Jeff+Vogus

__Jeff Vogus__
What Did I See At PETE & C? ﻿The Jeff Corwin Experience: The opening speaker was Jeff Corwin. I have no idea why they had Jeff Corwin; he said little about technology. But, he did remind us that there is a natural world that the digital one can never replace. The danger in our rush to incorporate technology into education (and our lives) is that we might forget that this TOOL is not the answer to all our wants, needs, and hopes. It's only a tool to make the way better. And, if we get to "technified" we might miss the real thing. I noticed, as we sat to the side of the giant banquet hall, that everyone on my side of the room was watching Corwin on the large projection screen right in front of us. But, the real guy was standing in the middle of the room. If I just turned my head I saw the real thing! Now, I suppose that isn't a big deal to most. But to me, it symbolized my willingness to allow the digital substitute to replace the real experience.

The Places I Can Go-ogle: I attended a workshop that demonstrated some applications of Google of which I was unaware (which is most of the digital world). For instance, after "googling" a topic I can have a concept map appear, sort websites by reading level, and generate a timeline. These are very simple to do, and quite useful, especially for differentiating instruction.

iPad: Personalizing Learning, Creating and Sharing: This was a tremendous workshop led by a teacher from LA- Marco Torres. He demonstrated all types of ways of implementing the use of an iPad. While I was fascinated by this, I'm not really qualified to say much about it as I do not have an iPod Touch or iPad. Maybe someday.

Creating WebQuests: Not every workshop is worth attending. This proved that point. The presenter wasn't too helpful or enthusiastic. And, it was not well conducted. I did create a site on [|www.weebly.com] that allowed me to make a webquest but, being a digital immigrant, I'm not very proficient at this.

William Strickland was the luncheon speaker to close the conference. I found him to be a compelling speaker. It seems that as a youth he was headed for trouble until the art (ceramics) teacher at this school took him under his wing. He essentially stayed in school to work with pottery. After finding great success in business, he felt led to open a school in Pittsburgh for disadvantaged youth to train them in a craft, the arts, culinary arts, digital sound and graphics design. He told of his vision for this school, his opportunities to meet wealthy investors, and the expansion of his ideal to numerous other cities. It prompted me to wonder why he wouldn't open rural centers. We have the same types of issues here in our area, and we could see other areas of education explored- agricultural, graphic design, welding and such (Mowrer gave me the last idea). I approached Mr. Strickland, and he invited me to visit his school in Pittsburgh. So, I'm going! Who knows what may come of that. Here's a website on Mr. Strickland, [], and a video clip .media type="youtube" key="d-LsOUdgpEI" height="301" width="365"media type="youtube" key="qg4bqejzCkc" height="390" width="480"
 * Bill Strickland: **