The Price of Gas and Other Insignificant Observations...

I recall when I first started driving at the age of 16 that I would pay typically between the price of ninety cents and a dollar for a gallon of gasoline. I was disgusted yesterday when I paid two dollars and twenty-eight cents a gallon for gas. Something has to be done about the price of gas. I just heard on the radio that they are now expecting the price of oil to rise to eighty dollars a gallon. As oil continues to rise so will the price of gasoline, I can't wait to see where gas is come Memorial Day or the Fourth of July when prices are typically higher anyways.

Education Conferences sure can be boring things at times. When your program director is complaining about the conference you know it must be boring. I am beginning to think that this E-Learning summit I am attending in Clovis is more about district self-promotion than technology. This conference has pretty much been about Clovis showcasing itself and talking about how they see themselves as leaders in the field of technology use in education. They boast about their laptop program, however, laptop programs are dictated by SES. If you have money and attend an affluent school you can join the laptop program. During more student teaching at Miramonte Elementary I quickly learned that Miramonte did not have a laptop program, because I had hoped to be placed in a laptop classroom. So this conference starts with self-promotion and then moves into more self-promotion. Of the three panelists, one is a Clovis Unified Employee, one is the daughther of a Clovis Unified Employee and former Clovis Unified student and one I have yet to hear how he was actually qualified as a panelist. Supposedly he heads an organization which has more than 200 products on the market for education. Can't tell you the name of his company or a single thing they do because they really did not qualify this guy as an expert other than saying he heads a company. So this guy, Tom Greaves was a poor mans Bill Daggett. I heard Bill Daggett speak at the High School Summit in Sacramento in October, and Bill Daggett was substantially more knowledgeable and a much better presenter. The conference is sparcely attended, in my approximation, after subtracting vendors and people directly related to Clovis Unified there are probably a total of 30 people in attendance. Last year I attended the CUE conference which remarkably as one of its strands covered the same information that has been covered here and did a much better job at it. When you present breakout sessions you should invite other presenters to host sessions about what they are doing at their schools instead of monopolizing the time. In the session I attended yesterday, the presenter went as far as putting people in groups and having them complete tasks and jigsawing. All groups were done and just chatting and he was just chatting with a group, wasting time that did not need to be wasted. When I go to workshops and attend sessions I want to hear about what others are doing, not brainstorm as a group how I would have done it if I were to do the task, I felt like I was in a class myself. I can do that anytime I want. You should also have vendors from competing corporations present and not just the ones that your district has partnered with. Unfortunately I can say that instead of this being a California E-Learning Summit as it has been titled, it is instead the Clovis Unified Technological Showcase. And unfortunately the price of admission is far greater than the value of the material presented.