FETC: Day One Wrap-up

A day full of workshops. This is my first time coming to FETC for the full four days of action. While the opening keynote isn't until this afternoon (Tuesday), those that just could not wait gathered at the Orange County Convention Center for a day of extended workshops. I was lucky enough to snatch the presider's role in three of them.

Howie DiBlasi

I'll write a series of posts this week providing details of FETC presentations as I see them. For the time being, you can access all of my bookmarked resources on Diigo - username stephenveliz and look for the tag fetc12.

I kicked-off my FETC 2012 conference early Monday morning by spending three hours with Howie DiBlasi @hdiblasi in his workshop on cloud computing in K12 education. Howie surveyed a long list of web-based applications, from cloud storage, to free MS Office alternatives like ZOHO and Google Docs, to content creation tools like Glogster and Kerpoof, and many others.

Robert Miller's Session

After lunch, I presided over Robert Miller's @robrtmiller workshop on classroom video production. Robert is doing some incredible things with his 5th graders, shooting video with a class set of iTouches. I was surprised with the level of quality their getting out of their iPods. Robert took the group though camera operation basic sand editing essentials using iMovie. Big takeaway for me: go buy a Mac! Click here for Miller's presentation resources.


My long first day was rounded out with a three-hour Leslie Fisher @lesliefisher session on effective digital photography. This one was mostly about me. Leslie covered both point-n-shoot and SLR cameras, often at the same time. No easy task, I'm sure. You know all of those menu options on my point-n-shoot Lumix that most of us would never dream of trying? Leslie did a great job of demystifying a lot of it. Big takeaway from this one: I need a new camera! Between Miller and Fisher, this conference could end up costing me a fortune.

Leslie Fisher Talks Digital Photography

Well, I sitting in the OCCC concourse this morning polishing up my two presentations that come up later this week, and rekindling tech connections with folks that I run into once a year. I'll get my learning day started at noon with Ruston Hurley, and his presentation on Google Docs and Forms.

I hope to post again this evening, so check back for latest from Orlando. You follow throughout the day by following on Twitter - hashtag #fetc.


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