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Well the day has finally arrived! This is quite possibly the largest ‘trade-show’ I have ever been in my entire life. And I know something about trade shows. As a former sales reps for a number of products I have been to literally thousands, although this time there is a bit of a change of roles. Instead of trying to get people to buy my products, vendors were trying to get me to buy THEIRS! It’s a nice change although I really miss the presenting. I loved the high paced, caffeine injected adrenaline rush during this time, but now I am searching for solutions for our school system, and I don’t have a lot of time to dilly-dally if I am going to get something soon! The man here is Dr. Thornburg, and while his WEBSITE has a lot to be desired, he is full of incredible and HUGE ideas. I can’t even begin to capture his energy, his spirit, nor his incredible presence as he presented to us today. Which is an interesting story. I was supposed to be in a session about thin client Linux implementations for large roll-outs (yes, sounds boring doesn’t it? This is the life of an IT geek though lol. ) but the presenter had failed to show. It was quite an embarrassing situation for ISTE or NECC I am sure as they had to dismiss a very large chunk of IT geeks (probably about a hundred of us all crammed into a single room.) I was walking out disappointed, and happened to see Dr. Thornburg through the door giving his presentation and popped in trying to quickly salvage the time. I was really quite blown away at his ideas and it made me feel like part of something very, very big again. Dr. Thornburgs ideas are on a GLOBAL level however, and while huge things make a man/woman feel bigger than they really are, the realist in me immediately began questioning. However, changes start somewhere, even if they are started by one Brazilian/Jewish gentlemen who sees the need, and has the desire to hold the torch of idealism. I hope to one day be able to contribute in some way to his quest, but in the meantime I am searching for solutions to our schools mathematics concerns.

This morning started with a light breakfast.  This is a very small potatoe and egg burrito and a regular sized coffee (probably about 10 ounces) and the grand total of this little jewel was six bucks.  The convention center is absolutely huge and we could fit about six of our entire school district inside it so I guess they have to pay for that building somehow.  In any case, besides a bland, flavorless breakfast I was pretty much overwhelmed but the stuff here!  All the big names were here including my favorite little proprietary ‘Adobe’.  If you have read my posts from the past you know what a big supporter I am of open-source, copy-left, and creative commons.  However, I leave just enough hypocrite room for Adobe.  This is one of the most expensive and burdensome software packages I have seen but I can’t seem to get away from it, so after swooning under the Adobe banner for about an hour this morning I decided it was time to look at some other solutions.

Something else I was impressed by was the amount of student participation there is here.  They have an entire wing dedicated to student presentations, and I was floored when a young girl approached me and said something to the effect of ‘Hello Mr. Mullins,’ (obviously she was trained well to read my name tag.) ‘would you like to see what my team has done for our project?’.  All that came out of the mouth of a nine-year old.  I stood there dumbfounded.  How could I resist?!  So, she went into a nice and pleasant converstational description about her schools project and how technology helped them accomplish their goals.  I simply could not believe it.  It is absolutely amazing what empowered teachers and inspired students can accomplish with a few electrons.  Like I said there was a whole WING of these guys/gals!  Wall to wall of excited students, pumped and eager to show off their creations, it was enough to bring tears to this ole cynics eyes.  I thought to myself, ‘WE HAVE GOT TO GET HERE!’.  You know in the public school we hear the anthem, ‘It’s for the children.’ so often that the words are a bit slack at times.  The words have become old, and tired, and some kind of shade of gray, but watching these little ones running around in there slacks and ties and matching shirts got me all sorts of excited again.  This really IS for the kids!

Coupled with the words of Dr. Thornburg it really struck a chord with me today, and I left with a bag full of pamplets, brochures and flyers, but what I really had wasn’t in my bag.  It wasn’t some incredible ad-slick hashed out by professionals.  It wasn’t a free pen, or ruler, or squeeze toy.  What I left with today was inspiration.  And coming from a hard, crusty technology coordinator that is saying quite a lot!

Stay tuned for my last two days at the conference, there is much more to come I am convinced.