TRETC 2008

Today was the Three Rivers Educational Technology Conference.  It’s the premier educational technology conference to attend in this region.  Administrators, teachers, and IT professionals all gather for sessions, keynote speakers and of course, lunch.  They also have the opportunity to browse some vendor booths.  What was different this year, was that students also attended.  Well, a few from my school at least, including myself.  The experience was phenomenal.  Unfortunately, we were almost an hour late, and missed the keynote I was much looking forward to, due to a bus driver who seriously lacked any navigational skills whatsoever.  In fact, once we arrived in Cranberry, we ended up using my iPhone 3G’s GPS to find our way to the Regional Learning Alliance.  What a trip!  Regardless though, once we arrived we were eager to jump into the activities going on; of course, that was after we ate a few blueberry muffins.

The first session I attended was called “Quick, Easy, and Scalable Webcasting.”  This session was led by a former CMU student of Mr. Gusky’s named Mike Graham.  He did an excellent job, albeit being a little too techy for some people.  The session was about webcasting in general, but more specifically he focused on USTREAM.tv.  I had heard of USTREAM before, and I have watched streams on it before as well, however, I never actually saw the backend or any of the features that it offered.  It definitely has some potential for the classroom, whether it be solely for distance learning use, or simply to broadcast an event such as a play or a special gust speaker.  What’s also nice is the fact that one can record one’s stream.  This is great if one wants a quick way to record a video and embed it into a webpage.  Towards the end of the session, Mike discussed CamTwist, which is a small Mac App that allows one to add effects to one’s video stream, or record one’s desktop.  It’s free and relatively powerful.  Overall, the session was great and I learned quite a bit and thought of a lot of good applications for webcasting in Education.

The second session I attended was on iTunes U and using rich digital media in the classroom.  It was called, “iTunes U and Other Resources: Sharing Digital Content.”  This one was presented by Mr. Gusky, and Mr. Conner from the AIU.  The reason I attended this one was because I was asked by Mr. Gusky to be there.  He included a quote from my Edutopia interview and he wanted me to expand upon it.  This went rather well, and overall, the session went very well.  A woman named Angela was there from Apple to observe and take down any notes or suggestions people made about iTunes U.  Trust me, there were plenty.  Mr. Gusky made plenty of little stabs at Apple during the session.  They were funny though, and they were serious concerns for Angela to take note of.  I feel like iTunes U is great how it is now, but it can be so much better.

The last and final session that myself and all of the members of the student cohort attended was our session on building a 21st century student leadership team.  It was special for Emily and I because we were seated at the front of the room, sitting on the panel with Mr. Hand.  All I can say is, WOW.  It went unbelievably well.  The people who attended were fascinated by what we had to say, and just like last year, they were fascinated that we are so willing to give our time to help the teachers.  Some of them seemed baffled, to be quite honest.  There was a guy in the front row who was sleeping half of the time, and the other half of the time, he looked like he didn’t believe one word we were saying.  That irritated me a little bit, but all I can say is that we all genuinely enjoy what we’re doing, and now I personally couldn’t imagine spending my QRT time any other way.

Overall, TRETC was a great experience yet again this year.  The lunch was great, I received a lot of free stuff from vendors, I got to speak with Rusty again from Apple who said he may be able to get me a shirt, and just overall, it went better than I could have ever expected.  At first, it seemed like a few people were a little annoyed that students were at the conference, but as the day went on, I think they got more used to seeing us around, and I think their mood lightened up a little bit.  I actually think a lot of people by the end of the day enjoyed us being there.  It’s unfortunate that I’m graduating this year, but who knows, maybe Mr. Gusky will ask me to join him again next year, or maybe he’ll even ask me to present something?  Only time will tell.  One thing’s for sure though – I would go back in a heartbeat.