This past spring I was able to attend three technology conferences:

NCCE - Northwest Council for Computers in Education @Portland
ACPE - Association of Computer Professionals in Education @Welches
NECC - National Educational Computing Conferences @San Diego

There are interesting tales to tell from each event:

NCCE - February, 2006
I keep pretty busy at NCCE because we (the statewide ETSC Directors) host a booth in the exhibit area and I gave two workshops and attended one.  The one I attended was led by Patrick Crispen who is one of my favorite people in educational technology.  The session he presented was his third of the day and covered a product called "Camtasia Studio".  Even though he was tired it was still a great session.  In part because it's an excellent product. 

Camtasia is a product that will "capture" what you do on your screen and save it as a movie.  You can narrate while you are demonstating software/website features.  Simply put, Camtasia is a great tool for creating training movies.  I've used it in the past but this new version allows you to save the movie as a Flash movie, have an interactive quiz at the end and even show your face up in the corner as you're talking.

Overall, NCCE is a great conference and at the top of the list for teachers and educators in the Northwest.  This year's conference will be held in the new facility in Spokane.   "007 - Agents of Change"

ACPE - May, 2006.
This was my second time attending this conference in Welches, OR.  The last time was 12 years ago and the conference has really grown since then.  In fact, that's the most important point I can make about it:  If you want to attend this conference register immediately when it is announced.  You might want to reserve a hotel room now as they ran out of rooms last year.

Overall, ACPE is a great conference for "OT" (Operational Technology or what you probably think of as IT) issues.  There is a high degree of vendor involvement and the sessions involve networking, firewalls, network management, security, etc.    This is not much ET here so if you are a teacher looking for information about classroom-based technology NCCE would be a better choice.

NECC
I've been to this conference several times and it's always great!  The exhibit hall is the size of 6+ football fields and the speakers are excellent.  There are usually about 30 simultaneous things to do throughout the conference so one of the challenges is decided what to choose! 

I focused on several things:
High-Tech High School
Open Source Software
Marzano's Classroom Instruction that Works
Video Conferencing

The High Tech High School in San Diego consistently receives the highest rating possible within California's system.  (A "10/10" school)   The school is actually not that "high-tech" but rather uses a project-based curriculum almost exclusively.  In other words they are Tier 3 school.  Students use Dreamweaver/Fireworks to create an online digital protfolio and teachers use a classroom website throughout the educational experience.  Almost all teaching is done using project-based, Inquiry-based learning.   Students are drawn from all areas of San Diego and it's not a "rich/prep" school at all.  The model is currently being "exported" to other areas of the country including Philadelphia.

There was a session on an open source software and an OSS lab available all the time.  Two of the most prevalent products include Edubuntu and Moodle.  Edubuntu is a desktop version of Linux that's designed for education.  It's free, easy to use and works very well.  I've been using it (and I am now) since NECC and am very happy with it.  It's not perfect yet but it is in the neighborhood.   Moodle is a free tool like Blackboard or WebCT that allows teachers to conduct educational/instructional activities online.

Marzano's work on effective classroom instruction has always interested me and it was nice to see several sessions involving the use of technology with his nine strategies.  The use of Inspiration software connects directly to four of the nine for example.

There were several examples of video-conferencing projects including open-heart and knee-replacement surgeries.  What a powerful tool.  I think it's time for the "no bus, no-fuss" field trip to become a more common activity in schools.   I've recently collected video conferencing resources and projects on this page.

So, what are your thoughts about conferences?