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10,000 Educators Prove Education Innovation is NOT Dead @ NECC
by Jim Vanides

There is a lot of talk about needing more innovation in education. Personally, I’m an optimist – especially today as 10,000 educators stream into the largest education technology conference in North America…

The National Education Computing Conference (NECC) is the annual conference of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). It’s big (about 10-15,000 attendees, I’m told) and it’s a great place to hear about the latest and greatest in education technology – sort of like the consumer electronics show for educators combined with 2 ½ days of intensive seminars, workshops, and professional networking.

So, with 10,000 educators attending, can we move the “innovation needle”? After all, US alone has more than 3 MILLION teachers. So how does change happen? I like the agriculture “well tended seeds” analogy. I know there are many more sophisticated models for organizational change, but this analogy is a little easier to follow. Besides, haven’t you ever marveled that one corn seed can grow a plant 6 feet high that generates 1000 new seeds?

What we need is great seed stock (innovations in teaching, learning, and technology) combined with attentive and knowledgeable farmers - education leaders (which includes teachers, in my book) who are willing to go out on an innovative limb for the sake of their students’ success.... ALL of their students’ success. There are several other key ingredients, but I won’t belabor the analogy.

I’m proud of the crops HP is helping to grow through its education technology grant programs. I am proud to be attending NECC with representatives from 30 of our HP Technology for Teaching grant recipient schools – only part of the 1000 projects we’ve launched in 41 countries.

Part of the “seed tending” business is coming to conferences like NECC to share new “seed planting” ideas and results. But for every educator who attends, there are a thousand who could benefit but cannot attend. Enter the wonders of technology – and that wonderful [potential] multiplying effect.

For those of you who can’t attend the conference live in Washington, DC, you can still tap into the excitement and expertise in real-time, thanks to the ISTE CONNECTS team. Yes, I know it’s not quite the same as being here, but it may be a lot better on your sleep schedule (depending on your time zone). Check out:

• Links to people blogging about NECC

• A Twitter hashtag #NECC09 that you can use to follow all the live tweets from the conference (I was tweeting during tonight's keynote, along with dozens of other Twitterati...

• Live video feeds of selected events

   

If there’s something in particular you would like me to keep an eye on while I’m here, please post a comment (or better yet, send me a tweet @jgvanides).