Are you burned out or connected?

Having just left ISTE10 and Wichita, KS where I was attending Podstock10 with Kevin Honeycutt and many others in my network of friends and folks, I continued to hear a recurring theme. The statement that I have heard way too many times in the last couple of weeks is something along these lines: "I am glad to be somewhere with like minded people so that I can get re-energized before I go back to school."

That statement alone is another great reason to work on building your network of friends, colleagues and peers. This is a way for people to be connected year round to those like minded individuals, another way for us to not be isolated islands battling the tides. Many people are in the same boat and we need to make sure that we are able to reach out and use those connections we have. These connections are important for all types of things such as our sanity, our strength, new ideas, along with other ways for us to continue to learn and branch out in our respective positions.

If you are one of those people needing to make connections, come join me, I will be more than happy to connect with you, introduce you to my network of friends. Together we are better, more knowledgeable and more energized.

So much to learn and so little time.

Random thoughts on traveling

While I haven't figured out the total miles yet, Diane and I drove close to 3,ooo on our journey from Dallas to Denver and back again with several stops in between. Here are some of my observations on the journey, some serious, most not, mainly just some thoughts.

1. When planning a journey such as this make sure to have a list and check it twice. I forgot one requested thing at school and then on the way to the highway realized that I had also left my fishing gear at the house.
2. Don't be afraid to let the spouse drive.
3. In the entire trip we came to realize that there are a lot of things moved around this country by truck and by train. A lot.
4. When driving through the panhandle of the state of Texas, if you get stopped it is best to be totally nice and polite. Even though I was only doing 74 in a 70 and using the cruise control, I said all the right things and only got a warning. His question to me was are you heading somewhere in particular? My response was to a conference in Denver. (This is a week before it started.) His reply does it start tomorrow? We both laughed as I replied no sir.
5. I was glad that New Mexico and Colorado both have 75 mph speed limits.
6. Drink lots of water. First day in New Mexico it was 94 F at 8:30 am but it was only 10% humidity. You might sweat but it evaporates so quickly that you dry out quickly and you never really feel that you are sweating..
7. It was good to travel again in this manner and see the wide open spaces of the U. S. We have a beautiful country and the ability to travel it in this manner is a fantastic privilege.
8. In Santa Fe, NM, if you are in the mood for barbecue try Whole Hog right off the main drag in Santa Fe. It is worthy.
9. Be open to all possibilities. We took side trips and did not just drive on the Interstate Highways.
10. The transition from the desert of New Mexico to the mountains of Colorado was amazing. The mountains were just spectacular.
11. Estes Park was fantastic.
12. If you are lucky to see three guys go over a hill chasing a bear, I hope you are even luckier to see them come running back safely over the hill with the bear chasing them.
13. If you come up on any road kill. you can probably make a great stew out of what is left as long as you have Mike Gras with you. Otherwise leave it for the birds. This includes armadillos.
14. It is cool in the mountains, soak it up and enjoy.
15. When you are staying in an 8K square foot house with pool and jaccuzzi, don't be surprised when all 8 of you hang around the kitchen table and the kitchen island most of the time.
16. Mike Gras is one hell of a cook and a very wonderful man to sit around with and talk to as well.
17. It is enjoyable to watch people younger than you find themselves and where they fit in.
18. It is also enjoyable to see young people thirsting to be a part and to connect.
19. If you want to find out how to be an advocate for educational technology, talk with Bud Hunt and Scott Floyd. It is tough to know two better ed-tech folks but also it is tough to know two better connected ed-tech folks.
20. Language is important, don't think it isn't.
21. I enjoy hearing different accents wherever I go.
22. Language and Literacy. Jon Becker & Ben Grey.
23. Four Square Battles are fun to watch, even if they are created by someone more than a thousand miles away. Alec Couros.
24. Scott Floyd, Mike Gras,Randy Rodgers, Dean Shareski, Adina Sullivan, Lisa Thumann,Chris Craft. You would be hard pressed to find better people to hang with, thanks for the memories.

A question seeking your definition!

At a time when I feel we should be doing everything we can to leverage the ability of our networks for all they are worth for the education of our students, I found out today that we have such a long way to go in just understanding what we do. With that in mind and before I go on a rant, would you please answer this question?

How do you define the role of the Technology Coordinator at your school, district or state?

Please no word play or semantics. Don't have one but you have a director then how would you define a technology coordinator?

Your help is greatly appreciated. And I will keep your names out of it unless you tell me otherwise.

So much to learn and so little time.

