Malinda+Lansfeldt

San Antonio's River Walk

Malinda's Notes:

__**Sunday, June 29**__ 10:00 a.m. At Minnesota airport meeting many district staff members. Everyone is excited about attending the technology conference. 4:20 p.m. Arrived in San Antonio, Texas. 5:00 p.m. Taxi driver dropped me off at the wrong hotel. 5:15 p.m. Walked four blocks pulling two suitcases and arrived at correct hotel. Hotel is beautiful--thank you Linda Estes! 5:45 p.m. Picked up registration materials, attended opening keynote speaker **James Surowiecki's NECC kick off**. 7:00 p.m. Wearing a cowboy hat, Smart shirt, and a computer geek name tag. 8:30 p.m. Lights out.

8:30 a.m. Attended **NETS*T Release Celebration** presentation. ISTE releases the new teacher standards! The new NETS*T will help prepare teachers to transition their students from Industrial Age to Digital Age learners. The audience was full of administrators from all over the country. Every district that participated in the presentation planned on merging the new standards with their state standards. 9:30 a.m. Dropped in on some model classroom demonstrations. I was excited to see that our schools are already doing a lot of what was being presented! 10:30 a.m. Visited the exhibition hall. Overwhelmed by all of the new technology that is coming our way. Collected 10 free t-shirts. 11:45 a.m. Attended an Apple workshop with Julie Balfanz. **Listen, That's Me! Engaging Readers and Language Learners with the iPod** was full of technological innovations and teaching strategies for reading instruction and acquisition. 1:00 p.m. Ate lunch with Julie Balfanz, Bill Byland and Dale Petersen. 1:45 p.m. Attended an Apple workshop with Julie Balfanz. **Rolling on the River** showed us how to engage students with projects that enliven studies through an interdisciplinary approach. 2:45 p.m. Visited vendor booths and attended demonstrations. 4:00 p.m. Attended a seminar with Tom Greaves, co-author of **America's Digital Schools 2008**//.// 7:00 p.m. Met with most of the district staff members at the Texas Instruments' reception. 9:30 p.m. Lights out.
 * __Monday, June 30__**

8:30 a.m. Visited various tables and vendors in the exhibition hall. 10:00 a.m. I had some glitches with my laptop, so I spend some time with the tech doctors. The looked young enough to be in elementary school, but they knew the answers to my questions and solved my tech glitches. I'm feeling a little old today! 11:00 a.m. Tried to attend **Developing 21st-Century Skills in School and District Leaders**, but the session was full. I will read through the information that is on their web site. I ended up working on this Wiki page with Julie Balfanz. 12:30 p.m. Attended **Understanding Digital Learners: Learning in the New Digital Landscape.** Outlined research-driven strategies for teaching, learning and assessment for digital learning preferences. 1:30 p.m. Lunch on the famous River Walk. 2:30 p.m. Attended a Mimio demonstration. I'm interested in seeing if this technology would work better than a SmartBoard with physical education classes and primary grades. The Mimio can be projected on just about any surface including floors, ceilings and large white walls. 3:30 p.m. Attended **It's in Your Pocket: Teaching Spectacularly with Cell Phones**//.// Outstanding presentation by Hall Davidson. Many wonderful ideas listed on the Discovery Education web site. 7:00 p.m. Dinner with Cognos/IBM at the Little Rhein Steak House. Fabulous evening! Met and networked with some wonderful people from all over the country. Will be communicating and working with schools from Mississipi and Illinois! Signed up for a webinar later this month with IBM. One of the facilitators has worked with TIES in St. Paul, MN. 10:30 p.m. Lights out.
 * __Tuesday, July 1__**