60,525 steps at ISTE 2011

In the past four days I've clocked a total of 60,525 steps, counting from the time I started packing the car for the ISTE 2011 Conference (held this year in Philadelphia) on Sunday to returning home to Ellicott City, Maryland late Thursday evening. Those steps add up to approximately 30 miles of walking (avg. human stride = 2.5 ft; approx. 2000 steps = 1 mile), which is roughly the distance from center city Philadelphia, PA to Wilmington, DE.

Here are some highlights passed along the way:

DAY 01.............873 steps

Finished packing the car. Wife and 11-month-old son joining me on the trek to Philly. It will be Jonah's first stay in a hotel and he and momma will fend for themselves throughout the day while I'm at the conference. Translation: the car is PACKED with baby-related gear.

.........................5,591 steps

Staying at the Comfort Inn Historic District 1.4 miles from the Convention Center. A trolley runs every 30 minutes, but I couldn't stand the thought of missing the opening keynote. The walk is a straight shot up Race St. and I'm at the registration booth in no time.

.........................7,024 steps

Oh my word! That's quite a hike, following the masses from registration up to the grand ballroom. Doesn't matter, though. Hearing Dr. John Medina speak is worth every step! The place is packed and the energy is high!

.........................15,791 steps

Back to the hotel by 11pm, an hour short of turning back into a pumpkin. Following the keynote, a number of colleagues from HCPSS joined the team from ProQuest for a tasty dinner and an opportunity to chat about their newest products. Those guys (and gal) rock and we can't say enough about SIRS and CultureGrams. Long walk home in the dark, but wide awake from the anticipation of an amazing conference!

DAY 02.............21,077 steps

Time to play the Feud! On stage with a rockstar cast of teach librarians and tech savs for a Family Feud showdown of learning tools. Crowded room. Hands sweating. Nervous smiling. Lots and lots of laughs. Over before we knew it (and much too soon)! What a blast! Looking forward to what ways we'll challenge the presentation style next year!

.........................29,142 steps

Party time before dinner. Wife and son join me with friends to celebrate with our buddies from MSET (our state technology org) and later with SIGMS (and a chance to see our ProQuest pals again)! Learned about the amazing network of support in SIGMS. Definitely made a friend for life. Looking forward to contributing to the group any way I can.

.........................35,836 steps

Crash on bed. Baby overjoyed to be out of the overstimulating city environment and in our quiet, dark room. Wife points out that she's already cleared 38,000 steps touring the town with our boy. Thankful she's enjoying herself as much as I am.

DAY 03.............41,892 steps

Traffic Jedi demonstrates the force by making his sign "float" with almost undetectable fishing line. Hilarious. I've noticed that every single ISTE volunteer has a smile on their face and an unabashed willingness to help in any way they can. I've already got a heart full of love for this organization!

.........................47,173 steps

Time to hit the vendors? More like time for the vendors to hit me. Let me just say that I was knocked off my feet. AR technology to help students read. Hands-on demos of cool tech tools. Free resources for the school including my conference fav: We Give Books by Pearson, providing free access to tons of eBooks to read aloud in the classroom while simultaneously donating books to schools in need in the US (you read a book, select a campaign, and they donate a book for each title read).

DAY 04 .............53,264 steps

Body is aching! ...but don't want to miss out on the SIGMS breakfast with Will Richardson. Break down and take the trolley (which is late... prob. could have made it faster if I walked). Made it to the breakfast just in time. So many friendly and familiar faces. Great to all be together and hear about the INCREDIBLE things the group has accomplished this year!

.........................57,040 steps

On my way to head to the train station when... wait.. what's this?! Pirates in the Digital Playground?! Check it out to discover lots of really cool video conferencing tools. Chat with a woman in northern Minnesota about wolves (she's from www.wolves.org). The pirate theme did the trick for sure!

.........................60,525 steps

Home sweet home. Took a detour to join wife's brother and friend for dinner in Swarthmore before heading back to Baltimore. Had exciting news to share from "Writing for ISTE" session (which was such a great session for so many reasons and to so many people). Won't soon forget the memories OR all the steps that brought me to them.

Thanks to Virgin Health Miles (and my county for connecting us and other colleagues), promoting a healthy and active lifestyle, and a bit of healthy competition from my wife (challenged to be the first to reach 40K steps) for helping me stay on my feet!

Yeah. That just happened.

Phew! My dogs are barking.

