The Share Fair Conference--A Look at the Future Now

On Thursday, May 28th, I traveled to Millis High School in Millis, Ma. to attend an educational conference sponsored by Img Information Marketing Group, a company based in Framingham, Ma. who work with school systems in a variety of ways dealing with using computer systems for data management and curriculum improvement for the 21st Century. If you are in education and you have not heard of this company yet, you probably will before long. I listened to their management team speak and if I had to use one word to describe them it would be "visionaries." They look to the future and their business, in a nutshell, is improving education in cost effective ways using modern technology. Their address is www.imgsoftware.com. ImgSoftware manages the "Moodle course site" where, as a novice "moodler", I am attempting to develop a course for Adult ESL students. http://imoodle.imgsoftware.com/worcester

Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) was also represented at the Share Fair and two gentlemen made presentations. They spoke about "open courseware" (OCW) available through the MIT website to high school students (or anybody). An example of this is where MIT collaborated with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to help teach U.S. History through the use of Art. Please look at www.visualizingcultures.com and http://web.mit.edu/star. While one of the gentlemen from MIT was speaking about the collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, I was thinking back of what two of my brothers (Don and Ray) had told me about coming in SECOND for the History prize when they were in high school. Perhaps if they had had the advantage of this kind of technology then, they might have come in FIRST! (Of course, the winners would have had the same advantage, wouldn't they?) Oh well, back to the topic.
The major theme of the Share Fair was a sharing of "moodle" course sites. I attended one that showed how a teacher in Casablanca, Morocco (Grade2) was using Moodle, and I attended another where I listened to a most enthusiastic teacher demonstrate her Moodle site of podcasts of 7th and 8th graders in Chatham exchanging podcasts with Dutch children in the Netherlands who were learning English. It reminded me of my wife's penpal of years ago from her schooldays whose wedding we attended in the town of Forfar, Scotland. That was done with pen and ink, stamps, and lots of time between letters. This was done on a keyboard and in an instant. The time in between?....about 50 years!!.....at least....
I will conclude my brief post with two "firsts" that I experienced at this conference: I have attended many conferences, but this one holds the record for being held in the SMALLEST town....My second "first" is this is the first conference I have attended that was telecast LIVE internationally. When I walked in, there was a videocamera all set to go and as soon as the conference started was sent live to Casablanca. It was also telecast to Texas, Minnesota, and California. I understand also that there were 120 teachers in attendance and five superintendents. My only regret was that there were nine sharing sessions, but I only had a chance to see two of them. However, I am sure there will be other sharing sessions. Teachers are creative people, and they are willing to share with other teachers. At least that has been my experience.