The new website will allow you to engage with education leaders worldwide on ISTE Connects, find the NETS resources you need, easily access all ISTE communities, learn more about ISTE authors in our books section, comment on articles published in L&L, share information with your friends, and browse our publications without ever leaving the site.

As we prepare for this transition, our existing site will not be available starting at 8 pm (Pacific Time) on Thursday, August 26. The site will become available again the morning of September 1, when we launch our new website. During this time, we will be converting our existing association management system to a new system, and migrating our existing site to the new ISTE website.

To help alleviate any inconvenience during this transition, we encourage you to call ISTE’s customer service at 1.800.336.5191 (1.541.302.3777 Int’l) if you have any questions, need to make a purchase, access NETS resources, renew your membership, or complete any other transaction.

We are ready to assist you. Our goal is to make this move as seamless as possible. While the main ISTE site is in transition, you can still access many NETS resources at http://istelearning.org, read updates on www.isteconnects.org, and view the ISTE 2011 conference site at www.isteconference.org.

We are confident that our new site will offer you a better experience, more ways to connect with other members and peers, and better access to the resources you have come to rely on.

Thank you for your patience as we move through this transition.

Click here to listen to the full podcast.

Last night I caught my husband whistling the theme song to “Elmo’s World.” To help put this in perspective for any readers who have not birthed a child in the last five years or so, here’s a quick video of the Elmo song:

It burrows into your brain like a carnivorous worm. Once you make it past the opening credits Elmo’s World offers even more musical options to aid the slow descent into insanity. For example, I found myself singing The Eye Song while I drove home from the store last night. Elmo sang The Eye Song toward the end of the Sesame Street yesterday to the tune of jingle-bells. Here are the words:

Eye, eye, eye – eye, eye, eye – eye, eye, eye, eye, eye – eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye!

Perhaps dealing with the utterly inane and powerfully addicting songs present in television programs geared toward children is my penance for allowing my 16-month-old to watch television. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under the age of 2 spend very little or no time in front of a screen.

My child has been fascinated by screens since he was only a couple months old. His favorite toy, without question, is my iPhone. I have a couple apps that are designed for kids, but what he really likes to do is just press buttons and see what happens. I stumbled on the website KneeBouncers yesterday and spent a good 15 minutes playing peek-a-bouncer with my toddler. When he caught on to the fact that pressing a key would open a door and reveal a funny face he got so excited that he gave my laptop screen a big, sloppy, baby kiss.

In my opinion, passive consumption of media (such as my son’s zombie-like experience watching Elmo) should be like dessert. It’s a an occasional treat that may not have a lot of nutritional value, but offers much in terms of entertainment and at least some stimulation.

General concern regarding screen time (see http://www.screentime.org/ and http://kidshealth.org/) addresses the issue without finesse. There is a distinction between types of screen time, just as there are nutritional differences between carrots and carrot cake. Let’s elevate the discussion by focusing on how students are using and interacting with technologies, rather than painting all screen time with the same black brush.

Add your own voice to the discussion by contributing to L&L here.

Conference highlights included:

·      12,792 registered attendees

·      4,781 exhibit personnel

·      16,500-plus simultaneous wireless connections

·      801 international attendees from 63 countries

·      More than 600 concurrent sessions plus additional showcases, galleries and poster sessions

·      Dozens of workshops with more than 2,660 tickets sold

·      More than 1,500 presenters from around the globe

·      More than 19,000 concurrent users on the Wi-Fi network

·      An exhibit hall featuring 1,282 booths and 456 companies displaying hardware, software, equipment and services focused on the use of technology to improve learning, teaching and school administration

·      118 registered journalists from around the globe

·      Numerous social media channels tracking, tweeting, blogging and live-streaming ISTE 2010 activity with thousands of participants from nearly 100 countries, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands, South Africa and Turkey.

ISTE’s 2011 conference and exposition will be held next year in Philadelphia, June 26 through 29. See you in the City of Brotherly Love!

Denver Public Schools, Distance Learning Department runs Comcast Channel 22 for Educational TV programming here in Denver and are streaming live and taped interviews direct from ISTE 2010. The team is based in the Press Room, located just outside the exhibit area and the web stream is up on Ustream and can be accessed from the group’s website at http://dln.dpsk12.org/

Guests, presenters, exhibitors, etc are encouraged to stop in and schedule an interview.

Check it out here and let us know what you think about the administration’s plans for public education.

Dr. Lynn Molan

Dr. Don Knezek

ISTE CEO Dr. Don Knezek and Dr. Lynn Molan, Senior Strategic Initiatives Officer for ISTE set the tone for the five day conference, which focused on practical implementation of technology in schools.

Although they took place on opposite sides of the globe, both conferences attempted to both provide practical instruction on technologies and basic and advanced ideas for integrating technology into existing curriculum.

The tension between teaching technology and teaching with technology was touched on in both gatherings. Teaching technology can be frustrating. As soon as you manage to learn a program well enough to teach it, something new comes along. Do you use Facebook in the classroom? Well, now try teaching your students to use Twitter responsibly. Have you mastered Twitter? Build a class website. Try podcasting basics. Now teach ChatRoulette.  Oh, and do it all with little or no official training in the programs.

Impossible? Maybe. But then, how can we usher students into the fast-paced, globally connected modern world if we do not keep them apprised on the technological changes that are redefining communications? My question to you is, can we teach about technology without actually teaching technology? What kind of balance do we need to strike both in the classroom and in professional development situations?

So far, my classroom has been using shared computers for the whole school(Macbooks) and each student has an assigned computer. We do not do much on the computers but type and only a little researching, because my teachers believe books should be the first place students should look for information. I have to say I don’t agree with them. I wish we would use more technology in the classroom because it will be a big thing in our future, besides the fact that it is simple and fun to use.

The exciting prospect in the future is that it seems more and more that education will include more technology over time. As such; using computer games for testing, but over a long period of time, more updated research on the computer rather than old information from textbooks; which, is even more the case for poor schools. Tablets for translating handwriting and foreign languages into text during class in K-12 education.

Coming to the conference gave me insights on how HP works and how education could be better if people work at it. I am very appreciative that I could come.

Read more about Abshire’s recent appointment here.