TCEA 2008 Serves Up Ed-Tech Wisdom

Educators and ed-tech specialists who attended the 2008 Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) conference in Austin got a Texas-size helping of new educational technology ideas, approaches, and solutions to take back to their schools. With more than 8,500 registered attendees from all over the nation, this year's TCEA conference was the largest ever, said TCEA Executive Director Ron Cravey. "Everyone there had a good time, and the amount of knowledge shared was overwhelming." Cravey said. "One attendee described this year's event as 'awesome' and told me he 'would be here every year' until he died. TCEA will continue to grow bigger and better, and I am proud to be a part of it." Those in attendance had a chance to tour an exhibit hall featuring 430 ed-tech vendors and sit in on any of the dozens of workshops and concurrent sessions. They also heard keynote speeches from former NASA astronaut Sally Ride, who sounded an alarm about the state of science education in the nation's schools, and New York Times technology columnist David Pogue, who described new technologies that "will change your life" and discussed their implications for today's educators. Another feature unique to this year's conference: eSchool News hosted a two-day "Ed-Tech Best Practices Summit," during which conference attendees learned how their colleagues in other schools are using technology successfully to enhance education. Among the approaches that were highlighted were solutions from American Education Corp., Atomic Learning, BenQ, ePals, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, LenSec, Lightspeed Systems, Moodlerooms, PBS TeacherLine, Saywire, Troxell Communications, and Voyager Expanded Learning.