On a Techie High

The annual MACUL Conference was held this past week.  The word on the street is that the conference was the best ever.  This is good news to me, because I'm on the Board of Directors and helped plan and carry it off.   :)    There were over 4,000 attendees and I could feel the high level of energy and enthusiasm among those who were there.  I kept really busy with organizational tasks throughout the conference, and was only able to make a few of the sessions, so I look forward to keeping my own learning going; there are many ways to do this:

• Check out the awesome resource materials posted by presenters on the Speakers' page of the MACUL website.


• Browse through the #macul11 tweets. Conference attendees posted quotes, links, ideas, questions, photos, and more.


• Follow the discussions going on at MACULSpace.  I just added a forum for sharing your "best of MACUL" stories.


• Read the posts on the MACUL Conference Blog.


• The keynotes and some of the featured speakers were videotaped.  The videos will soon be available on Michigan Streamnet.

But wait... there's more!  The day after the MACUL Conference, my district hosted the Stir it Up with Discovery Education Conference.  It was sponsored by Discovery Education, and it was like a "mini MACUL Conference."  Many educators who were not able to get away for the MACUL Conference came. There were 75 attendees from at least 15 SE Michigan school districts.  We were lucky to have Discovery Education's Mike Bryant, Matt Monjan, and Porter Palmer there.   The Michigan Discovery Education Leadership Team planned and presented at the event: Cheryl Lykowski, Eric Strommer, Gina Loveless, Lisa Wickman, Cindy Carson, and me.  Walled Lake educators who presented included Mark Lada, Randy Micallef, Jennifer Bond, Rob Osterman, and Mark Hess.  Support for technology integration by the Walled Lake Consolidated Schools administrative team was apparent, as many attended:  Superintendent Gutman; Assistant Superintendent Barry; Director of Technology & Data Analysis, Mark Hess; Director of Community Relations, Judy Evola; and the hosting school's principal, Brad Paddock.  AWESOME!   You can check out the conference wiki for session handouts and other electronic resources.

I'm tired physically, but am intellectually energized!