Hi all, this year I’m MC’ing the Member Welcome at the NECC ’09 in D.C. (Natl. Educational Computing Conference). This conference brings over 18,000 educators and technologists under on e roof with over 5 football fields of exhibits! For more details go here: http://www.iste.org/content/Navigationmenu/membership/member_welcom…
I wanted to take a quick second to share some of my recommended tech you should bring to NECC:
#1. Laptop with wifi – wifi will be everywhere throughout the convention center so come ready to tweet & take notes
#2. An extra laptop battery – well, cause you just never know or maybe bring an extension cord so you can always connect to an outlet :-)
#3. Ill have my XANTREX backup power solution it costs like $99 but it’s worth it when your battery runs dead and you have no immediate access to a wall outlet, this little backup power solution holds a charge for months and gives my laptop an extra 3 hours of battery life
#4. Flip or some other type of video camera – there will be so much to see from innovative exhibits to incredible people – capture it all to take back to your classroom or administration and make a short video presentation of what you witnessed and what solutions may be perfect for your environment. In other words use this opportunity to capture the positive impact you see and bring that back to your school to educate others.
#5. A Twitter account – yes, I’m telling you to get on the bandwagon. Hey, if Oprah can tweet so can you ! But seriously twitter is a great way to connect and make new relationships with those that have similar interests. For example if you want to follow all of what’s being tweeted about NECC just head to: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23NECC Here you’ll get to see a snapshot of twitter users who are actively talking about the NECC conference. Get you FREE username and start posting your 140 characters – head to twitter.com for registration AND MAKE SURE whenever you post something you use the #NECC hastag somewhere in your message so others can read it.
#6. For my note takers who prefer to use pen and paper and not a laptop the tech you should have is called “The Pulse Pen” made by Livescribe. It is a ball point pen that is also a mini computer. The pen records audio it hears and links it to what you write on paper. For example, lets say you are in a NECC session, the pen is capturing all the audio and you are writing notes – 5 days later when you return to your school you simply touch the notes with your Livescribe pen and sit back and listen to the audio that was captured at the time. This is a true advancement in note-taking technology.
#7. If you do step #5 and join Twitter then you should get yourself a really cool Tweetup badge – goto http://tweetupbadges.com/ Tweetup Badges are a really unique way to differentiate yourself from everyone and a way for everyone to easily identify your twitter name. I’ve ordered my Tweetupbadge.com for the NECC, its about the same size and thickness as credit cards and they come with lanyards, ohh and you get to choose any color combination (maybe your school colors might be neat) These ID badges are made to last so you can use them over and over again and they cost under $10 but hurry shipping can be a bit slow.
BONUS PRIZE: The first person that finds me at NECC ’09 (read top of post for a clue of where to find me) and shows me their TweetupBadge will win a cool tech prize. I’m known to carry a stash of awesome tech giveaways so be prepared!