Actem Conference 2011

Another successful Maine state conference for computer using educators, or ACTEM, has come and gone. To the left one of our broadcasting students records one of Lucy Gray's presentations. The students were also able to record Tony Vincent's keynote which will be posted soon.

I covered Google Apps for Education in my sessions and was able to generate this map of other schools or districts who are using a domain.

View Maine Google Apps in a larger map

Maine ACTEM Conference 2010

Another great conference from ACTEM this year. With keynote speakers like Vickie Davis and Angela Maiers how can you go wrong. The Maine Google Certified Teachers ran workshops presentations on Google tools at the Pre-Conference. I ran two sessions focused on using Google Apps for Education as an educational platform. The sessions were geared toward administrators, principals, superintendents and tech directors who were ready to implement Google Apps for Ed in their schools.

One thing about the sessions that really encouraged me was how much of the conversation revolved around developing an new educational culture in a school or district rather than just worrying about the technical nuts and bolts of implementation. It's not that those questions didn't come up, but the discussion generally would tie in the difficulties of transitioning from a top down teacher driven education to a student driven one, and how technology can aid and encourage that transformation. If technology is the natural medium for change, we should be able to use it to help guide the educational changes we hope to see for our kids.

2008 ACTEM Conference Keynote by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

The 2008 Maine ACTEM Conference Keynote Presentation by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach.

ACTEM Conference - Will Richardson's Follow Up Session

ACTEM 2007 Conference - Will Richardson

Will Richardson's keynote presentation at the 2007 ACTEM state conference.



To view the video in full screen [Link]. (Please note the quality level is set for web streaming, for a higher quality video or DVD please contact kkelley@msad48.org) Download the video for an iPod. For more information on how to put video on an iPod click here.

Bob Sprankle also podcast an audio only version of the keynote here.

Post ACTEM Conference

This year's ACTEM conference is over I've been mulling over how to recap. Will Richardson did a spot on keynote (our broadcasting students recorded it and will be posting as soon as we're back on Monday.) And I got to see the Bit-by-Bit team in action. What a treat. I also did a session of my own on the Virtual Classroom (That I embarrassingly didn't realize I was going to be doing.) I hope the participants got something from it. As soon as it was over, I started thinking of all that I should have said. Oh well.



Student following the projected webpage from Will Richardson's Keynote on his iPhone.

Overall it was a great time for Maine educators, but I still have that lingering feeling of the 'preaching to the choir' phenomenon. The sticking question for me was, "Ok, how do we get those educators not here that are not interested - well, interested?" The response of, "They just have to be." doesn't satisfy me. Obviously they don't 'have to be' because they aren't. How much of what's shared at this conference gets back to the kids. I mean really back to the kids. How many of us go back on Monday, jazzed by what we learned, and are able to get that through to those who are decidedly not on the 'Tech Scene?' Certainly every bit helps and I really do feel there were some amazing ideas being tossed around, but I like to know that the connection is being made beyond the Civic Center. I guess for me, I'll pull out my recurring mantra of, 'Have the students do it.' Meaning, have students participate in the experience, make them be part of the solution and bring others along in the process.

ACTEM Conference

The ACTEM Conference is coming next week, October 11th and 12th, and I'm bringing some of our broadcasting students to record the keynote speaker Will Richardson as well as many of the sessions as we can.

I'll also have the students interviewing participants much like we did at Alan November's Building Learning Communities conference this summer. That was a fantastic experience where our students rubbed elbows and interview many of the movers and shakers of the educational technology community like Marcos Torres, Marc Prensky, Chris Lehmann, etc. (Check out some of the interviews here.)

Also, here's the keynote presentations from the 2006 ACTEM conference.

Angus King Award Presentation




David Warlick Keynote Presentation