Going to CAMT 2010?

Math image from a DEN member (my apologies for not noting details)

The 2010 Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching conference began today, July 14th in San Antonio, Texas. I will be presenting two sessions on July 15th.If you are attending the conference please stop by and see me. I would love to meet you in person – that was one of the highlights from attending ISTE 2010! I finally got to meet Peggy George and many other great online PLN, Twitter and Plurk buddies (too many to name) in person for the time first time!

I will be presenting two sessions tomorrow. The first session will be at 11:45am where I will be talking about using webconferencing to enrich mathematics instruction in room 006A. The second session at 2:15pm is titled, ‘Terrific Teaching Tips for Teaching TEKS and TAKS’ in room 202A. In the state of Texas, we have six objectives that address the standards for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test administed to all third through high school students. There are benchmakr years where students must pass the reading and/or math portions of the TAKS test before being promoted to the next grade level so teachers and students are under a great deal of stress. Hopefully my presentations will re-energize and motivate teachers to move from ‘good to great’ (title of a great book by Jim Collins!) when designing and delivering their mathematics lessons.

One thing I found to be somewhat of a hindrance as a presenter is the fact that the only type of equipment that will be provided to speakers is an overhead projector. It has been a struggle preparing presentations where I cannot show a website. The conference website states the following:

1. AV equipment – One overhead projector, screen, and power cord will be provided in every room.  This is the only equipment that CAMT will provide.  Computers and computer projection devices will not be provided.
2. Internet access will not be provided by CAMT.

Having just come back from ISTE 2010 in Denver, Colorado where internet access was ubiquitous at the convention center and expected to no internet access at all is a HUGE paradigm shift. I realize that CAMT may be perceived as primarily a Texas math teachers conference with a low budget for conference fees. Presenters receive free registrations for speaking so there is some loss of revenue by compensating the speakers. The conference rotates between San Antonio, Houston and Dallas, Texas every summer. Each year that CAMT comes to San Antonio I jump at the chance to be involved. Math teachers stress to students and are pressured by administrators and state legislatures to integrate technology into mathematics instruction. Yet this conference is in a time warp regarding the integration of technology.

Classroom 2.0 LIVE! – ISTE Poster Session

Classroom 2.0 LIVE!

Peggy George and I facilitated a poster session on June 29th at ISTE. We planned on sharing how educators can host their own webinars but our conversation soon took a different route. People stopped by our booth and asked about what Classroom 2.0 LIVE was all about. We got to share the Classroom 2.0 Ning and information about our show and website with lots of new people. Several people learned about LearnCentral and how they could have access to a free Elluminate room through the free ‘Host Your Own Webinars’ LearnCentral group during our poster session.

LearnCentral.org

Elluminate has some awesome and exciting things planned in future releases. The latest version 10 release has some new bells and whistles designed for special needs populations with more accessibility features to enable hearing and vision impaired users to participate in Elluminate sessions. Although this blog post isn’t a plug for Elluminate, Peggy and I have become passionate about sharing how to host your own webinar using the Elluminate platform. It was so exciting to meet so many of our faithful attendees in person at ISTE and put a face with a name and share ways we can help support them as users or moderators of Elluminate and the LearnCentral community.

Saturday, July 10th at 12pm EST Steve Hargadon will join us for a discussion post ISTE. You are invited to join us. If you didn’t attend ISTE in person, we would still love for you to join in the discussion for preparation of future virtual events via Elluminate. Your experiences and interests are valued and important to planning future remote sessions. Save the date and be sure to join us this Saturday. Link to join the live Elluminate session is http://tinyurl.com/cr20live.

ISTE Unplugged Events

Last week in Denver, Colorado I had the esteemed privilege of moderating and facilitating the ISTE Unplugged sessions presented live from ISTE. There were some fantastic sessions and I learned so many new things! It was awesome to meet so many members of my PLN face to face that I had connected with online so many times. I was also able to secure guests for our  ‘Classroom 2.0 LIVE’ sessions in Elluminate.

It took awhile but I have finally posted the recording links for the ISTE Unplugged sessions. If you are unfamiliar with ISTE Unplugged sessions, I encourage you to check out the wiki page and view the recorded sessions. Steve Hargadon has facilitated this venue for presenters the past four years or so. ISTE Unplugged is an opportunity for anyone to present live from ISTE. The sessions are broadcast to attendees live at ISTE and into Elluminate for people to participate virtually. The sessions are free to virtual participants and help spread ‘ISTE fever’ around the world!

Classroom 2.0 LIVE!

The culminating ISTE Unplugged session was a ‘Classroom 2.0 LIVE’ show broadcast live from ISTE. Lorna Costantini co-hosted from remotely from Canada joining the many new and faithful virtual participants. Although I was tethered to the ISTE Unplugged area the entire three days of the conference, I was so fortunate and honored to be a part of this event and bring ISTE ‘into your computers’ and homes around the globe via Elluminate.