Things I Learned at FETC

This week I was blessed with the opportunity to attend the FETC Conference. It was quite an event, filled with busy days of sectionals and vendor previews. Here are just a few of the things I learned at FETC:

• The newly released Google Custom Search has many possibilities for use in education and ministry. My mind is filled with possibilities. I will share some of these in a future post.
• I need a backup battery for my laptop if it is going to last all day for notetaking, blogging, and updating with Twitter.
• I probably received the most practical material from Gail Lovely's session on early childhood websites. As someone with no background in early childhood other than the computer classes I lead for preschoolers, this presentation provided educational theory for working with these students as well as so many practical sites and activities. She also did an excellent job of connecting early childhood online activities to NETS standards. I am so much better prepared to lead preschool students in the lab than ever before.
• Convention center food is just a means to an end -- providing enough energy to keep going through the day, and nothing more. Airport food isn't much better (not that this is any new revelation to most of you!)
• One thing I found puzzling: I sat through several presentations about web 2.0 tools -- presentations which really started to run together -- but the focus of most of these presentations was on the tools themselves, not the 21st century skills which these tools help build. It seemed misguided to invest so much energy on the tools without a greater discussion of their educational merit in preparing our students for their future.
• International connections are more important than domestic connections to an airline. My flight home was bumped back nearly two hours even though our plane was ready and we were ready to board. A plane destined for Washington DC had not arrived and there were many people on that flight with international connections, so United decided to bump us back and use that plane for the Washington flight. That was a bit frustrating for me, but much more so for those passengers who missed connections in Denver.
• Bubble pens from vendors are a big hit with my daughters back home.
• Scratch continues to generate a lot of positive responses from users and presenters. It seems that MIT has a winner with this freeware program.
• I still have so much more to learn!