I spent a wonderful 3 days at Sturbridge, MA. The pre-conference day of discovery was a fun event and Dennis Swain out did himself inspiring the teachers in attendance on how to use Discovery Education Streaming. He also brought with him some wonderful STAR educators to share their expertise.

The next 2 days were devoted to the MassCUE annual conference. Our first keynote speaker was Wesley Fryer. He spoke to the differences in today’s students, the importance of 21st century skills, and our need to be able to communicate and collaborate using a variety of web tools. I could not agree more, as educators we need to incorporate these skills into our daily work in order for us to understand how to help our students acquire these skills. To that end I gave a session on Twitter which is one of my favorite communication and collaborative tools. Wes participated in this session and was kind enough to stream it. I did note there were a few sessions related to Ning (Liz Davis), and Google tools but not much else on Collaborative tools. There were no sessions on Second Life my absolute favorite tool to use, I was asked to do a session though but declined as the internet connection in the past was unreliable.

Day 2 began with a keynote address by Hall Davidson. I have heard Hall speak before he is full of energy and wisdom though I often wish he would slow down a bit so I can think about what he is saying. Hall spoke about the Revenge of the Digital Immigrant, and how we must change how we teach to effectively educate today’s student.

The best part about any conference in the face to face communications and sharing ideas with people in the halls between sessions. I like continuing these discussion online now. All in all for me a successful conference, looking forward to next year.