My First NECC

Wow! What an exciting and enlightening conference experience NECC 2008 was. Despite being unsuccessful in getting into a Moodle presentation (tried 3 different times), I was impressed with the quality of the presentations that I attended. My favorite sessions were Quick and Easy Computer Activities for Kids and Beyond Copy and Paste, both presented by Tammy Worchester. I ended up purchasing two of her books and plan on ordering the others.

I also attended three digital storytelling sessions at NECC: Digital Fluency in the Age of InfoWhelm, Excite and Engage Students in Books with Photo Story 3 Book Trailers, and Literacy in a Digital Classroom which was podcasted. I had already played around with Photostory 3 before the conference and found it very user-friendly. I have a new Macbook through my school district and need to check further into IMovie.

A few of the other sessions I attended were Web 2.0 Meets Grade 2.0 and got these great links, Google Earth for the Elementary Teacher, School Center's updates, and the three general sessions. I also visited the poster sessions on the second floor and took many pictures of various ideas with my cell.

I learned a great deal through collaborating on NECC's 2008 Ning and Twitter. I even ended up joining Second Life but am not quite sure what I'm doing in this virtual world quite yet since I didn't get a chance to sit in on any of these presentations. I've posted new sites I learned about at NECC to My Delicious. Check out the comprehensive list of delicious sites from NECC attendees at the NECC2008 Ning site.

I have to say that the exhibit hall was so overwhelming that I only spent a few hours in it. I certainly have come away feeling like a very small fish in a big pond...but... a tiny fish full of great ideas to share with other educators.