15 October 2008

ILC Conference 2008

Posted by BaBa under: Travel .

Today was a full day at the conference. The onboard GPS system in the car is not working well. I cannot even enter San Jose. I have to scan through San to find it. There is no listing for the street where the conference center is located. I got a map from the hotel and made it to the conference center by working between the map and the poorly functioning GPS.

The conference is located adjacent to the Marriott and Hyatt. It is a nice and large facility with spacious meeting rooms and a good exhibition area. I visited vendors in the morning and checked out the new technology offerings from the vendors. I visited the Adobe booth and learned about the new release of CS4. I got a chance to see one of the national reps that I have gotten to work with over the last few years. It was nice to catch up with news about software and what is going on in our personal and professional lives.

I attended sessions on video podcasting and on teaching to master material. The one on mastery was very interesting as they turned the classroom inside out. The two teachers from Colorado prepared their material for lectures and assigned that as homework. Class time is for what used to be homework. Students work problems in class and learn new material at home. This was for physics being taught in Colorado. It is an interesting concept. I might be able to do some of this with some online tutorials for particular steps in teaching computer software programs. I might also be able to get some of the students to help create a tutorial or two. I will just have to see how this will play out.

My session was the last one of the day. Conference attendance was dramatically lower this year. This is a problem caused by shrinking budgets just starting to be affected by the downturn in the economy. I overheard many teachers talking about the attendance and budget problems. The last session of the day is one of the hardest to draw an audience. This time was no exception and with the smaller overall attendance, I faced a double whammy. I spoke to just a few people, but they were interested and the talk was successful from that point.

I ran into Bob and we agreed to meet for dinner after my session. We talked about Filemaker and some opportunities that he is working on. Bob will be working to take a group of students to Antarica for 2 weeks and later to the Amazon for 2 weeks. I am going to talk to him further about the Antartica trip. His ears really picked up when he learned that I was a professional photographer. It sounds like a wonderful trip to see Antartica through the eyes of motivated students and to photograph the wildlife, scenery and kids. It is a remote possibility that this will ever happen, but I will see what develops.

A short ride back to the hotel and some work online before bed would complete the night along with packing for the trip home tomorrow.

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