Somewhere over the Pacific

The science of time is so cool. You hop on a plane at 7-00pm Friday in NZ, fly for 12 hours and get to San Francisco at lunchtime Friday. On the graphic on the screen in front of me shows the pattern the sun makes re: darkness and daylight in that sort of bell curve way. It reminds of Mark Treadwell as he did a session a few years ago where he was demonstrating this in terms of our technology being a powerful tool to convey this concept.

I’m also thinking about this whole trip. NECC has stood out for me as a must do experience. I’m trying for the trifecta, WCEC, NECC and BECTA with NECC being the second leg. Three big educational conferences on computers in education. Presenting at WCEC in 2001 in Copenhagen was a really cool experience. I’m not presenting this time. I’m wanting to gauge the state of where things are at. Web 2.0 is big at the moment and most of the stuff I’m reading is coming from the states. So NECC is where I’ve come. I’ve hopefully already been exposed to the potential and possibility of these technologies via the net I’m interested in the narratives. The stories of how people are turning this stuff into powerful learning.

NECC

I thought I would capture my NECC experience as a simple narrative. I’m thinking a lot about the conference so thought I would share my thoughts. I’ve been offline for a few days so some of this is post dated.

Thursday 21^st June, 9.30pm. I still at school wanting to get the board newsletter out but wouldn’t you know it, I’m having technical difficulties with the colour printer. 9.32 and I’m resigned to the fact that it ain’t going to happen. With less than 24 hours before I jump on the plane there is still a lot to do but I think I can tick the “must dos off before I leave.

Friday 22^nd June 10-30am. Well the morning hasn’t gone as I had planned. I’ve spent a bit of time talking with kids and parents (end of term melt downs). I had the abusive parent so have rung the police as I’m not to keen on walking out and leaving Christine without an option if things turn nasty. My last act at lunchtime before heading to the airport is to stand one of the kids down for an unprovoked assault. Having spent half an hour with parent and child first thing in the morning talking positively it’s not a great way to leave the school grounds.

Faz has already been in San Francisco all week. Bridget and I for some reason are on different domestic flights. Bridget’s flight cuts her international connection a little fine so she has rung the travel agent to see what she can do. I now end up on a different flight, now cutting my time down, but not on the same flight s Bridget. The woman an check in was great. She can’t solve our problem but puts us in the front row of the plane so we can get straight off and make a dash for the international airport. We both get straight through immigration so America, here we come.

Welcome to my blog.

Welcome to Heavyfish. I am a school principal in New Zealand and want to start walking the talk. I've been inspired by a number of people talking of the potential of Web 2.0 tools so I thought I would jump in and see for myself