Great day at ISTE. Tremendously fun time presenting at the Learning Tools Family Feud with Joyce Valenza, Gwyneth Jones, Shannon McClintock Miller, Chad Lehman, Nick Provenzano, and Steve Dembo. That's a whole lot of rockstars, in case you're keeping track. But it's cool. I could hang. How, you might ask? Because I had some pretty freakin' sweet polyester pants... that's how!

Sounds like everyone else had a great time, too. Here's a couple choice tweets (#istefeud):

marragem Amanda Marrinan

Learning tools Family Feud is without a doubt the best session so far. Creative & hilariously funny. #ISTE2011 #ISTEFeud

tkraz Tom Krawczewicz

This is how every session should be. #Istefeud

engaginged Engaging Educators

The power of crowdsourcing...wondering what classroom implications this could have. #ISTE11 #ISTEfeud

isteconnects isteconnects

The ladies are in the lead in terms of game play, the guys are leading for style and guts #ISTEFeud

kkreinbrook Kyra Kreinbrook

Matthew has awesome pants @ #istefeud #iste11 lol

LOVE that last one :)

The road to ISTE is paved in very long hallways

ISTE's 32nd Annual Conference and Exposition is taking place as we speak inPhiladelphia, PA. Thousands of educators will attend to hear the latest trends in technology education, network with like-minded educators, explore vendors' newest tech tools, and feel the overwhelming pulse of technology innovation present throughout the conference.

I'll join an impressive cohort of teacher librarians and like professionals to present a review of exemplary learning tools through a presentation vehicle emulating the Family Feud Showdown. To top things off, we've each agreed to don fabulous 70's outfits and face off men versus women.

A quick trip to the local Goodwill and an eye for nauseating polyester

textiles and, VOILA!

I'm pretty sure my thought in this picture was "look as sleazy as possible with those ridiculous pants", using my only frame-of-reference for 70's clothing: Boogie Nights. Also, at this pointed it seemed silly to try to take myself seriously. I guess we'll see how it all pans out. Still... presenting at the national level and with such amazing colleagues is going to be AWESOME!

When am I NOT at work?

It occurs to me that educators, perhaps like many other professionals, must be constantly mindful of how they act, what they say, and how the represent themselves in public on account of how it could reflect for their school system. This is not to say that educators cannot have a private life. Rather, one's private life must be kept separate from one's professional life.

Case in point, our staff was recently warned about the implications of posting work-related, shall we say, "venting" on social networking sites and elsewhere on the web. Securities and the seemingly informal setting give a sense to some that it's alright to defame students, colleagues, and the school system itself. Is it that Facebook, and others like it, make it too easy for us to speak our mind? Or perhaps that it's a welcome venue to commiseration and gives a feeling of membership to those who share in the same frustrations?

We work effortlessly each day to educate our students about being aware of their web presence, that image projected by how one interacts online. Perhaps there's cause to invest time in educating our adults as well. While it's true that the internet has made the world a smaller place, decreasing boundaries that would otherwise prevent people from communicating, it's also made the world much, much more public, challenging all who create user accounts, connect with colleagues via social networking, etc. to maintain some sense of privacy.

A colleague once told me, "It can take a lifetime to build a reputation, but mere minutes to destroy it." Did we sacrifice our right to privacy (or perhaps a portion of it) when we signed on to be an educator? Or have all of us in a small way forfeited privacy in order to increase web presence?

WiiLearning

Schools around our nation will be aligning with the new Common Core State Standards, a set of national standards created to level the educational playing field, get schools on the same page, and universalize education in America.

Standards now exist in Mathematics and English/Language Arts. Our county is already preparing to correlate our teaching to these standards at the start of the 2011-2012 school year. And in the midst of all of these changes, we purchased a Nintendo Wii for our elementary school as a means of engaging students in learning.

The Nintendo Wii is a powerful tool in engaging our students in learning, and I've found it especially useful for supporting math objectives. Using the Nintendo Wii as a means to collect data, basketball shot contests, ski jumps, and frisbee golf take on a whole new meaning in the classroom.

I'm currently in search of colleagues using the Nintendo Wii in innovative ways to support learning in the classroom. I think this tool has incredible potential for engaging our students, albeit it comes with a fair share of skeptics who can't help but limit the Wii to a reward item or behavior incentive.

Let's change the culture and change the school. Let's shape delivery of instruction and change the face of learning tools.

More to come.