Thanks @NMHS_Principal and @Schoology! Here are my incomplete notes from TSETC today…

I spent the day in New Jersey. More specifically, I woke up before 6:30am on a Saturday (!) to head to the inaugural Tri-State Education Technology Conference (#TSETC) hosted by Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal) at New Milford High School and sponsered by Schoology (@schoology). I will be forever grateful to Al Doyle (@aldoyle) for driving and Basil Kolani (@bkolani) for navigating while I complained from the back seat. We were all presenters at TSETC today, Al talked about Game Theory, and Basil and I co-presented on Grassroots Professional Development.

My PLN has grown exponentially over the last couple of years, and it was a pleasure to match a face to an avatar and/or reunite with EdCampPhilly organizers Mary Beth Hertz (@mbteach) and Rich Kiker (@rkiker), Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal), Aaron Bellow (@adambellow), Tom Whitby (@TomWhitby) wearing the same Hawaiian shirt he were to Teacher Town Hall at Education Nation last weekend, Bill Stites (@wstites), fellow EdCampNYC organizers Deven Black (@spedteacher) and Katy Gartside (@nykat4), fellow TEDxNYED organizers Tammy McKenna (@tmck76) and Basil Kolani (@bkolani), NYCIST friend Al Doyle (@adoyle), Pamela Livingston (@plivings), Aaron Eyler (@Aaron_Eyler), Neal Taparia and Darshan Somasheker from EasyBib (@EasyBib), Mark Moran (@FindingDulcinea) from Sweet Search, Jim Lerman (who I worked with 10 years ago at The Dalton School, Dorothy Fox (@dee8906), Meg Wilson (@ipodsibilities) and many others I’m too tired to remember to list right now.

While TSETC was not an UNconference, I treated it as such. I ignored the blank papers at four separate stations where people were expected to sign up for sessions. Instead, I popped in and out of rooms, greedily gathering as many useful resources and websites as I could.

Here’s a bit of what I learned/shared as I walked around:

Grassroots PD by me (@SpecialKRB) and Basil Kolani (@bkolani)

We spoke about our New York Consortium of Independent School Technologists (http://NYCIST.net) and how it’s tag-line is “Knowledge is in the group”
Building your PLN can happen by following lists like the one Brendan Schneider (@schneiderb) created: http://www.edsocialmedia.com/2010/08/101-people-you-should-follow-on-twitter/
Following the Twitter hashtags of various chats: #edchat #ntchat #engchat #scichat #spedchat #musedchat and so on…
EdCamps are popping up all over – I’m helping to organize EdCampNYC on 12/4/10
TEDx allows you to host an independently organized TED event using their name and format – I’m also on the organizing committee of TEDxNYED on 3/5/11
Various Nings like the Independent School Educators Network http://isenet.ning.com/

Thinking Outside the Ban: Taking risks to prepare students for success Keynote speech by Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu)

http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com

Ten Web 2.0 Tools to Make Your Classroom Rock by Adam Bellow (@adambellow)

Teaching the 10 Steps to Better Web Research by Mark Moran (@findingdulcinea)

http://blog.findingdulcinea.com/2010/10/im-presenting-today-at-the-tri-state-education-technology-conference-tsetc-at-new-milford-high-school-in-new-jers.html

Game Design 2010 by Al Doyle (@aldoyle) aldoyle@dwight.edu

Al’s Game Design Blog he uses with his class: http://gamedesign2010.blogspot.com
Al’s wiki of Gaming resources: http://gaminginschool.wikispaces.com
EdTech Now! Blog: http://edtechnow.blogspot.com

Appsolutely Accommodating: Meet the iPad by Meg Wilson (@ipodsibiities)

Meg totally delivered a great presentation. She demo’d a bunch of awesome Apps that she’s written about on her blog including Proloquo2go, Signs4You, Text-to-Speech, Speech-to-Text, and Big Buttons. Her blog highlights all the technology integration projects she’s developed to accommodate all learners.
Finally, Meg live-blogged TSETC here: http://www.ipodsibilities.com/iPodsibilities/iPodsibilities_Blog/Entries/2010/10/2_Tri-State_Education_Technology_Conference.html
and here slides are here:

http://www.ipodsibilities.com/iPodsibilities/iPodsibilities_Blog/Entries/2010/10/3_Meet_the_iPad-TSETC.html

Transforming an Educational Experience with Social Media by Bill Stites (@wstites)

The session was streamed and saved here: http://www.edsocialmedia.com/2010/10/edsocialmedia-at-tsetc/
Slides here:

iGlobal Class rojects: Extending learning beyond the classroom by Shelly Terrell (@ShellTerrell) Skyping in from Germany!

http://technology4kids.pbworks.com/globalprojects

Living and Learning with a Classroom set of iPads by Colleen McGuire (@mzmacky)

http://ipadschools.wikispaces.com/

Clearly I was unable to be everywhere, but I saw these slides posted to Twitter from other presentations too:

Using MobileTechnology for Student Centered Learning by George Engel (@gbengel)
http://blogs.cellularlearning.org/?p=182

Digital Storytelling by Samantha Morra (@sammorra)

Will Online Learning Change Everything? by Cory Plough (@mrplough07)

An Educator’s Guide to 21st Century Learning by Mary Beth Hertz (@mbteach)

Finally, I just want to re-share these free lessons incorporating Yolink, Sweet Search, EasyBib, and Creative Commons can be found below. I created the awesomely punny “License to Cull with Creative Commons”: http://www.yolinkeducation.com/education/teachers.jsp