NECC Draws Librarians

More than 12,654 registered attendees flocked to San Antonio, TX, for the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), held June 29 through July 2 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. So what was there for librarians?

Plenty, according to Peggy Milam Creighton, chair of SIGMS, the special interest group for media specialists of ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education, which sponsors NECC. The largest annual gathering of the K–12 education technology community, NECC attracts educators, tech specialists, policy makers, and exhibitors from around the world. Of those attendees, “25 percent are linked to school libraries,” says Creighton, a media specialist at Compton Elementary School in Powder Springs, GA.

And this year’s show did not disappoint, with numerous sessions and workshops geared for the library audience. The 21st Century Media Center Playground offered a day-long open house, of sorts, featuring demonstrations of technology-infused projects by local school librarians. In a lively discussion, the SIGMS Forum on July 1 featured an expert panel including Doug Johnson, Director of Media and Technology for the Mankato (MN) Public Schools, and Gail Dickenson, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Curriculum and Instruction, Old Dominion University, in considering ISTE’s NETS and AASL standards for 21st learners.

SIGMS also presented the Technology Innovation Award, honoring media specialists and classroom teachers for creative collaboration on a learning project involving technology. Winners in the elementary school category were Kathy Sanders and Gwen Pavelski of Taylor Prairie Elementary School in Cottage Grove, WI, for Weather Watch: Making History. Terri Vest and Cawood Cornelius of Sonoraville High School of Calhoun, GA, won in the secondary school category for their Spanish Project.

Other NECC highlights include the debut of the revised NETS-T standards for educators, concurrent, virtual world events in Second Life, and the June 28 “unconference,” EduBloggerCon, which spurred some controversy regarding the presence of videographers hired by Pearson Education. Next year, Washington, DC, will host NECC June 28 to July 1, 2009.

Couldn’t make it to San Antonio? The conversation continues at the conference Ning page (See “Site of the Month,” p. 14), and a video and podcast recordings from NECC are available on the ISTE site.