Conferences

Last weekend, I attended the NEA Higher Ed conference in Boston. I has always thought of the NEA as being mainly k-12-teacher focused, but this was an excellent conference for higher ed. It was much better than I had expected -- especially in that I felt like I got to meet a lot of people. At the MTA annual meeting -- and other conferences I've gone to recently, it feels like people go in groups and tend to be inwardly-focused and hard to break into sometimes. The NEA meeting was different. Interesting people, interesting talks, and lots of opportunity for interaction and discussion -- especially given how short the conference was.

Yesterday, with the IT program at UMass Amherst, we put on our annual ICT Summit. The focus was on free-and-open-source-software -- that was my idea. I also thought we should have a lightning talk about the Hidden Tech Group. Unfortunately, I didn't find someone to speak about it, so my punishment was having to speak about it myself. I put together a nice 5-minute rant about it which seemed to go over well.

I'm looking forward to ContactCon. I drafted my biography for the list of participants.

Steven D. BREWER is the Director of the Biology Computer Resource Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he is a consultant to faculty on the implementation of technology in support of education. He advocates for technology that empowers students to engage in authentic, collaborative, learner-centered activity that applies science in the real world. BREWER is equal parts scientist, technologist, and educator: whether in the field catching mongooses or tardigrades; with 20 terminal windows open hacking php in a drupal module; or exhorting students to take control of their own education and embrace transformation. He is also is a fluent speaker and teacher of the Esperanto language and a published author of essays, fiction, and haiku in Esperanto.

I'm looking forward to meeting the other people -- it looks like an interesting group already.