Click here to see full descriptions of keynote and concurrent sessions.

  Wednesday

Transforming Classrooms: Using Assessment Results to Enrich the Learning Environment

Dr. Annette Lamb, Educator, speaker, and writer

Dr. Annette Lamb has been an elementary library media specialist, computer teacher, and professor of education.  She is currently a Visiting Professor at Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) teaching online graduate courses for librarians and educators.  As president of Lamb Learning Group, she also writes, speaks, and conducts professional development workshops, presentations, and keynotes throughout North America, focusing on ways to more effectively integrate technology into the classroom.  Her popular website, www.Eduscapes.com, includes a wide range of award-winning, free resources for educators, including 42explore, Teacher Tap, Literature Ladders, Activate, Naturescapes, and Multimedia Seeds.

She is well known for her realistic approaches to technology integration.  In addition to working on state and national-level grant projects, she enjoys spending time with administrators, teachers, and individual school districts and universities working on practical, technology-rich approaches to teaching and learning.

Annette received her Ph.D. in Educational Technology from Iowa State University. Her roots in library, media, and technology are reflected in her passion for interdisciplinary approaches, reading and writing across the curriculum, and using a variety of resources, from books to the Internet.  Her numerous articles and over a dozen books, including Building Treehouses for Learning, are valuable resources for educators.  Her latest book is titled Catching the Best of the Web.

She loves to share her ideas with others.  All of her sessions and workshops
are available at www.Eduscapes.com.

Click here to see full descriptions of keynote and concurrent sessions.

  Thursday

But Wait, There's More!  Leveraging Emerging Technologies
to Maximize Student Achievement

Dr. David Thornburg, Speaker, futurist, author and consultant

Successful Meetings magazine lists Dr. David Thornburg as one of the top 21 speakers in the United States. His dynamic, thought-provoking presentations provide transformative experiences to well over 100,000 people per year.  He has written numerous books and created several CD-ROM's.  His latest book, Campfires in Cyberspace, explores the true nature of the World Wide Web as a tool for learning.

David is an award-winning futurist, author, and consultant whose clients range across the public and private sector.  His corporate clients range from small start-up ventures to some of the most dynamic large corporations in the world.  His razor-sharp focus on the fast-paced world of modern communication media and its impact on learning places him in constant demand as a keynote speaker and workshop leader.  As the founder and Director of Global Operations for the Thornburg Center, and Senior Fellow of the Congressional Institute for the Future, he conducts research and provides staff development in the areas of educational futures, multimedia, communications, and whole mind education throughout the Americas.  He is active in exploring ways that telecommunications and multimedia change the face of learning.

His educational philosophy is based on the idea that students learn best when they are constructors of their own knowledge.  He also believes that students who are taught in ways that honor their learning styles and dominant intelligences retain the native engagement with learning with which they entered school.  A central theme of his work is that we must prepare students for their future, not for our past. 

He is involved at the Federal level to help shape education and telecommunications policy for the benefit of all learners.  He was recently commissioned to write a position paper for the United States Department of Education on the future of technology for K-12 education.

Click here to see full descriptions of keynote and concurrent sessions.

Marc Prensky Sessions

Keyote Session ~ Engage Me or Enrage Me: Educating Today's Digital Native Learners

The key to getting today's kids more involved in their schoolwork is not curriculum, certification, or testing, but rather engagement.  Prensky argues forcefully that this generation needs more engaging approaches, more understanding, and 21^st century skills.  The first place to look for help is where the kids are already involved most - in their games.  Prensky - game designer and author of Digital Game-Based Learning - shows specifically how games engage kids and how educators can employ and benefit from not only existing games but also the powerful educational principles behind them.

Concurrent Sessions

Video Games Are Not the Enemy:  What Kids Learn That's Positive

Our kids are learning enormous amounts from the computer and videogames they play.  Unfortunately, almost all of this learning, to kids' enormous frustration, goes unrecognized and unrewarded by their teachers, parents, and certainly employers.  Prensky describes and explains the many useful types of learning that games produce, in areas from ethics, to strategy, to deductive reasoning and more.  All of this learning, according to researchers, is extremely helpful for many areas of the players' mental development.  Prensky also shows how more and more of the school "curriculum" is making its way into games that kids actually want to play.  He illustrates, through numerous examples, just how games are currently being used for learning in advanced schools, companies and the military.  Prensky's session emphasizes the need for improved dialog between kids, parents, and teachers about games, and he offers many useful suggestions for how this can happen.  Parents in the audience will find this topic particularly instructive and enlightening.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants:  A New Way to Look at Ourselves and Our Kids

Many, if not most, of today's problems in education stem from a simple fact:  Our students are no longer the ones our system and teachers were designed to teach!  Based on the paper "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants", which has been circulated and reprinted around the world, Prensky explains not only how today's students have changed, but how we, as educators and parents can deal with the changes and learn from them.  Prensky's session is full of practical, useful examples for teachers and parents to increase their connections to their students and kids.  "After your talk, I went home and hugged my daughter," is a typical reaction to this presentation.

