Educational Technology Conferences are a big part of professional growth in our field. Whenever I get the chance to meet with others who, like me, are true believers and advocate for the increasing use of new technologies in the classroom I feel empowered, not alone. As opposed to school buildings, where most of the educators are still not subscribing to the implementation and use of digital resources and initiatives, these conferences offer a chance to meet, discuss and share effective strategies and promising practices that bring about student success.

ISTE (formerly NECC) is one of the biggest Educational Technology Conferences held in the United States. From their website I found an advertisement to register made with a Text to Movie application. As a bilingual education activist and Media Literacy advocate I think this technology is one of the most powerful tools today. As students learn a new language it becomes important for them to see it as a way to improve not only academically but also socially. Second language learning, and subsequent language learning, is more effective when there is a tangible product that can be shared with others and that elevates academic and social participation in the immediate environment. Being able to create a digital media production from speech is engaging, creates a memorable moment and addresses various aspects of language learning: writing, reading, speaking & listening. As they make these movies they will want to practice the way they pronounce new words in order to make it sound better. Needless to say, doing this also enhances their media literacy skills, their information literacy skills, they lose the fear of using technology and most importantly they share their understanding in a way that is appealing to them and their audience.

Another Conference held every year in the United States is the Florida Educational Technology Conference. From their website, under the Workshops for 2010 section, I found one geared towards the use of Digital Curriculum, sponsored by Discovery Education. This workshop explores the trend of replacing textbooks with digital content, particularly from the standpoint of Discovery which offers not just video but also images, documents, lesson plans, crossword puzzles, word searches and a whole variety of digital resources that enhance student understanding. Some of these resources are ready to use, others are template-based, giving educators the opportunity to create their own content. The use of such resources can only benefit all parts involved, making it easy for educators to adopt them as the content is already there with citations for digital content, templates to personalize and examples to follow while making delivery of concepts and ideas interesting and engaging for all types of learners.

Another conference, which I attended recently, is the TECH Forum, sponsored by Tech & Learning. From this conference I found a presentation on Social Networking in the Classroom to be very powerful. As our learners go through our learning institutions we try to find effective ways to communicate with them. Currently, based mostly on absence of control and fear, most school districts have blocked access to social media sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, just to mention the most commonly used ones. Finding ways to effectively use these tools in the classroom can open up a new way of communicating school content and exchanging information between learners and educators, possibly more effective than simply using pen and paper or even other web 1.0 tools such as email. Learners learn best when they feel comfortable and when they feel they can control how and when to access information. It is worth trying to come up with ways that can include all learners and that provide a platform to use technology in new ways. We know the power of social media has been proven outside schools, providing a fast and reliable means of communicating around the world. It is time now to prove its power in learning, taking it beyond the sharing and into the creating unique and original contributions to the body of knowledge. This defense does not mean that schools should accept the use of social media as it is, there are still privacy concerns and legal limitations to its implementation; but perhaps schools can figure out how to develop their own social media type initiatives and promote their use beyond the classroom.

Educational technology is at a good moment in history. Governments are interested in developing digital literacy, mindful that it will be essential for 21st century citizenry; and most importantly for their purposes the new economy will require a set of skills that is to be addressed now. It is us as educational technology specialists who have to push for the resources needed and for the development of increasingly engaging and useful tools to guarantee that our students can not only survive in the new society but that they are successful in doing so.

I have to agree with the assessment of primary barriers, at least in essence. Schools have, for the most part, access to resources, but these resources are not used effectively. Educators are faced with the dilemma of having to learn new ways to deliver content and assess understanding. Sometimes these new ways represent a total change from what they traditionally did. These human barriers, or ‘people barriers’ as Dr. Dede calls them, can represent a real impediment for change. Learners might have access to these educational technology initiatives sporadically through their academic life but there is no consistency among classrooms in their adoption. Whenever the mindset of educators becomes commonly geared towards the incorporation of such initiatives, we will start to see more effectiveness in their use and the real transformation will be noticeable.