Professional Renewal at a Instructional Technology Conference

I'm spending the next two days at the NCTIES conference, hearing from the gurus in instructional technology and seeing the latest gadgets and products to engage students.

I've spent the three concurrent session spots so far listening to the same presenter, Patrick Crispen. Before the conference, I had never heard of him, knew nothing about him. But after spending three hours with him - two this morning and one right this very minute - I've had some new insights and my own personal revelations about technologies.

Here are my random notes and thoughts about what I've heard so far:

• Cloud computing - "K12 is broke"; therefore, we need to find cost-saving technologies to assist with instruction. But while using open source, web-based applications, there are still issues: security, safety, storage.
• Mobile is big! With open source, web-based applications, you don't need a browser, or at least you are not tied to Internet Exploiter.
• Considerations? Where is my stuff? Is it private? Do I still own my stuff?
• Technology is the delivery; the content and teaching is what really matters.
• Choose the best media that supports cognitive processes needed to perform the tasks at hand.
• We need declarative knowledge before procedural knowledge.

Okay, so those are random notes and thoughts. But they have me thinking about my own personal tech savviness, my own professional growth, my own teaching and students and teachers, and what the future classroom and library media center looks like, will look like, should look like.