Looking Back at ICE 2009

I can't believe it's been a month since I last put some thoughts to words here. But what a month it's been! One of my last entries was posted just after the conference in Columbus, eTech Ohio. Since then, the ICE Conference has come and gone as well. This conference is always the highlight of my conference season, since it is where I first ventured into the world of presenting sessions and sharing my experiences with my colleagues. I first presented here back in the early nineties, when it was still known as the "Role of Technology in Education Conference", years before ICE partnered with and eventually adopted the conference as its own. During the intervening years I have presented at ten conferences in the "Role of Tech", "IL-TCE" and now "ICE Conference" cycle. I've been part of the tech support team for the last eight years and have been on the conference committee for the last seven. We have a history.

At this year's conference, I was again presenting sessions and workshops, but one of the key parts of the conference this year was the PLN Plaza. If you are familiar with social networking, and who isn't these days, you are already aware of sites like Twitter, Plurk, Facebook and applications like Skype. What you may not be aware of is the growing use of these opportunities by educators to create their own professional learning networks or PLNs. The PLN Plaza at ICE 2009 gave educators, many of whom had never met face to face, a chance to meet with colleagues who they knew only from online contacts. It was a huge success as old friendships grew stronger and new ones blossomed. We realize more and more, that the miles separating us physically are irrelevant when it comes to sharing problems and solutions, questions and answers, in addition to sharing our own quirks and foibles, trials and tribulations. It grows quickly from a networks of colleagues to a network of friends.

With all of that said, why do so many school districts still insist on blocking access to these sites and services? That's the discussion educators and IT people need to explore. Too often we are faced with educational decisions being made by people who are not professional educators and who insist on doing things because "that's the way it's always been done." They fail to see the reality that "social" networking can just as easily be "professional" networking.

I dealt with this topic in a previous post, "Digitally Divided". Looking back, things haven't changed much in this regard in the last year.