Educomm is coming up soon, in Anaheim, California (June 19-21). Educomm is the educational side of Infocomm, the world’s largest AV communications and presentation technologies trade show.
Alan Kay (inventor of the personal computer), David Pogue (tech writer for the New York Times and author of the Missing Manual series of books) are keynoting. Featured speakers include Hall Davidson, Wesley Fryer, Bruce Dixon, and Gary Stager.
Alan Kay is probably the most profound thinker about technology and learning of our generation. The laptop, the Graphical User Interface (GUI), P2P networking, and Squeak are but a few of his contributions. David Pogue is wildly entertaining and his keynotes include singing and piano playing.
Not only do you get this lineup of speakers, but you get access to Infocomm, which is a techie’s dream come true. Now in its fourth year, EduComm is the only national technology management conference focused on the integration of audio-visual and information technology to enhance the classroom experience. This year’s focus is Web 2.0 – wikis, blogging, online collaboration tools and more – and how these applications are changing the face of education.
Discounts – teams of three can get in for the price of two, and CUE members receive a $150 discount on registration when using ECUE code.
I’ll be speaking too about including students in your Web 2.0 vision – come by and say hi!
Sylvia
I think you’re right about alan kay
Recently I’ve been reading a history of the dynabook, by John Maxwell. It’s more than 300pp but very interesting and I can’t stop reading! This had helped me understand alan kay’s educational ideas, which I think have not been properly discovered yet.
I’ve written a couple of blogs about it and plan to write some more:
computers” in education mush
alan kay’s educational vision
“Alan Kay is probably the most profound thinker about technology and learning of our generation. The laptop, the Graphical User Interface (GUI), P2P networking, and Squeak are but a few of his contributions”
Until recently I was saying things like this about Alan Kay too. I’ve done some more reading. Kay worked with a tremendous team of people at ARPA and Xerox PARC and it was innovation time then, cf. now. It’s true to say that he did invent some things (eg. the term object oriented) and had a clear vision of some things that did develop (eg. the personal computer) it’s also true that a lot of these things were sequential inventions by groups of people. eg. he did not invent the GUI but did contribute to it.
“PARC is incorrectly credited with having invented the GUI. Of course, there were GUIs in the ’60s. But I think we did do one good thing that hadn’t been done before, and that was to realize the idea of change being eternal”
A Conversation with Alan Kay
http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=printer_friendly&pid=273&page=1