T-shirts, T-shirts

One thing I like about going to conferences is all the giveaways they have for attendees. Today I collected 8 t-shirts. The ugliest of the bunch was definitely from Electronic Field Trips (hey I signed up for them and the woman as helpful but the t-shirt was not easy on the eyes. The most colorful shirt was the red tye-dye one from Studica Skills. All in all I enjoyed the exhibit hall. One thing I do not like at any conference is all of the literature you are handed out. I know it helps to sell the product, but I would rather see a demo, get a reps name and number or better yet give them mine and maybe if I need it I can take some literature. I would rather be given a listing of all vendors and links to their sites so I can download and view what ever information I needed. I mean I threw most of the stuff I was given anyway and I just think its a waste of paper. All workshops should also give you the ability to download handouts from either their site or a centralized one for the specific conference. Yesterday I was at a great workshop for Internet and PreK - 2 and the presenter gave out color coded handouts with so much info it blew aay your mind. She later mentioned that all the materials were on her website, so I saw no need to track all this stuff back to New Jersey. Maybe they should give attendees access to a special webiste or have it password protected so that only the people who attended the workshop would have access to the files. I mean if you didnt pay for it, why should you get it for get free?

Anyway I really liked the Google scavenger hunt which introduced us to all their tools. Google's Spreadsheets and Documents look so good, it has me thinking why should I reccommend my school spending money on licensing Office from Microsoft? I also liked the presentation from Smart Technologies and seeing their new SmartBoard 600i with the buil-in projector and the demonstration from Crick Software on Clicker 5

My only dissappointment today was I attended one afternoon workshop for Wikis and the Internet was down in the lab for almost and hour, so I left and went to see the BYOL session for Tips and Tricks on Photostory and MovieMaker but that seesion was packed and you couldnt even stand.


More to come...