Language and credibility

I had a great time at the 4th Edubloggercon at ISTE10 and I thank Steve Hargadon for all of his hard work. I also thank ISTE for being willing to provide us the space to gather and talk about those things that are of interest to us. The whole venue gave many people the opportunity to come together and to interact.

Today I have read a few posts about Edubloggercon, one of them here by Steven Anderson, and this has caused me to do even more thinking about some of the things that took place as well as some of the things I took away. It is important that we have the connections that we have. I didn't know the origins of the term PLN but after some searching I came across this post by David Warlick that might be beneficial to any who reads this as well as the links that David includes in that post.

Disclosure #1 I have used the term PLN to refer to anyone that I connect with in any form or fashion that has helped me to grow or has been an influence in my life.

Diclosure #2 - I have achieved the status of friend with many of those same people both here and abroad as a result of the connections through social media.

Disclosure #3 - Some of those same people I am able to say that I would defend to the death.

Yesterday as Jon Becker facilitated his conversation, I saw passion and defensiveness as people defended their use of a simple term that means so many things to so many different people. I never took away any ideas that there was controversy as a result of or as a part of the discussion. To me it was merely grown ups having a grown up conversation that for me took my thinking to a depth that stirs my thoughts and on ocassion my soul. While this was not one of those soul stirring moments it was very thought provoking especially when someone asked the question what gives language it's credibility?

Disclosure #4 There are any number of people that could handle this discussion better than I, but this is my post.

We see so many words come and go in the English language, words introduced to the dictionary as a result of the use of that word or phrase, but what depth does it bring to the language? Their was not a person there, in my humble opinion, that has not used the term and truly understood it to be something very meaningful to them. I guess my problem after doing some thinking is that when we walk into the vendor hall tomorrow, how many of those terms that have been coined via our networks are we going to be using for our buzzword bingo games? We will complain about the vendors using buzz word after buzz word, but how dare anyone question my use of the terms I want to use?

Adults having adult conversations with a final hope of stirring each one of us to think a little deeper. In 5 years what will that word mean, what type of credibility will it have, what legitimacy for the English language? You are in my network, you help me to think, you allow me to celebrate life with you, you allow me to mourn with you, and allow me to give you some bit of comfort in my response back to you. We joke and kid and post pics of what we are eating.

Each of you makes me aware of so many things each day, but you are not alone. Because of my work in a school, in a district, in a state, and in a Diocese, I also am allowed to do the same things with so many people and you also get to glean some of those things from me because I bring them to other tables as well if I deem them worthy to share.

I have no way to wrap this up and make it tidy, but know I count on a lot of people and I hope that people know they can count on me. But what does give what we do credibility? What gives what we say credibility? If a simple term that I use causes people to reject my next sentence, maybe it is time that we looked deeper into how we use language and how we express ourselves.

Your thoughts?

So much to learn and so little time.

Sipping vs Guzzling - ISTE 2010

I attended my first ISTE then NECC in Seattle in 1997. I paid for the opportunity to work with a great bunch of Seattle folks to learn how to properly terminate and pull both Cat 5 and fiber optic cable. We then pulled the connectivity throughout the Convention Center and work rooms for sessions and the actual convention. I learned so much and enjoyed getting to know people that we worked with, even getting to pull fiber optic cable up in the catwalk of the center. That year there were three T-1's coming in to the convention center and that was mainly for the vendors. we left all the cabling in place and then the CC was torn down 2 years later as Seattle built a new state of the art facility.

This year as I head to ISTE 2010, I wonder if the Convention Center knows who is coming to town and what is about to happen? Sure they have been working with ISTE and the University of Oregon prepping long and hard but do they really know this group of folks? While not all of the attendees are on the bleeding edge, many of these people are carrying laptops, wireless devices in their pockets and they will not be there sipping connectivity. These people will be guzzling at the trough of wireless connectivity. This is a group that uses streaming video, social networking for back channels, email, voicemail, cloud applications and I am sure many other things that I have not even mentioned here.

I am sure that if we had some way of being in what we called the War Room in Seattle in 1997, we might hear the equivalent of the Death Star dying on Monday. The question will be are the systems in place to handle the 15,000 members of the Geek Squad (with apologies to Best Buy) that are about to hit town and fully expect connectivity for every device they are carrying at the same time? I hope so otherwise I am sure the negativity on the evaluations will be loud and long.

I look forward to seeing folks and I look forward to the learning and conversations. May our connections be fast and strong.

So much to learn and so little time.