CERI Eye - annual National Education Computing Conference (NECC,) in Atlanta, held from the 24 to the 26th of June

Francesc Pedro back from the annual National Education Computing Conference  National Education Computing Conference  (NECC,) in Atlanta, held from the 24 to the 26th of June.
I was impressed mostly by two things. One was the amount of teachers and exhibitors attending: 18.500. Certainly, it is the most relevant event on technology and schools in the US, and probably the most attended in the world. The other thing was the character of the keynote speeches, including the panel in which I was invited to participate. This character can be summarised by saying that the presentations have an important entertainment aspect and therefore the logistics for this conference are quite impressive.
I highlight here two presentations from this conference:
- the keynote speech by Andrew Zolli was interesting because it was intended to provide an analysis of the social, economic and political trends that may shape the future of education. In many ways, the introduction of the speech made me value even more our trends tool. Zolli’s presentation, focused mostly on demography and environment, was well backed with images and suggestions, but included some discussable assertions, as for instance “we know that by 2015 the three biggest cities in the world will be located in China; but they haven’t been built yet”. I loved that.
- the presentation of the Moodle e-learning platform for school (k-12) use was attended by an unexpected number of teachers, thus revealing an increasing interest on open educational resources also in the schools sector.

Visit the Wiki for planning and reporting out of the Birds of a Feather Sessions at NECC 2007