UCET 2007

In 2002 I was hired as the computer specialist in an elementary school. I had very little idea what I was doing and just started making it up as I went. I was pretty successful at that. But it is always nice to get new ideas. That first year someone told me about the UCET (Utah Coalition for Educational Technology) Conference held in Salt Lake some time around March every year. I went that first year and came away with so many ideas from other teachers in the state that I could use in my classroom. My teaching changed for the better.

So I attended the following two years as well. Last year my sister decided to get married that weekend, so I did not attend. But I have done very well with my annual fundraiser the last few years, so I was able to pay the registration fees and cover the substitutes for three teachers at my school so they could go. They loved it. And I was glad that now I wasn’t the only teacher in the school who had gone and gotten ideas about how to use technology in so many ways in the classroom.

This year, we again did well with the fundraiser. So this year I attended, and the lab covered the costs for five other teachers to attend as well. What a great group! I was excited.

And then the majority of the conference was a disappointment, at least for me. In the past there have been a lot of presenters that were actual classroom teachers who shared actual projects they did in their classroom that could easily and quickly be adapted to any number of classrooms on any number of subjects. They had presentations for beginning level technology people, and specific presentations for advanced level technology people. Very few of the projects presented were going to require the purchase of a specific type of software to use them.

Such has not been the case this year. So many of the presentations were done by vendors, selling their wares as absolutely necessary to do anything in the classroom. I have tried to avoid those. But it has been hard. One vendor booth I talked with spent half the time telling me how good their product is, and the other half mudslinging at a competitor. I don’t need that negativity in my life. It’s why I change the channel every time a Mac commercial comes on. Those commercials never say anything good about a Mac, instead they mudsling at PCs. How sad that the worst parts of our political system have seeped into the commercial world.

So I really don’t know how useful UCET 2007 has been for the other teachers from my school. I hope they’ve gotten something out of it. I hope it’s been useful for them. I hope they are excited about pulling technology into their classroom, but I really am having a hard time seeing how that will be possible.

But the bagels they provided for breakfast were very fresh. So that was nice.