Icademy Awards
Future teachers sweep awards in video contest
Program documents Arizona history
Teams of future teachers from Arizona State University’s College of Teacher Education and Leadership (CTEL) swept first through third places in the higher education digital stories category, as well as the Best in Show honor, at the 2008 iCademy Competition during the Microcomputers in Education Conference at ASU’s Tempe campus.
MEC 08 Photo Gallery
Click here to see the highlights of this year's conference.
Welcome to MEC 2008
Educational technology must be thought of not as a collection of hardware and software, but as an integrated system. For this system to be sustainable over time requires frequently assessing our environment to identify needs, sharing knowledge and resources, and embracing new technologies, all while working with limited resources.
Join us at the 2008 MEC conference to explore the theme of Educational Sustainability.
For 27 years MEC has been a pioneer in providing a forum for discussion among educators, administrators, researchers, instructional designers and technology leaders. With hands-on workshops and presentations from experienced technology educators, MEC offers the knowledge and opportunities for growth and development that support the standard of sustainability.
More than 1200 K-12 teachers, higher education faculty, school administrators and technology coordinators are expected to attend MEC 2008.
Keynote Speaker
Jeff Williamson
The Phoenix Zoo
Our world is becoming more complex. Our lives are becoming more hurried. We are increasingly sedentary, using technology to live virtual lives with virtual relationships. Social, cultural and economic change is accelerated, our communications staccato. We often teach to the test, which may or may not enhance learning. We design our public spaces to avoid harm and litigation. The resulting homogenization discourages exploration, discovery, imagination and creative engagement. Whether or not these trends add to or detract from the quality of life is a sub- ject of debate. What is not debatable is that this is the reality in which we find ourselves.
All of us who aspire to create a sense of community and to motivate people to fully engage in ways that add value to the commons are challenged to capture students’ attention, engage them, and motivate them to live constructive lives in both the real and virtual worlds. Where there is a shared objective, there must also be an infrastructure that assures ease of access for participation. This same infrastructure can help keep people engaged in their communities by inte- grating all programs.Infrastructure can also act to support research and evalu- ations that will improve programs and provide collaborators with ways to share, not only audiences, but also best practices. This ‘network of networks,’ currently in embryonic form, is a three-layered environment.
One layer is for program providers (those that operate camps, or art programs, or outdoor free play). Another layer is for guests, audiences, participants and their care givers. The third layer is for researchers and evaluators who assist in program development and work to un- derstand audiences and their interactions with programs. The dialog is constant- ly going on within and between layers; it is thus a perpetual learning environment. In addition, this infrastructure could drive both efficiency and effectiveness by encouraging reduction in replicative programs while pointing audiences to excellent programs. These networks might be centered around affinity groups sharing a common interest.
The point in all of this is to provide ease of access for participation and keep participants engaged in the networked community for as long as possible even as their interests grow, morph, or mature. This suite of virtual and literal networks may be the next generation’s program catalogue, with bells and whistles not available a decade ago. Over the next year we will be working to launch a network of networks designed to encourage non-traditional partnerships enabling active participation in both virtual and literal learning communities to add value to life.
