ISTE 2010 Conference Keynote Speaker Suggestion

[Bret]

Hello All,

I am a member of the Ning, and I just made a suggestion for the Keynote Speaker for the Iste conference 2010. If you agree, I was hoping that the power of the Ning may encourage some support for votes?

Hoping you can help get the word out.

BJG
Bret Gensburg
University of Akron

ISTE 2010 Conference Keynote Speaker Suggestion Title:
SMART Boards Interactive Whiteboards: Technology Strategies and Ideas We Can Use Right Now!

Description
Interactive whiteboard themselves are a hot topic and it is no secrete that SMART Boards are one of the hottest. The concurrent session for this topic and other interactive whiteboards are always popular and near standing room only. Why not give these presenters, who are extremely knowledgeable in interactive whiteboard any other technologies the space they deserve. Motivational and published speakers are great, but it is time for "ready-now" in the classroom ideas to be presented. Let us have a Keynote Speaker who can have us leave with ideas that can be implemented immediately in the classroom a school systems around the world.

[Matt Granger]

Great idea, Brett. Is there another site we can look at and also make the suggestion? I don't know that they would want a brand specific keynote. If it was just Interactive Whiteboards, that happened to be presented by someone using a SMART board, they might be more inclined.

Matt

[Bret]

I think they amy want to me not Brand specific. I agree that an Interactive whiteboard session, would be excellent. Really just something that everyone can walk out the door and use ideas right now.

The website is:
http://ISTE2010.uservoice.com

THanks for helping getting the word out.

Is there a way to email everyone at once in the Ning?

BJG

[Chris Betcher]

An IWB-based keynote might be useful to some in the audience, but I have a couple of thoughts on this...

I completely agree that any IWB keynote should be brand agnostic. I know that Smart users *think* they are the only IWB users on the planet, but the fact is that there are several other 'big name' IWB vendors that produce equally excellent board technology, as well as a whole bunch of innovative smaller vendors that may just surprise people over the next few years with their products. The truth is that, while the specifics may vary slightly between different boards, most of them have very similar toolsets and all of them require the same kind of pedagogical thinking to use them well.

Of course, when you give a presentation using interactive technology you'll need to use *something* and you do ultimately have to decide on a single particular brand to use... so by all means choose a Smartboard to do that. But I would strongly suggest that the actual content of any IWB presentation needs to be generic enough to appeal to every audience member, regardless of what brand of technology they have chosen.

I think the presenter also needs to be knowledgeable enough across a broad range of different vendor's products that they could ensure their presentation was relevant across all the major brands and to acknowledge any differences where they exist in an even-handed way.

In short, if I was sitting in a presentation about IWBs and all I was hearing was smartboard, smartboard, smartboard (and I used something else), I'd feel like the talk was wasting my time and my decision to use something else was somehow being belittled.

And you really don't want to do that to potentially more than half your audience.

Chris