NJELITE got off to a GREAT start yesterday for me. Caught the last 45 minutes or so of a TERRIFIC presentation on wikis by two folks from Randolph Township Schools: Debbie Iosso, Principal and Jennifer Fano, Vice Principal/Technology Coordinator. Made me wish I’d gotten there sooner. Debbie and Jen told how their district has been transformed operationally via wikis, and how the use of web 2.0 tools as ‘administrative’ engines is starting to pay big dividends with classroom teachers who now see the ease and power of the tools, and who naturally want to try them in their classrooms. Their presentation wiki, http://wikifyeducation.wikispaces.com/, is a must-see. These folks talk the talk and walk the walk! It was incredibly inspiring to hear them talk about their work and its results on the school and surrounding community. This is what it’s all about, people! :)

David Pogue’s keynote, which I UStreamed (with his permission) here (Part 1 | Part 2) was really enjoyable, he is incredibly talented and his take on technology and our everyday lives was witty, accurate, insightful and downright hilarious. His song parodies at the end were a real treat. He’s obviously an accomplished performer and his delivery was impeccable. Everyone seemed to enjoy his talk, it was perfect fodder for our upcoming strand! David Warlick and I have put together a program for the next two days that will leverage his talk about “Five Trends for the Next Five Years” and their potential impact on education.

After the keynote, we got right to work at a presenter’s meeting where we made several last-minute edits and other changes. We reviewed our timings, confirmed our planned skype-in speakers, which sadly won’t include Vicki Davis, whose Aunt suffered a stroke yesterday. :( [Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family, Vicki!] We had planned to have Vicki talk about her Flat Classroom Project as an example of globalization. Desperate, I called my friend Lucy Gray, who agreed to come to us (straight from Building Learning Communities 2008) to talk about her Global Educaton Collaborative and the projects it has facilitated. Our session is going to ROCK!

Back at the hotel, our flaky wireless connection was DOWN most of the night, so I had to put this post together this morning, but all’s well that ends well … more later … gotta run!

-kj-