help revise the standards that are the ground work of our instructional moodle.  I am in the Technology session.  The tech standards were created by one individual about four years ago.  They have not been modified, and need a little improvement.

Randy is running the show. We started by breaking down the basic usage and mechanics we thought were important in technology. We then broke that down into the tools that you would need to facilitate the technology use. We then broke down the tools into what they each consisted of. Darla is putting it all into the bssd wiki if you’d like to take a look.

Sounds like we are heading over to a barbecue with the Holts and the Johnsons and friends this evening. It should be a good time.

Home from Homer

Last weekend Erin and I went to Homer.  She had to work, and I had to take a couple days off.  So when she was done working with the project GRAD crew from down there we did a little Halibut fishing, and spent some time together outside of the usual Unalakleet hustle and bustle.  We did fairly well on the halibut boat.  We didn’t catch big fish, but we were able to catch our limit of 2 fish each.  We ended up with about 50 pounds of fish.  We took the filets to a company that packages it into whatever size you want, flash freeze it, and box it up for you.  We were planning on sending most of it down to MN, so we had them make one box weigh 50 pounds and put the excess into another box.  So we ended up with a box weighing 50 pounds on the dot that Erin took down to Minnesota, and another box with three packages in it which I brought up to Unalakleet with me.  We took some pictures which you can find at the Homer section of the gallery.

AAA

Made it back home today. After our little trip to Stebbins Randy and I finished up this afternoon in time to catch the hageland flight back to Unalakleet. We stopped off in St. Michael to drop off some mail, and in the proccess the plane got a little stuck in the soft gravel on the side of the runway. They tried hooking a truck on the front to pull us out, that didn’t work so well. Here is a picture and a video of the whole ordeal.

[QUICKTIME http://www.bbryson.com/movies/stuck.mov 321 257]

Stebbins Mission

After an evening at home, I am off on the road again.  This time to Stebbins which is one of our larger schools in the district.  Hopped on Doug Air (the BSSD plane) at 9:00 this morning.  A quick 40 minute flight over the crumbling ocean ice brought us to the little gravel strip just outside the village of Stebbins.  Randy and I spent the morning getting equipment and web space ready for working with the students after they finished up with their structured morning classes.  I worked with a couple of girls who promptly imported the vide from the last couple years of the Native Dance Festival.  They chopped the clips up in to roughly 5 minute pieces, and then got them ready to be compressed.  Since compression is really a sit and wait step in the process I let that run through the evening.  The girls will work with me tomorrow to get it up on the web.  Some of the clips are kind of big which will make it a slow download for dial up users, but those of you with high speed connections will be able to view them in a matter of minutes.

After we get done here I will be heading to Homer to go halibut fishing with Erin.  I still have to take a couple of days off to stay under contract, and Erin was going to Homer for work, so we decided to meet up down there for a little get away.  We signed up for a day long halibut charter.  We are hoping to be able to fill our freezer with tasty halibut for next year.  We’ll see how lucky we are that day.  I hope Erin gets one.  It is pretty fun to pull in those big fish.

ASTE

Since I havn’t blogged in a few days I will catch you up quickly on my adventures of late.   I am sitting in a meeting room at the millennium hotel in Anchorage.  We are in our second morning of an ASTE board meeting.  The weekend has gone pretty fast.  We went out to dinner Friday evening at the Brewhouse.  Dinner was very tasty.  Dan Foote (a guy we contract with for his tech services) was there, along with the rest of the board, the CEO of United Utilities, and the head honcho in Alaska for ATT.

After dinner we tried to go out to see Mission Impossible 3, but the theater closed at 10:30 so we missed out on that.  Saturday morning we started out at 8:00 working our way through the agenda.  We took a bit of a break for lunch, and then ended around 5:20 P.M.  We went out to dinner at Simon and Seafords.  A very nice resturant down by the ocean in Anchorage.   I had a very tasty ceaser salad and new york strip steak with blue chease dressing, and crem brule for dessert.  After dinner we went around shopping to a few places, and then met up with my parents back at the hotel.  We visited for while and then crashed for the evening.

Today we started out at 8:00 AM again.  Afully early to be up on a weekend, but thats part of the deal I guess.  The meetings went pretty fast.  One of the things I was working on was a logo for next years ASTE conference.  Here are the ones I threw together really quckly.  Let me know what you think.

So I had better get on the plane.

I Eat Brainz

Well, I played around with my itunes library a bit today.  There is a really cool app called “I Eat Brainz” that looks at your iTunes library and updates the titles, artists, and album information.  I have a few CD’s in my collection that I ripped ;)  on my old computer and never put the track names in.  So my new machine can’t figure out the information using the CDDB access built into iTunes.  So its nice to get the library all filled out.

Today went pretty fast.  John was busy working on the Dart project today, so we didn’t get to work together at all.  Randy was still in Wales working with the staff ther.  Hageland decided they didn’t want to fly out there and pick him up this afternoon, so he go stuck in Nome for the evening.  Im sure he wasn’t too happy about that.  Its pretty lame that they can decide to just not go out because they don’t feel like it.

Tonight is the first night since we got the 4-wheeler going that Erin and I didn’t go for a ride.  We had Josh over for dinner.  Tacos and strawberry margaritas were tasty.  We then watched Alias and Lost.  Both were new episodes, and had crazy plot twists.