For Thursday, March 9, 2000 Drummer Column, Gibs, 732 words


On the fly

This is a first. I'm typing this column from the lobby of the
Wyndham Hotel in Palm Springs at an Internet display booth.
     I'm down here for a technology confernece called Tech Ed
2000. It's between workshops. I was sitting out next to the pool
resting my eyes after a morning of learning to use Macromedia
Flash for three hours. My eyes were closed and I was feeling
relaxed when my mind wandered to what it is -- Tuesday. Hmmm.
Why do I suddenly feel like that's important. It must mean something.
What am I forgetting.
     Ahh! My column! I didn't write it before leaving Benicia
on Sunday morning, and have been so busy down here since arriving
that I didn't give it a thought until I took my first quiet rest
today near the pool.
     Considering that I have never missed a week in my 16 years
of writing this column, I wasn't ready to miss one now. I jumped
up, rushed inside, and found this computer. I'm standing next
to a few dozen people who are checking their email and stocks.
It's 2 p.m. and my next session starts at 2:30 p.m. The key word
is standing.
     First to report, I have laryngitis. That's tough for me
at tech conferences because I like to raise my hand and toss
in my 8 cents at every session. Now when I speak I sound like
a buzz saw and everyone politely pretends that it sounds normal,
but they quickly shift their attention to others.
     I am here with three others - teachers Phil Greene, Siretta
Tuttle, and our lab assistant, Annette Fewins. We diverge each
day and take different workshops, then converge over lunch and
dinner and share insights and information.
     On Monday Siretta and I did go to the same two pre-conference
workshops. We both had the same response. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. The
first one - Helping Faculty Adjust to New Technology - was led
by two women whom, we felt, had never worked together and had
counted on extrapolation for their lesson plans. Their first
comment, as they looked out over a crowd of 70 people, was "My,
my, we were expecting about a dozen people. We have people out
now copying more handouts." Then they stuck with their 12-person
lesson plan. "Let's go around the room and introduce each other."
     I groaned silently. It sounded like a bear being roused
out of hibernation. The introductions took a half-hour and of
course no one remembered anyone's name, occupation or where they
were from. Then they started a brainstorming session on pros
and cons for exciting teachers with technology.  They wrote the
results on the whiteboard in two columns. We discussed our findings
for a while, which inspired teacher one to share an anecdote
from her personal experiences. Then she turned around to make
reference to the list for her next project - to break into groups
and discuss our findings. However, teacher two had erased the
board. Teacher one said, "Who erased my board?" Teacher two confessed.
Teacher two said, "Well, I wasn't done with it yet." Teacher
one shrugged. Then they went ahead with the brainstorming session,
but we couldn't remember all the items on the list so we just
made friends with people in out group.
     On Tuesday the real workshops began. Awesome!! There are
bigwigs here - the
CEO of Adobe, the head of the MIT technology department, and
real employees from Cisco, Microsoft, Macromedia, 3COM, UNISYS,
and such. The workshops are equipped with 30 computers and everything
is hands on. This morning I made a web page with animation.
     It is now 2:20. My next workshop begins in 10 minutes. I
just found out that the woman next to me is also writing a newspaper
column. She's typing a lot faster than I am. She's actually able
to type and talk to me at the same time. I am saying 'Um Hm"
and "Yeah" a lot, but to be honest, I don't have a clue what
she's talking about. Luckily she's not looking at my screen and
seeing that I'm writing about her.
     Whoa, she's done. She just saved to a disk and ran off.
     Tonight is the poolside extravaganza party. It will be a
time to attempt relaxing once again. I will give you all a fuller
report when I get home and have time to actually think about
what I'm saying.