NECC 2006 -- Scott Merrick in San Diego, or "How I Spent My Summer"

Just returned from the National Educational Computing Conference in San Diego, California where I presented three times and caught some amazing presentations by other folks. I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the many blogger-reporters for the eSchoolNews website, and I'm posting here direct links to the four sessions upon which I reported:

Assessment and Beyond: Student-Driven Electronic Portfolios

Choose Your Own Wiki Adventure: Using Wikis with K-12 Students

From Gutenberg to Gates to Google and Beyond

Telling the New Story: Promoting Visions for 21st Century Classrooms

and there is a wonderful blog post about my "Birds-of-a-Feather" session, by (full disclosure alert) my pal Janine Lim at her blog, which is a fantastic resource for anyone interested in videoconferencing in the service of education. Read that post here.

There's a lot more about my sessions at my desktop IVC blog here.

Finally, I had a marvelous, relaxing, rejuvenating vacation visit of two days with my closest friend, James Morrison and his family and I posted a couple of pics at my (low profile, personal sharing blog) personal site to share with loved ones. If you are reading this, you may not be quite in that category but you are "family," so here's the link to that.

Happy Summer!

L.A. Visit with Jimmy

Just to post a couple interesting pics gleaned from my visit with my true brother, James Morrison. The first I think is from 1984, the second from last week (taken by the very able photographer, Seamus). I was able to tag a couple days with James and his beautiful and gracious wife Riad onto a very productive trip to San Diego for NECC, the National Educational Computing Conference. The jaunt up to LA, via a lovely train ride, was mostly to spend some time with my godson, Seamus Morrison. Though I'm not all that godly, I do get more so when I am able to be around my twin brother-from-separate-mothers. Case in point: We purchased, unbeknownst to one another, the exact same glasses frames. How weird is that, with him in California and me in Tennessee?

Anyway, here are the pics:

Myxer Ringtone -- Alaska Song!

Alaska Song

Try this !

Colin's Talent Day--Colin and Matthew Rock!

I had to do it, proud parent that I am. Colin and his buddy Matthew have been rehearsing off and on for a couple months to perform their original song at their 4th grade talent day. They did it! I took some video with my still cam and did a quick edit with Microsoft Movie Maker. Here 'tis!!!

Colin's definitely learning his guitar the way I did. Listening, noodling, and figuring out things for himself. IMHO it's good training for much that will await him! And that Matt fellow plays drums just like 'a ringin' a bell! Fun stuff! Watch the video and note how Ms. Princehorn carefully clears the audio danger zone in preparation for the boys' performance. I love the ovation when the chorus comes back around for the first time!

Cheers!
Scott

Family Collage

So, here's the little pic I'm sending out with our "January cards." No long detailed family holiday letter this year, just this, along with the clever card Lee Ann found in Floriday.

A Must-See!

Wow, I say, and wow again. Scott Slone has published a little movie encouraging environmentally friendly behavior in his homestate and he's used my "Alaska Song" as the soundtrack. The show is number 39 at the Alaska Podshow Podcast and the direct link to the file is here.

I can't believe I blogged the WHOLE THING!

Surprising that I haven't done this before--created a start site for everything scottmerrick at blogspot. I guess I've been sending folks to my scottmerrick.net site for so long that I failed to appreciate just how much I actually rely on blogger to get work done! Here's a list of my active blogs, linked for your amusement and edification:

• Snacks4theBrain!
• TechTipTuesday!
• Japan Trip Diary
• DesktopIVC
• USNLowerSchoolTechnology

There are several more but those are more or less feed sites to either lulu.com or cdbaby.com to help promote my novel and poetry and my CD.

So anyway, I'm going to start sending folks here and see how that works.