Annette Lamb Sessions

Keynote Session ~ Transforming Classrooms: Using Assessment Results to Enrich the Learning Environment

Testing, testing, and more testing!  Does all this focus on assessment really lead to higher achievement?  The answer is no... unless you are using the test results to transform the teaching and learning environment in your classroom.  Learn to create and implement a project-based learning environment with your students, reflect on the experience, and revise your approach and materials by focusing on topics, testing connections, techniques, and technology.

This session will help you address some of the following questions:  How can test results help you impact teaching and learning?  With large class sizes and limited time, what are realistic expectations?  How can technology engage students in meaningful learning experiences?  Examine your existing instructional materials in-depth and identify ways that they can be enhanced by: focusing on essential questions and content, building testing connections, incorporating proven teaching and learning techniques, and integrating effective technology tools and resources.

Concurrent Sessions

I-Totems:  Seven Essentials of Successful Technology-Rich Learning

What if education helped students learn to make informed decisions?  What if it taught the art of learning?  Let's provide students with I-TOTEMS to help them connect their personal world with the global world.  To bridge the digital divide and address our diverse student population, apply the I-TOTEMS of technology-rich learning: Information, Time, Opportunities, Tools, Experiences, Motivation, and Strategies.  I-TOTEMS provide students with what they need to tell stories, show relationships, and describe understandings.  This session examines specific technology resources and tools that can be used to facilitate life-long learning and promote information fluency in K12 students across content areas.  Learning is a life long journey, not a 6, 12, or 16-year destination.  It's about experiences, personal growth, and expanding understanding.  It's about adventure and self-awareness.  Learning is about stretching, challenging, and exploring.  Technology-rich learning environments can provide the tools and atmosphere to support this type of 21^st century learning.

Keeping it REAL: Relevant, Engaging, Authentic Learning Through Effective Technology Integration

This workshop explores technology-rich resources and activities that promote meaningful, standards-based learning.  Discover ways to challenge students through real-world assignments that require little prep time, but promote creative and critical thinking in your subject area.  Use technology to transform your classroom and meet the needs of today's multi-sensory learners.  Regardless of your subject area or technology skills, you will find lots of practical ideas to engage your students.

David Thornburg Sessions

Keynote Session ~ But Wait, There's More! Leveraging Emerging Technologies to Maximize Student Achievement

The constant advance of technology is changing the learning landscape both in and out of school.  As processor speed blasts past the gigahertz barrier, attention is shifting to storage, bandwidth, and true anywhere/anytime access.  Terabytes of data drown all but the most intrepid of information seekers, and open the door to breakthroughs in visualization tools appropriate to large libraries of distributed data.  Today's learners surf the web from their local McDonalds, fill their hard drives with images from their digital cameras, and navigate vast informational spaces anywhere and anytime they want.  Beyond the jargon of 802.16, RAID arrays, and VoIP, lies education's goal of reaching every learner, and the role technology can play in helping to achieve that goal.  This dynamic presentation explores current technological trends and tools geared to the emergent needs and work styles of generation.com - the "always-on" generation in school today.

Concurrent Sessions

Digital Imaging Across the Curriculum:  Cameras, Scanners and Learning

Digital cameras outsell film-based cameras worldwide, the immediacy and clarity of digital images can be harnessed in support of virtually any subject at any grade level.  This presentation explores several types of student projects at different grade levels and content areas that take advantage of digital imaging in support of developing deep understanding of the subject being explored. Examples are taken from a small library of projects that can be made available to participants on CD-ROM, plus a template that educators can use in designing their own highly effective projects.  If you have (or are thinking about getting) digital cameras for your classroom, this highly practical session explores the pedagogical and curricular aspects of digital imaging and provides the resources you need to bring these ideas into practice right away.

Inquiry:  Technology and the Art of helping Students Ask Good Questions

Inquiry drives our quest for learning, at almost every age, and in every subject. Computers can play a useful (if subservient) role, supporting both the formulation and the answering of interesting questions.  This presentation explores the inquiry process as a vehicle for developing understanding in any subject, through inquiry and a demonstration of modern technologies used in support of finding good questions, whose answers will help students gain mastery of any subject being taught.  Topics covered include: 

1) Why questions are powerful motivators for learning;

2) What distinguishes inquiry from other kinds of questions;

3) Characteristics of interesting questions;

4) The role of content in formulating questions;

5) Using technology in an inquiry-driven environment.