Twas an incredible first day in Atlanta. After rising late (we were all exhausted from the ordeal of the day before) we strolled two blocks to mid-town, the over to Centennial Olympic Park and the “World of Coke”. In this city that is headquarters to the most popular soft drink in the world, Coca Cola rules!

We enjoyed a tour through an actual production facility and historical displays of all kinds, but the highlight was definately the 4-D theatre presentation, complete with 3-D glasses, moving seats, wind and water! What a ride…

The sign identifies a robot that is used in the processing facility. When I saw it I began to wonder…how many of our classrooms are like this machine…repetitively sanitize the container, fill with product and cap, and try not to shake too much before opening at test time. I fear that far too many match this analogy.

What will it take to move our schools toward a more individual approach, where students themselves decide what product they want to hold and how they want to be filled. What role canm technology play in this change?

NECC is underway…more later.

Technorati tags: necc07, necc2007, education, technology

You would think that getting up at 4 am to catch a 5:45 am flight would be sufficient – especially when you live less than three minutes from the airport! But alas, conference travel never seems to go easy for me.

In a role reversal from last year’s trip to Memphis for the Laptop Institute, this time it was Delta’s turn to bail out Air Canada when their plane refused to start on the tarmac in the wee hours – something about a dead battery.

While we (myself and four others on our tech mentor team) did manage to make our way – over three hours late – to Toronto on our original aircraft, that’s where the real fun began.

After missing our original scheduled connection to Atlanta – and with the balance of AC’s schedule to Atlanta full for the rest of the day – Air Canada then rescheduled us through Boston, where we would catch a Delta flight to Atlanta. Even though it was kind of a zig zag across the northeast, it wasn’t a bad option, except it would get us in four hours later than scheduled, and a full hour after first pitch in the 3:30 start for the Braves and Tigers.

Ha ha!…not so simple…after our delayed flight was even later than expected, and a wrong turn in the Toronto airport, we missed the flight to Boston. By now, all we could do was laugh!

We put ourselves in the hands of the VERY nice staff at Air Canada who managed to rebook us direct to Atlanta on the competition, Delta. We had just under two hours – which seemed generous – but we needed every second as it turns out. After a quick retrieval of our bags, a rush through customs back into Canada (we never really left but were caught in a kind of no-mans land and had to “re-enter” the country), a quick monorail trip to Terminal 3, and a check in with Delta, we were almost there!

But there’s always a “but”…we arrived in the US customs and immigration line with 30 minutes to spare, but it was a very long and slow moving line…after finally getting released there (again thanks to some nice help from a polite young customs officer) it was off to security…where, despite the fact that we had less than ten minutes to flight time, our group was flagged (I suppose because we were five in the party with last minute tickets)…all our carry on’s were swabbed and searched, we were all patted down, the whole works…

It was then a mad rush to the gate to grab a shuttle bus to take us to our plane, and off we went – with a few minutes to spare…I was quite content to squeeze even into these small seats on the CRJ-200 commuter jets…where I write this while cruising at 31,000 feet above South Carolina or somewhere in the vicinity…

Count ‘em – one late flight, two missed flights, and another almost missed…been an interesting day to say the least….but kudos go out to both the staff at Air Canada and Delta….a special mention goes out to the guy and gal who rebooked our flight and the attendant in the Canada customs area who retrieved our luggage…without them we would be arriving in Atlanta much later than what we will now.

It’s probably still too late for the game, but I might be able to sneak over to the edubloggercon gathering…we’ll see…wither way, I am just glad to be 30 minutes from NECC!

Technorati tags: necc07, necc2007, education, technology, whipple, edubloggercon

Well….I am all set to fly (well…not really ready…but close enuff!) to Atlanta on Saturday for the National Educational Computing Conference, better know in ed tech circles as NECC.  I am going with our district’s technology mentor team, led by our Technology Learning Specialist Bryan Facey.  Bryan’s a vet of NECC.  The rest of us are NECC virgins.  They are all great educators and working with them this year has been a blast! I am pumped!

First of all, this is huge!  18,000 people huge!  The thought of all those like-minded educators out there to mix and mingle, trade ideas and collaborate with is simply overwhelming!

Secondly, this conference has ALL the biggies. Most of the people who I learn from most will be there in person.  I look forward to (hopefully) saying hi to David Warlick (again!), Vicki Davis, Jeff Utecht, Will Richardson (who I will see again in Memphis in July), Karl Fisch, Wesley Fryer et al. These are all people whose blogs have been part of my personal learning circle…and I want to thank them.

Hopefully our flights will be on time Saturday so I might be able to catch at least the last bit of the edubloggercon, a meeting of bloggers (like me) who generally have a passion for technology and education.

In addition, anyone who is anyone that has new technology to sell / giveaway will be there.  The vendors space alone can’t be covered in a day…but I at least hope to hit the highlights.  I’ve also been invited (as a Canadian delegate) to attend a reception hosted by Apple Canada one evening, which will include a behind the scenes tour of the CNN facilities in downtown Atlanta.

And…it gets even better….

To top it all off…Braves – Tigers play Saturday and Sunday, and the Nationals are in town Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday!

I will be blogging at NECC when I get the chance, so you can follow my comings and goings.  And if you want to follow as a cyber-delegate, the tags at technorati is necc07 or necc2007.

See you there!

Technorati tags: whipple, education, teaching, technology, necc07, necc2007, warlick, vicki davis, karl fisch, will richardson