Sally DeVincentis is a vendor, but she was a Special Education teacher for 25 years. With a background like that she’s got my interest. (This is why I love this WiFi connection. In less than a minute I looked up her business and linked in her website.)

The key to this session seems to be “Visual Literacy,” a skill that begins to develop before verbal literacy.

Ok, we’re 12 minutes in and she’s still talking about theory. I know a lot about this already, but I’m not faulting her for this – I’m sure most of the people in this room are learning this for the first time.

“TV is a student’s FIRST professional teacher.” As much cash as we spend on learning how students think and learn, advertising companies spend much, much more. What can we learn from them?

• Tell a story.
• Bombard with visuals.
• Make it relevant to the viewer’s life. (Personalize it!)
• Limit the words.
• Provide multi-sensory cues.
• Go from the concrete to the abstract.

The theories are done, now she’s showing the products. While she says she’d like us to like her products, she does mention that we can do similar activities on our own without their software.

The first program has a library of digital pictures that can be organized so that every student has their own gallery, but you can add your own. It has a section that will let students edit photos in your gallery, but the coolest part is where students can create a book using their gallery.

The result is a digital product that has the page turns animated as it speaks to students in a distorted computer voice. You can also print the book so students can take it home.

Aaaaah! She’s showing off all of the transitions it can put into a slide show. I know she’s deliberately showing the variety, but how many people who use this product will do the same thing? Bad, bad, bad design.

The session’s winding down. I think I got a few ideas out of this, but I’m still hoping the other sessions speak to me more.

I’m at what will be my first session of the day: “Making Better Readers with Digital Photography.” Once again I’m in range of a strong WiFi signal, but this time it’s password protected so I’ll have to save this summary for later. As an added bonus I’m even close to a wall outlet! (No more putting my laptop to sleep between each burst of writing. Curse you, old battery!)

I hope the network isn’t encrypted when I present tomorrow, or at the very least I hope they share the password with me. I have a “Plan B” worked into my presentation just in case, but I’d much prefer to do everything live.

UPDATE: The password protection’s been dropped. Boo-ya!

I’m hoping to get a few good things out of this one although they’ll have to close the giant picture window behind the projector screen. Even if we could see the visual aides with this much light in the room, we’d all be looking out the window instead. (You can see the National Aquarium from here.)

Today’s Keynote is unusual for me. Rather than having just one person standing in front of a PowerPoint presentation we have several individuals (Linda Roberts, Senator Patrick J. Hogan, Dr. Karen B. Salmon, Jim Potter, and Sterlind S. Burke, Sr.) discussing “21st century skills.”

They’re having some microphone problems, but it’s not too bad.

Jim Potter has a few good sound bits, including “We need a balance between perspiration and inspiration,” and “We don’t know what we don’t know.”

Dr. Salmon started a 1:1 laptop program where the students could take their computers home at the end of the day. The 1:1 initiative is seeping into Maryland, and so far it’s working.

Sterlind Burke says we need to focus on ethics and how the technology can be used IN the curriculum, not just AS a curriculum. I’m on board with both points.

Senator Hogan makes a point about how most U.S. Senators know very little about how technology works and thus how it can affect education.

“Technology in service of curriculum”

Four key elements for the 21st century schools, according to Potter:
1. Administrative Support (including the community)
2. Facilities Planning (help students access anything, any time.)
3. Professional Development
4. Students! (Oh yeah, did we forget that part?)

Burke again – “All of these bells and whistles will be scary for County Commissioners. We need to answer the question of ‘What’s in it for me?’”

Potter answers – Better tech ed. will lead to better jobs, which lead to better salaries, which lead to a better economy. (On the down side, this is not an overnight change.)

I’m about to head over to the Baltimore Convention Center or day 1 of MICCA. I’m presenting on blogging, but not until tomorrow. Today I’m just going to see what I can see and blog about it.

If they have wireless access I’ll post from there. If not, I’ll post when I get home.

UPDATE: I’m sitting in the room for the Keynote speaker. Obviously, MICCA has WiFi. Life is good, or at least it will be until my battery dies.

This 2.4 MB video is more or less an ad for the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

Sound interesting?  Check out their website!