DAY 3--CoSn Conference

Day 3 started early (7:30 a.m.) with a meeting of the members of the Emerging Technologies committee. What a great group of people! After introducing ourselves, committee members Vickie Lyons, Angie Gaylord, Rita Oates, Jim Seigel, Joani Kay, and I discussed everything from Angie's green initiative to Jim's insight and his willingness to share his knowledge as a technology architect. First, I had to find out exactly what technology architect means. Jim explained that with around 200 schools in his district, his roll is to look at the scaleability of pilots. He has written so many white papers that address the questions in everyone's minds such as what do Google's new privacy policies mean to K-12, an explanation of cloud computing, apple vouchers, etc.

From the Emerging technologies meeting, I moved to my next session where I listened as Jill Hobson (Forsyth Co.) and Sylvia Martinex (Generation YES) discussed their 2 case studies using BYOT (BYOD) and Mobile Devices to transform learning.

Next Baily Mitchell discussed a topic that is always on our minds...Are You About to Run Out of Bandwidth. I know that in our school system, we are at a critical point. When we implemented a wireless network in each of our schools, the network was state of the art. However, it was designed for two laptop carts in each elementary school and up to five laptop carts at each of the secondary schools. Our wireless devices have grown exponentially over the last few years. More and wireless devices are being added each year to provide access to digital content that supports our curriculums, provide learning opportunities and methods of communication for special needs children, to support teaching and more. We provide a guest network for student and guest owned devices, and now provide access to content 24/7 and make up days missed due to incliment weather by having eSchool. Frankly, what this means is that YES we have doubled our bandwidth to the Internet (thanks to the AL Super Computer) but during the school day, all of these district provided and personal devices are accessing our internal networks to even GET TO the Internet (OUT GOING TRAFFIC). We have almost as much traffic coming into the system after hours to authenticate to Moodle (now MoodleRooms), check email, access files, etc.(INCOMING TRAFFIC.) These tools are transforming learning but they are all supported by the network infrastructure. Baily's informative session validated what we already knew...the time to upgrade our wireless networks is now. No fear, we have a plan. Switches have been ordered to provide GB ports for the new "N" technology access points. Next we will seek funding to replace our 215 "G" technology access points throughout the district with new "N" access points--1 for 1. Phase II outlines a plan to provide a new controller for MBHS so that additional access points can be added and to move the existing controller to Crestline so that that ever growing student population needs can be met. Our research continues as we learn more about the way tablets connect versus laptops. All that to say, I agree with Baily--We generate excitement with a look at a digital learning environment however, if teachers and students move into that environment and you don't have the infrastructure to support it--you kill the excitement quickly. How much access do we need...it will be determined by teacher readiness to allow the use of devices throughout the day.

At lunch today, we had the awards luncheon. I always get very humble as I hear about some of the awesome things that are happening across the country and some of the awesome people that are leading the way.

The CTO forum followed the luncheon with a Doug Levin facilitating comments from Larry Cuban, Chris Dede, Glen Kleiman
around the what research does and does not tel us about the impact of technology and learning.

My last session before the closing plenary was...Education on the Holodeck. OMG the ideas that session sparked. Thirty minutes was not long enough for me to pick Dr. David Thornburgs brain about his holodeck.

Throughout our sessions, there has been an enphasis on the importance of helping students become responsible digital citizens. I heard someone make the comment..."It is not only how you can use the digital tools but how these tools can misuse you."

Last but certainly not least, I was pumped to hear the young man I heard so much about just a few years ago. Travis Allen, a student at Kenasaw State and founder of the iSchool initiative made it abundantly clear why mobile learning is so very important for us to engage today's students. His closing phrases were awesome...

Work hard. Fail a lot, but learn more. A love of learning leads to a life of significance.