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ISTE conference is alive with social networking

ISTE attendees connected through social networking, as well as in person.

What better place to use social networking technologies to connect with fellow educators and school leaders than at the nation’s largest ed-tech conference? That’s what was happening at the International Society for Technology in Education conference in Philadelphia this week.

Websites, blogs, Twitter accounts, and other social networking platforms were abuzz with the latest news, reactions, and updates from the show floor and from conference breakout sessions.

The isteconnects [1] Twitter feed organized an #edchat [2] that explored topics such as science instruction, textbooks vs. technology in the classroom, and project-based learning.

web20education [3] shared a link to 99 must-have Twitter tools and applications [4], while KTVee [5] noted that “teaching kids science only from a textbook is like looking at a travel brochure and calling that a vacation.”

briankotts [6]tweeted a link describing 10 ways that Wikipedia has changed education [7].  Some of those 10 ways include forcing students to be more selective about the online sources they use for information and research, as well as encouraging “casual learning” outside of the classroom.

The ISTE Conference Ning [8] is full of activity, and many users replied to a conference attendee’s pre-conference request for advice in helping her make the best use out of her iPad [9] while in Philadelphia.

“When you click on an empty box to ‘add content’, one of your options is to fill it was a Twitter hashtag.  I’ve gone ahead and already set up one for the ISTE11 hashtag so I know I won’t miss a single Tweet regarding the conference,” wrote user Nancy Sharoff.

Jeanne B. Procell said: “I like Evernote a lot. I really like that I can use it with all my devices (iPad, Android phone, and computer) so I always have my notes handy.”

And Frank Jumawan agreed: “Evernote comes in handy because it can be synced to your mobile devices (iPhone, Android, Blackberry) and your laptop. I also use Docs to Go Pro Premium because it will allow you to sync to cloud services such as Dropbox and Google Docs.”

ISTE’s Membership Wikispace [10] features links for computing teachers, independent schools, arts educators, and more.