Aussies at NECC 2009

As well as the ACEC contingent, there are the stragglers and other self funded peoples attending NECC in Washington DC this year (use the Twitter hashtags #NECC09 for all necc guff and and #ADEnecc for the Apple Distinguished Educators attending

We (the Aussies) have also received some notable mentions.

Ralph Leonard, who is the General Manager for the Information Economy in South Australia has just been nominated to the Executive Committee of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE(®)

He is also an "At-large Member" (which sounds interesting) & International Representative for the group.

I first met Ralph when he was working for the now defunct Angle Park Computing Centre in Adelaide. We explored the magic of BBC Acorn Computers in the early 80's when the SA government decided to make these machines the state supported machine for all schools. We also experiemented with DIALOG, a text only collaboration tool running over a 300 Baud modem where we joined "the Australaskan Project" joining kids in South Australian and (you guessed it) Alaska.

Must be something in the water in South Aussie as Sue Urban, IT teacher at the Wilderness School in Medindie, South Australia was named 2009 Outstanding Teacher of the year.

ISTE quotes that Sue "was nominated by the Computers in Education Group of South Australia (CEGSA) for her work integrating technology into instructional programs across all grade levels. She has been credited with developing curriculum for students across different sectors of schooling and developing studentsí information technology skills through problem solving, communication and research that can be applied across the curriculum to other subjects. Urban has also been a strong supporter of programs for highly gifted students. Her commitment to educational technology was recognized by the Australian Council for Computers in Education (ACCE), which jointly awarded her the Australian Outstanding Teacher award. She is currently CEGSA's Outstanding Teacher of the Year."

Congrats Sue & Ralph

AND, how could we forget Geoff Elwood and the clan from Etech who put out the StudyWiz solution. Mucho interest at stand 700 in the expo at NECC