TRLD '09

Oh' the possibilities! The conference has been great and I've been reminded of how accessible our world can be if we use a few tools. 

David Warlick, in his keynote address, brought home the message that we are a community of learners and teachers. I was left with the impression that very few of us are experts, and if we are, it's for a very short period of time, but collectively our knowledge is magnified.  And through networking and sharing we can propel each other forward. Technology tools are available to support us in this endeavor. 

Picture this - I'm eating dinner in a restaurant in the San Francisco wharf area when I receive a text from my husband who is bellied up to a bar in Philadelphia. "The bartender says Vicky wants to be in your session on Saturday." 

What? Obviously, I'm not getting the joke and thinking he has spent way too much time in the bar. Through a few more texts I learned that the stimulating conversation I had at breakfast was with the bartender's girlfriend! 

Over the course of the rest of the conference we chatted, shared experiences, ideas, and networked. Yes, we met in real time first, but it was technology that linked us and served as the catalyst.

Voice recognition ups and downs

The You Tube video linked in the title is a taped live demonstration of MS Vista's voice recognition. Unfortunately, this clip was shown in many places but not in its entirety, and with a definite negative slant. I am not going to enter into the MS Office Speech-to-Text vs. Dragon Dictate debate, because I believe both have their place in the large assistive technology picture. I have used both with students/clients and had great outcomes and not so great outcomes when the match wasn't good.
I love Microsoft's tool for my students who need some support with homework and long assignments. It's easy to access, train, and most individuals already have it on their home computers. These student's often edit with their keyboard as well as their voices. On the other hand, if I have a student who has limited use of his/her hands, or needs to use speech-to-text for the bulk of his/her assignments, then I favor Dragon.

But the real intent of this post is to question why technology acts up when we present it? How many times have you been presenting and some unexpected glitch pops up? The link you've used a dozen times, or the video that ran in your power point for two weeks solid everyday leading up to the conference presentation... Why? Are there technology gremlins running amok? Do the butterflies in our stomach produce some sort of magnet field that causes the technology to crash? Or, is the technology having it's own identity crisis, since only the piece being showcased usually acts up, not the other 6 gadgets you've got running simultaneously.