A Different Look & A Technology Leadership Conference

First of all, you probably see a slightly different look to my blog pages. I changed my theme when I realized a few days ago, that the sidebar wasn’t acting right with Microsoft IE browsers. So I switched to one of the more common default themes for WordPress, and it seems to come up just fine on my IE browser. I hope that the new look it doesn’t throw you off.

I’ll be leaving in a couple of hours to drive to a county in the Charlotte area who is continuing a tradition of holding annual technology conferences for the schools. I often talk, in my podcasts, about the value of going to conferences, that it is part of being a professional, and part of self-development. This district is solving the problem by bringing the conference to their educators.

Among the presenters are local educators, various vendors, a number of notable educators from outside the district, and a number of forward thinking media and technology educators from our department of education, NC Department of Public Instruction.

They asked me to be their keynote speaker a number of months ago, and I eagerly agreed, having a long relationship with tech educators there, and a long-standing respect for what they are doing. What surprised me was that by “The” keynote speaker, they meant the opening keynote address (This afternoon), the Tuesday morning keynote address (tomorrow morning), and the luncheon keynote address (noon tomorrow).

Now, I’m not complaining. I don’t do what I do to ration it out. In fact, I’m excited about the opportunity to deliver a string of addresses that will, in a very real sense, link onto each other. The first will be Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century. This address will make a case for an expanded view of what it means to be literate in a time when information is networked, digital, and overwhelming.

The morning keynote is called Riding the Edge of the Wave. This address will explore more deeply, the changing nature of information. We’ll also get into some of the more exotic emerging technologies and even some barely imagined ones. I haven’t decided yet, whether to introduce them to The Singularity.

The final address is entitled, Telling the New Story. This will introduce the concept of leadership as story teller, that retooling education, schools, and classrooms for learning that is relevant to today’s students will come as a result of innovators going out and telling a compelling new story about schooling.

These are my main three keynotes, so it will be interesting see the result of they’re leading into each other. I’ll also be doing some breakouts, starting with weblogs, followed by RSS, and finally podcasting.

It’s going to be an interesting couple of days, and I hope to be able to share something new that I learn — with you.