DTAC

Went to a DTAC meeting last week. District Technology Advisory Committee. It has always struggled to justify it's name, but it has a lot of very smart and innovative people on it.

We used Google Docs to generate the agenda and notes as the meeting proceded. That was cool.

For the most part, tho, i felt like a hillbilly visiting New York. There were demonstrations of several technologies that would be really great to have in the classroom. A nice portable bluetooth graphic sketch pad. Unfortunately my little school is struggling to meet copy machine costs and i kept thinking about that. I am not sure how many of the technologies are interesting bells & whistles and how much i could actually use more effectively than a class set of spiral notebooks. Most teachers are concerned with keeping students' attention and engagement. Wellstone is a little different that way. There is certainly no question of student engagement. But i'm not certain a cordless mouse will help teach L0 reading.

One thing for certain, i would almost kill for one of those smartboards. It would fit very neatly with a strategy i have used for years of generating a class written book from wordless or well known stories. Someday.