Seattle Conference

For once, I made a presentation at a conference in a location where I could sleep in my own bed (at least for a short time). The Northwest Council for Computers in Education is holding its annual conference at the Washington State Convention Center in downtown Seattle. I did a presentation on Interactive ePortfolios: Using Web 2.0 tools to Provide Feedback on Student Learning. Part of my experience was taking the Sounder train into downtown Seattle (leaving my town at 6:30 AM!), and finding that the train had wifi... fairly slow, but I was able to upload a version of my slides, and check my email on my trip home.

The keynote presenter was Mark Prensky, who had a pretty powerful message. He is well known for his research on games and "digital natives" and his focus on student engagement. (One quote from a student: "eMail is for old people!") He gave the audience a 5-minute research assignment for which we could only use a cell phone (no computers!) to find the answer. Very interesting exercise. It makes me more convinced that learners should be using cell phones more in the ePortfolio process.