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The following was originally published April 23, 2009 at http://steppgcps.blogspot.com/2009/04/micca-expereince.html This week several STEP participants attended the MICCA conference! (Maryland Instructional Computer Coordinator's Association) I was so happy to see so many STEP participants in attendance and actively engaged in the sessions that I attended. The Keynote speaker on the first day was pretty good but I really enjoyed the Keynote on the second day.Lance Rougeux Director of Discovery Educator Network for Discovery Communications had a "really cool' presentation that centered around the Benjamin Button Effect. If you've never seen the movie, it's about a child who is born an old man and as he gets "older in years" his body gets younger. It's kind of plays on the idea that youth is wasted on the young.Well, Mr. Rougeux told a story about how years ago he used to take his student's Marble-covered Journals home to read them in a milk crate and how laborious the entire effort was. Yet he read the journals and wrote comments back to the students. He remarked that many of the students talked about similar topics in their journals and thought that students might benefit from talking/communicating with other students who wrote about similar issues.... but their was just not enough time to do this in the classroom. Mr. Rougeux said if he were having students do journals now, instead of using the marble-covered journals, he'd let the students blog. Using and electronic blog he could review students postings and add comments without having to lug that milk crate home! Students could even comment to other students having similar experiences....Boy could I relate!!!!His presentation really motivated me to think of how I could do things differently.Besides the Keynote, I did see some great presentations geared towards administrators using technology. Those presentations reminded me how important it is for administrators to "buy in" to using technology to motivate their teachers to use it.Anywho, attending MICCA this year, was a great experience for me. I saw lots of equipment to put on my "wish list" and I saw awesome 2.0 tools that I will definitely use and pass along to others. (If you 'd like to look at the session held at MICCA and get some handouts that were helpful access the following link : [] )Oh and by the way.... Tia walked all over the Baltimore Convention Center and Jason Christopher has not arrived yet!!!! Mommy is still smiling :-) Her due date is April 30th so don't forget to wish her well!

The following was originally published April 1, 2009 at http://steppgcps.blogspot.com/2009/04/sample-voicethread-post.html