Tech Conference: What is coming?
It is the end of June and many of us tech folk went to the ISTE Conference in Philadelphia. There were over 500 vendors onsite and workshops around the clock. Here are a few things that caught my eye that are a focus in education right now:
Interactive Whiteboards: Smart Boards, Prometheans, and more - these are not going away and educators are finding more and more ways to capture the attention and creativity of students. Multi touch, extended boards, and wheel cahir accessible boards were a few exciting things to see!
Social Networking for Schools: When our students graduate, they will be using even more digital tools to communicate and collaborate. It appears the education world understands this and there were many vendors on site: My Big Campus, Edmodo, Gaggle, and ePals are just a few of the names. Our students love to interact on the web and these tools give us a safe, productive, and fun way to do that!
Gadgets: No conference would be complete without crazy gadgets that are just coming out now! Tablets of course take front and center. HP is releasing the HP TouchPad which runs Palm Web OS - it looked and felt great and I can't wait to test it out! Asus is releasing a netbook/tablet device. Need to be productive? use the Asus 'Transofrmer' netbook to type away! Need to be on the go - detach the tablet off the keyboard and away you go - the best of both worlds!
Education Technology is really taking off right now. Lopatcong looks forward to introducing our students to all of this tech...someday these students will be creating and using these gadgets!